Quick Visit to a North Alabama Town: Florette

On one of my trips last year to Huntsville, I took a side journey along Alabama Highway 67 and passed through the town of Florette in Morgan County. I thought I would do one of the "quick visit" posts I've done on the blog about various places, and here's what I discovered about Florette.

According to Virginia Foscue's Place Names in Alabama, the settlement was originally named Nunn's Mill after a business in the area. S.W. Nunn rose to the rank of major in the Confederate cavalry. After the war he became tax commissioner of Morgan County in September 1865. Born in 1838, Nunn died in 1884 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Birmingham.

In 1878 a post office opened in the town and the name was changed to Florette. Foscue doesn't give a source for this name, although "floret" is a small flower, so perhaps there's some connection. This Florette is the only such name listed in the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System. The post office closed in 1907.

In the early twentieth century the Alabama Official & Statistical Register for 1943 gave the 1940 population as 541; 1930 as 534; and 416 for 1920. Florette's population is not listed in either the 2000 or 2010 census. The area is served by Albert P. Brewer High School, which opened in 1972 when five other schools were combined.

Florette is located in eastern Morgan County on Alabama Highway 67. Other towns on this map that I've visited and written about include Cotaco, Lacey's Spring and Valhermoso Springs. 

Source: Alabama Maps Digital Collection at UA

If you are driving too fast on Alabama 67, you may miss the Florette sign. 

This lovely house was the first thing I spotted in Florette.

Santa Gertrudis is a breed of cattle developed on the King's Ranch in Texas. This sign notes the location of the state's affiliate of the Santa Gertrudis Breeders International organization. The entry there gives this information:

ALABAMA SANTA GERTRUDIS ASSOCIATION

Officers: Charles Sandlin - President

                  Lamar Kelly - 1st Vice President

                  Scotty Hopper - 2nd Vice President

                  Betty Kelso-Clough - Secretary/Treasurer

Alabama Santa Gertrudis History:

The Alabama Santa Gertrudis Association (ASGA) was organized by a group of Alabama breeders in 1974 and became an SGBI affiliate in 1975.  Under the leadership of Mrs. Ann Upchurch a Federally designated 501(c)(3) Youth Fund was established.  Activities, which have historically been sponsored by ASGA include annual sale, field days, seminars, cattle demonstrations, open shows, junior shows, social gatherings, etc.

A Santa Gertrudis bull and cows with calves

Source: Wikipedia 

The stretch of Alabama Highway 67 through Morgan County has signs such as this one I spotted in Florette. I wondered about William Biles. 

A stone memorial stands on the grounds of the Morgan County Courthouse in Decatur that honors county law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty. Charles William "Bill" Biles is the final name listed; he worked for the Morgan County Sheriff's Office and died in 1985. You can see a photo of Deputy Biles and some remembrances here. 

Source: Waymarking 

Finding Alabama in New York State

These AlabamaYesterday wanderings often take me to some state connection far away, and this post is another example. I recently stumbled across the town of Alabama in Genesee County, New York, so let's see what's going on there. 

Incorporated in 1826 as Gerrysville, the area took the name "Alabama" two years later. That 19th century account previously linked claimed that the word means "Here we rest." The place had almost 1900 people counted in the 2010 U.S. Census, a figure that has remained about the same since 1840. According to Wikipedia, "sour" spring water available in the town was bottled as medicine in the 19th century. Two hundred people a day were said to visit the three main springs during their heyday. The Spring House Hotel served visitors until it burned in 1914. Alabama is now located in the Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge.

In New York state, towns are a primary municipal corporation operating the main functions of government within each county. There are 932 towns in the state. Each town can have within it boundaries villages and hamlets or some portion thereof. Communities within Alabama include the hamlet of South Alabama and the former hamlet of West Alabama. 

This arrangement produces such businesses as Alabama Archery, Alabama Holley Farm, and the Alabama & Basom United Methodist Church. There is also the Alabama Hotel; their wings were praised by Spiro T. Agnew during a 1968 presidential campaign visit. 

How this town in New York acquired the name of a state only nine years old [eleven if you count the Alabama Territory] remains a mystery. The territory and state were named after the Alabama tribe of Creeks who lived in the southeast until moving into Texas in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The tribe's name was interpreted to mean "Here we rest" until the 1920's. At that time research by Thomas Owen, director of the Alabama state archives, demonstrated that the word was a combination meaning "vegetation gatherers." 

An 1897 newspaper article "Towns Named after States" listed "Alabama" in New York and Wisconsin. I guess I'll have to investigate Wisconsin next. 

An extensive historical timeline for Alabama Town can be found here.

These businesses are located in Basom, a community in Alabama Town. 

Whatever Happened to Advance, Alabama?

Everyone loves a mystery, so here's one. 

In the summer of 1936 writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans headed to Hale County, Alabama, on assignment for Fortune magazine. Agee had worked at the New York City publication since 1932. In 1935 Evans, working for New Deal agencies the Resettlement Administration and then the Farm Security Administration, spent time in the South documenting the effects of the Great Depression. I have written about the photographs Evans took in Birmingham on that trip in a previous blog post.   

Agee planned to write about the life of southern sharecroppers and tenant farmers, and he and Evans lived with three different families in Hale County for eight weeks that summer. The resulting lengthy article manuscript was rejected by Fortune, but in 1941 Agee published a book-length account, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, that featured many of the photographs Evans took on their trip.

Largely ignored at the time of publication, the book is now considered a classic and is a wonderful read. Although he used pseudonyms in the book, the real people have become well-known as well. The book has been very controversial in Hale County for various reasons, but I found it to be a sympathetic portrayal of noble people living in difficult circumstances. Agee was also a poet and fiction writer, and this book draws on techniques from both genres. 

Another manuscript about the trip was published in 2013 as Cotton Tenants. The original book inspired composer Aaron Copeland to write his opera The Tender Land, completed in 1954. In 1989 Dale Maharidge and Michael Williamson published And Their Children After Them, which carries the stories of Agee's farmers up to the time of publication. The book won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. 

The two photographs below were taken by Evans on one of his two trips to the state and are labelled on various sites as being in "Advance, Alabama." The Photogrammer site at Yale University makes available thousands of photos taken in the 1930's and 1940's by New Deal photographers. These two are identified there is being taken in 1935 in Lee County.

Both the date and place seem wrong. Evans was indeed in Alabama in late 1935, but I have not encountered any reference to him in Lee County. The first photograph below appears in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men right after a photo of downtown Greensboro. That would seem to indicate the photos were taken on that summer 1936 trip with Agee.

"Advance" does not appear in Foscue's Place Names in Alabama or Harris' Dead Towns of Alabama. I've looked at 1937 road maps of Hale and Tuscaloosa counties and did not find "Advance." I also did not find such a town listed in the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographical Names Information System.

We should remember that Agee used pseudonyms for both the people and places in his book except for Birmingham. The county seat in Hale, Greensboro; the town nearest to the tenant families, Akron; and even Moundville are given other names. I wonder if "Advance" is the name given by Agee to some abandoned place in Hale County or if these shots were taken somewhere in Akron, Moundville or Greensboro. The only internal clue I can find, the C.W. Lewis Furniture Company, is described below. I did not find anything on the "Dunnvant General Merchandise" store. 

If you have any more info about the mystery of Advance, Alabama, let all of us know in the comments!!

This photo appears in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men right after one of downtown Greensboro. 

Source: Photogrammer at Yale University

On the side of this Dunnavant General Merchandise store is an advertisement for a Tuscaloosa business, C.W. Lewis Furniture Company. The ad urges "Come to See Us." 

Source: Photogrammer at Yale University

An invoice from July 1924


Source: University of Alabama Digital Collections

A C.W. Lewis Furniture Co. advertisement from the 1925 volume of the University of Alabama's yearbook, The Corolla 

Source: Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum

Walker Evans in 1937

Source: Wikipedia