What's a Wavaho?

For years I've been going to mom and dad's house in southeastern Huntsville on the same route--north from Pelham on I-65 until I reach the Alabama 36 exit in Hartselle. Then I follow 36 until it intersects with U.S. 231 and on into Huntsville. 

At the intersection of 36 and 231 is the Corner Quick Stop with gas and goodies. It's a Wavaho station, and I have often wondered about the history of this small company. I did a bit of research but haven't found much.

The Dun & Bradstreet site has a page for the Wavaho Oil Company that gives a few basic details. The company was founded in 1958, and annual revenue was listed as more than $6,700,000. Walter V. Hough was the name given as a contact and the phone number as 256-881-3621. A wavaho.com site has been crawled by the Internet Archive since 2001, but only a placeholder page was saved each time. The domain was registered in November 1999.

Perhaps one day I'll give them a call or stop by and try to learn a little more.

I find small operations that have survived in industries dominated by much bigger players to be fascinating. According to Google Maps, there are also Wavaho gas stations in Decatur, Huntsville and Pinson. Another one in Birmingham pops up on a Google search. If you know of others or more about the company, tell us in the comment section!

UPDATE on June 30, 2023

Romario Gardner of WAFF channel 48 in Huntsville reports on issues related to the Wavaho gas station on Pulaski Pike; the station's business license has been revoked. Her report notes the station is owned by Albara, Inc.

UPDATE on August 3, 2022

I added at the end two photos of the Wavaho Station in Priceville, very close to Decatur, which is still operating.

UPDATE on June 26, 2021

The "Wavaho Oil Co Inc" lettering has been removed from the building shown below, but you can still make them out on the brick. 

UPDATE on February 25, 2018:

An informant tells me that the company's name comes from the first two letters of the founder's name--Walter Van Hough.

UPDATE on October 12, 2010:

I passed the station heading home and found this sign in front of the building; I wonder what's going on. 

Here's the office building facing Alabama 36 and just behind the gas station and store. 

That iconic sign appears in a couple of places. 

Source: Google Maps

Wavaho station at 732 Highway 67 South in Priceville

Falco, Alabama, in June 1942

Alabama has a long history related to the forest products industry. One of the earliest water-powered lumber mills in the state was the one established by Thomas Mendenhall in south Alabama. The community around that mill became present-day Brewton. Because the Conecuh and Escambia rivers gave access to Pensacola Bay and export markets, the lumber industry in Alabama near the Florida border expanded quickly.

The small town of Falco in western Covington County is another example of a town made by timber. The name is a shortened version of the Florida-Alabama Land Company formed early in the twentieth century to take raw timber to market. A post office was established in the town in 1903.

Falco can still be found on some maps today on the Falco Road [County Road 11] just north of the community of Wing. The location is southwest of Andalusia in the southern part of the Conecuh National Forest. The zip code is 36483; Google Earth shows only a few buildings there.

In June 1942 photographer and future anthropologist John Collier came through Falco and took the 10 photographs below. From 1941 until 1943 Collier worked first for the Farm Security Administration and then the Office of War Information. Thus the pictures were taken as part of his work there.

These photos were taken from Yale University's massive digital collection of U.S. government photographs taken by numerous photographers during the 1930's and 1940's. Quotes under the photos below are taken from descriptions on that site. That collection includes more than 200 photographs Collier took in Alabama. How his trip took him through Falco is unknown; perhaps he was on his way to the Farm Security Administration's Escambia Farms project in northern Florida where he took photos in the same month. 

Also shown below is a much earlier photograph of the Falco railroad depot and an extract from a 1905 Alabama map showing Falco. In 2002 the Andalusia Star News published an interesting article about the history of Falco. The article notes that the lumber mill burned in 1925 and was not rebuilt. The town declined and the post office closed in 1950; only one general store and a school still operated at that time. A few years later the school closed. 

U.S. Post Office in Falco in June 1942, "one of the few buildings left"

"Falco was a thriving, overcrowded town in the twenties. Now most of its buildings have been fired or torn down, so that today it is only a post office and a crossroads."

Grist mill which has been grinding corn for eighty years

Another interior shot of the grist mill

An exterior shot of the grist mill

"Former offices and home of the owner of the Falco lumber mill which was the largest mill in northern Florida [near Alabama border], but ceased cutting in 1923." Falco is so close to the Florida state line that captions for these photographs by Collier say "Falco, Florida [ie, Alabama]." The photographer may have thought he was in Florida when he took these pictures.

"All that is left of the railroad line running to the Falco lumber mill, as it crosses the old log pond (mill closed in 1923)"

 "Mill pond of the Falco lumber company twenty years after the last of the logging"

"Only the charred foundations remain of the Falco lumber company mill, fifteen miles from Escambia Farms. Once the largest lumber company in northern Florida [i.e., Alabama near Florida border], it passsed out of existence in 1923 because of the depleted timber due to unplanned cutting."

Another exterior shot of the grist mill

Falco Railroad Depot, ca. 1917

Source: Florida Memory

From a 1905 Geographic Publishing Company map of Alabama

Source: UA's Historical Maps of Alabama Digital Collection

Pondering Alabama Maps (6): A 1913 Highway Proposal

The main map below was developed in 1913 by the National Highways Association, a private organization founded two years earlier by businessman Charles Henry Davis. The group's motto was "Good Roads Everywhere" and it supported a national road system developed and maintained by the federal government. This map illustrates the proposed 50,000 miles of roads. The partial map shows Alabama's share in better detail. 

The NHA's proposal was never adopted by Congress, but the idea of a national highway system lived on. A "Good Roads Movement" had actually begun in the 1870's, long before automobiles needed them. Bicyclists were behind that idea. 

You can read about the U.S.'s national highway system here and the country's numbered roads system here.    

Martin Olliff's 2017 book is an excellent history of these matters with a focus on Alabama.

 

 

Charles Henry Davis [1865-1951]

Source: U.S. Federal Highway Administration

A Visit to Brundidge, Alabama

This past July my brother Richard and I made one of our annual trips seeking Alabama and family history. This time we were in east central Alabama mainly around Brundidge and Camp Hill. We visited several other places I've already written about such as Smuteye, Union Springs and Aberfoil. I'll be doing future posts on Camp Hill and Tallassee. A decade or more ago mom and two of her sisters, Heth and Marjorie, made a similar trip to Brundidge and Camp Hill; some things have changed, others not so much.

Brundidge is a very nice little town in southeastern Pike County that bills itself as "Alabama's Own Antique City." The downtown area is filled with shops and galleries of all types; we enjoyed a respite from the late July heat in a pleasant coffee shop. Almost all the storefronts we saw were occupied by active businesses or other entities. The population in 2013 was estimated at just over 2000 people.  

My maternal grandmother Tempe Hilliard Flowers Shores was born in Brundidge and lived there until she left to attend Huntingdon College. Her parents Joseph and Mollie Flowers lived in Brundidge for many more years. After Tempe married future Methodist minister John Miller Shores, they and their children, including mom, often visited. My maternal great-grandfather ran a general store in town. 

Richard and I wanted to visit the house and store sites as well as the Brundidge City Cemetery where ancestors are buried. On the way out of town to seek another cemetery nearby, my brother and I passed the reason Brundidge seems to be doing so well: a massive Wal-Mart distribution center. 

Photos and more commentary are below. 

UPDATE 22 December 2021

 The Alabama Historical Commission recently designated historic districts in Brundidge, including the area where the Flowers' general store was located. See below for a more recent photo of the building today. 

The Brundidge City Cemetery is well kept these days and also was when mom and her sisters visited. 

Interestingly, there were two lines of Flowers living in Brundidge who were not related. Arthur Talmage Flowers was a member of the line we are not related to. The symbol above his name indicates he was a Mason. He married Vela, one of Tempe's younger sisters. Thus a Flowers married a Flowers. 

Here's the house where my grandmother Tempe Hilliard Flowers Shores was born and where mom and family visited many times.

Mom said she remembers playing around the big tree. The small house on the left is a more recent addition to the street.


The three photographs below from family collections show the house and barn in earlier decades.  

The barn no longer exists, but the house and its small addition to the left--done originally for a master bedroom with bath--look pretty much the same. My aunt Heth was born in the house. 

Tempe's parents, my great-grandparents Joseph and Mollie Flowers, are buried in the Brundidge City Cemetery. Their daughter Vela is buried close to them. 

The storefronts on this part of Brundidge's main street have remained much the same for many years. The far white building was my great-grandfather's general store. 

The general store is now the Brundidge Police Department headquarters. Richard and I went inside and explained our interest to the two young people working there on a Saturday morning. 

Here's a closer view of the storefront. Next door is a law office. Mom said when she and her sisters visited a liquor store occupied the site. She said her grandfather Joseph Flowers, a Methodist teetotaler, would have been horrified.

Mom remembers being taken to the store by "Papa" as a young girl, allowed to play there and take naps atop a stack of overalls. The pile was so high "Papa" had to put her up there and take her down. 

Photo below is a more recent one via Google Maps; the police station has moved and the space has become another general store of sorts. [22 December 2021 update]

The Masonic lodge is currently located on the main street. A.T. Flowers was probably a member of this lodge.

This Baptist church is located a few miles west of Brundidge near a place once known as Hilliards Crossroads. 

Many of our Flowers and Hilliard ancestors are buried in this cemetery behind the church.

This side of my family seems to have had several Masons; my grandfather John Miller Shores was also a member. Quay was our great-uncle, and Tempe Flowers Shores' younger brother. 

Carlyle Tillery's One Published Novel

Literature is filled with examples of "one hit wonders", first novels often very successful that are never followed by another work, at least not in the author's lifetime. One of American literature's examples is Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. A youthful novella was published long after her death; manuscripts of some other works were apparently destroyed. Ross Lockridge, Jr.'s Raintree County was the only novel he wrote; just as it became a best seller he committed suicide early in 1948. A film version with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift was released in 1957. Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is another notable American example. Anna Sewall's Black Beauty and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights are two well known titles from England. 

An Alabama example is Red Bone Woman, the only novel published by Carlyle Tillery. Thomas Carlyle Tillery was born in Greenburg, Louisiana, on December 6, 1904. In 1928 he received a B.S. degree from Mississippi State University. For the next decade or more he worked as a statistical clerk in agricultural economics and spent two years as a timekeeper on a Central American banana plantation. 

During World War II he served in the U.S. Army and his draft card, filled out on October 16, 1940, tells us a bit more about him. At the time he was living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and working for the Guaranty Income Life, Inc. company. He listed his weight as 160, complexion light, eyes blue, hair red and his height as 5' 6.5". He was apparently not married at this time, since he listed his sister as the person "who will always know your address." I found his card via Ancestry.com; you can see it below. 

After his service in the military, Tillery next appears in Tuscaloosa, where he studied for three years under famed University of Alabama English and creative writing professor Hudson Strode. Did he come to Tuscaloosa to take Strode's classes? I have found no information about Tillery writing or publishing before or after his one published novel. Tillery apparently did not graduate from UA; I did not find him listed in a 2008 directory of university alumni. 

On July 10, 1949, the following article appeared in the Tuscaloosa News [page 8]: "TUSCALOOSA STORE CLERK SIGNS CONTRACT FOR NOVEL: Carlyle Tillery Is Author Of 21st Book from Strode Class." The article noted Tillery as, "a kindly, quiet man, fortyish ,with rather sparse red hair, a freckled face, and glasses that hit a little farther down his nose than usual. On week days he ambles busily but unobtrusively up and down the aisles of Jitney Jungle Super Market No. 1 where he is employed in the stock room."

The Hoole Special Collections at the University of Alabama Libraries has some material on Tillery "most notably" the galley proofs of his novel. I am indebted to their online description for some of the information above. 

At the time of his death Tillery was married to Ruby Wilson Tillery; you can see her photo below. I did not find marriage info for Ruby and Carlyle. I did find a reference to a Thomas C. Carlyle getting married on June 15, 1952 in Tuscaloosa County. Perhaps that is the date.

Ruby earned a nursing PhD in 1981. She was the author of "Differences in Perceived Relationships of Selected Components of Curriculum Implementation Prior to and Following Graduate Study by Louisiana Nurse Teachers Funded for Master's Level Study"  which was her dissertation at the University of Alabama. 

Carlyle Tillery died on January 23, 1988 in Tuscaloosa. An obituary published the next day in the Tuscaloosa News listed among his survivors wife Ruby, daughter Sarah and son Edward. Ruby died January 10, 2007, also in Tuscaloosa. She was 84, having been born November 23, 1922, in Woodville, Jackson County, Alabama. Memorial services for both were held at Forest Lake United Methodist Church, where they were presumably members. 

As you can read below in the blurbs on the back of the paperback edition, Tillery's one novel received good notices. The "Literary Guidepost" review  by W.G. Rogers [also below] declares, "Tillery is a name to add to the large list of distinguished southern writers." 

So what happened? Where did Tillery's literary impulse come from and where did it go after publication of Red Bone Woman? Did he continue to work at Jitney Jungle until retirement? Perhaps one day a descendent will enlighten us. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 

Source: Find-A-Grave

Presumably this photo comes from the same college yearbook, different year, as the one below. 

Centenary College of Louisiana Yearbook 1924

Source: Ancestry.com

The hardback edition was published in 1950 by the John Day Company in New York City, founded in 1926 and operated until purchased by the Thomas Y. Crowell Company in 1974. 

The publisher's original description:

When Tempie's family came out of the bayou swamp in southeastern Louisianan, the neighbors called them "Red Bones"-though seldom to their faces. But the eye of one neighbor, a lonely, widowed farmer, was caught by Tempie's stately figure and her youthful vigor. Tempie is an original in fiction and this is her book. She grows in humanity, in stature, in reality until at last she wins us wholly.

This paperback edition was published in 1951 by Avon. 

Source: Corsicana [TX] Daily News 6 April 1950

Tillery's World War II draft card, which shows his employer as the Guaranty Income Life Insurance Company in Baton Rouge. He was living at 5046 Clayton Drive in that city. Google Maps does not show a structure currently at that address. He listed a sister as one "who will always know your address."

Source: Ancestry.com 

Ruby Wilson Tillery [November 23, 1922-January 10, 2007]

Source: Find-A-Grave

Note: 14 Sept 2023

I was going through some files recent and came across this Birmingham News article by Karl Elebash from March 25, 1983. The article describes a two-day celebration honoring Hudson Strode held at the University of Alabama and attended by more than 200 people. Carlyle Tillery can be seen in the photograph between Borden Deal and Wayne Greenhaw.