A Visit to Fort Payne (2)

In the fall of 2012 Dianne and I visited the Fort Payne area and stayed a few days in DeSoto State Park. The first blog post about that trip can be found here. In that post I discussed a bit about the history of Fort Payne and the surrounding area.  I've written earlier about our visit during this trip to the fascinating Sallie Howard Memorial Baptist Chapel just outside the state park.

When you visit this area of Alabama you can take a lot of spectacular photos, and I want to share a few more here. I also want to mention some specific places in downtown Fort Payne.  

The drive around Little River Canyon provides many spots for great views.

From various places on the drive you can spot several mansions close to the canyon's edge. 

Just like the big cities, rural America and small towns are full of the signs of past lives.

The hosiery industry in Fort Payne has it's own museum, which is fitting for a place known so long as the "sock capital of the world." 

Next door to the Hosiery Museum on Gault Street North is the Opera House, opened in 1890 during the area's brief industrial boom in the late 19th century. 

A downtown park has this monument to the "Confederate Soldiers". 

The Fort Payne Depot Museum is a gorgeous building constructed in 1891. The Depot was saved in 1985 when a group of citizens purchased it from the Norfolk-Southern Railway before the planned demolition. The Depot is one of the few surviving in Alabama from the 19th century.

A Visit to Fort Payne (1)

In the fall of 2012 Dianne and I made a trip up to Desoto State Park outside Fort Payne and stayed for a few days. These photos are from that trip; I'll be doing another post with more pictures as well. I've already done a post on the fascinating Sallie Howard Memorial Chapel just outside the park. 

After the Civil War, the Birmingham to Chattanooga railroad line passed through Fort Payne, and the town enjoyed a brief industrial boom as investments from New England poured into the area. The Opera House and other opulent buildings were constructed during this four-year period. In 1907 the first hosiery mill was built in Fort Payne, creating a second economic wave that lasted for many decades.

One place in the area we visited was the Orbix Hot Glass Studio. Glassblowing is a difficult and beautiful art; you can get up close to it here. In addition to watching the process, the shop offers a variety of pieces for sale. Unfortunately, I did not take any photos there. 

Comments are below most of these photographs.  

There's something fascinating about old barns.

Fall colors in Alabama can be fascinating, too.

Here's the lodge entrance. You can almost see the door of our room in the middle left of the photo. The Mountain Inn Restaurant here served some wonderful meals; the breakfast buffet was especially good.

The town of Fort Payne has a lot of history and restored buildings are common downtown. I'm always attracted to old theaters and cinema houses; this one was built in 1935 and is still thriving. 

This restored shop housing Accel Graphics has several large photographs of old Fort Payne above the entrance. That's a neat idea!

Fort Payne has honored the group "Alabama" in a big way. That makes sense; they were one of the most successful musical acts in the U.S. from 1979 until 2004. 

Also near Fort Payne is the Little River Canyon National Preserve, which has some of the most spectacular scenery in Alabama. DeSoto State Park is actually located within the Preserve. Here are a few photos taken in the Preserve; more will follow in the second post about this trip.

Back in the 1960's, long before the Preserve was created in 1992, I came here on a Boy Scout camping trip. One thing I remember vividly from that trip was hiking to the bottom of the canyon and looking back up. Hulks of derelict cars could be seen on the sides of the canyon. Seems the area, being remote, was the perfect site to dump stolen cars after they were stripped of parts. At least that's how I remember the story. 

Even the road around the canyon offers spectacular rocks. 

Sallie Howard Memorial Baptist Chapel near Fort Payne

On our trip to the Fort Payne area in October 2012, wife Dianne and I visited this unusual chapel just outside DeSoto State Park. You can see some of my photos below. Every state has its residents who were very accomplished, very strange, and finally a bit sad. Colonel Milford Howard, the man who built this chapel, is one of Alabama's.

Howard was born in Floyd County, Georgia, in December 1862. In a few years the family moved to Arkansas, but was back in Georgia by 1876. Howard read for the law, moved to Fort Payne in 1880, passed the Alabama bar and set up practice. In 1887 he lost his money in real estate speculation; by 1893 he began giving lectures to earn extra income. Just such a lecture the following year in Washington, D.C., led him to write If Christ Came to Congress as a corruption expose.

In 1894 he became a Populist candidate for U.S. Congress. In Alabama as elsewhere this third party movement drew support from small landowning farmers as well as sharecropping and tenant farmers and organized labor. Since the party opposed the interests of railroads and wealthy industrialists, elections in Alabama and other areas of party strength were often violent in the 1890s. Howard's race was no different but he won despite threats against himself and his family.

Despite a nervous breakdown, Howard ran again in 1896 and won, but moved his family to Cullman. Two years later he decided to leave Congress and he bought a farm near Fort Payne. He returned to legal practice and lecturing and started writing short fiction, but had to declare bankruptcy in 1901. By 1910 he had lost more money and a race for re-election, so the family moved to Birmingham where he hoped to have a more successful legal practice. Six years and another nervous breakdown later, the Howards were back in Fort Payne. He and the family moved to California in 1919 where he hoped to sell scripts.

Out west Howard did manage to publish two novels, Peggy Ware and The Bishop of the Ozarks. Both novels take place in the mountains; Peggy Ware is set in the Buck's Pocket area. He also starred in a silent film version of the latter book. 

By 1923 Howard had returned to Alabama and bought land near Mentone. The plan this time was to open a school for mountain children. This project was dogged by the same financial problems--and nervous breakdown--that seemed attached to Howard. In 1925 his wife Sallie died, and he closed the school. 

The following year he married again, took his new wife Stella to Europe and wrote about the trip for the Birmingham News after their return. His new wife did not care to live in the mountains, and they divorced in 1936. Howard had no income during this time, and generous friends helped him out. He used the money to build the chapel in honor of Sallie. 

By the time he finished, he was very sick and returned to California, where he died in December 1937, just six months after the chapel's dedication. Ex-wife Stella returned his ashes to Lookout Mountain where they rest at the chapel's giant granite boulder.  

Services are held in the chapel each Sunday, and it is apparently a popular spot for weddings. There is a small cemetery next to the chapel and a short walking trail nearby. 

A more detailed life of this fascinating man can be found in Elizabeth S. Howard's 1976 biography, The Vagabond Dreamer. The author is not related to her subject.