I want to congratulate MURAL CITY COFFEE on renovating the Carmichael building on the northwest corner of South Foster and Crawford. Since Mural City plans on showcasing Dothan's heritage in their establishment, I wanted to inform them about a mistake about their building which is printed in 2010's DOTHAN AND HOUSTON COUNTY ~ YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW. On page 49, the author writes, "The corner of South Foster and Crawford streets was the location of a wagon yard operated by J.P. Folkes, one of the earliest settlers in Dothan. In 1913, William Singletary and A.D. Whiddon opened a farm supply store on the site." South Foster didn't have water, sewer or paving until 1922. From 1913 until 1923,  the Singletary and Whiddon Company was located in the Poplar Head Mule Co. building on South St. Andrews and the South Foster wagon yard had some produce stands. (from the March 16, 1920 DOTHAN EAGLE)

https://www.troy.edu/wiregrassarchives/inventories/153.html

Ya know when you're hip to THE DAUPHIN ISLAND STORY, even the morning news brings a history lesson. This morning we're hearing about the reunification of illegal immigrant families at the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas. Well back in 1846, it was called POINT ISABEL (just like the one on D.I.) and every steamboat in Alabama that could make the trip was heading that way. There was no Fort Gaines during the summer of 1846 but if you stood on the east end on the ruins of the U.S. fortification abandoned in 1821 and looked over toward Fort Morgan, you would have seen steamships and schooners heading out each day for POINT ISABEL. (from the May 31, 1846 NEW YORK DAILY HERALD)

Before Johnny Mack Brown ever thought about the big screen, Dothan had a girl who was on her way to Hollywood. Her name was LOTA CHEEK. Lota was Dougie Bailey's first cousin and in DEVIL MAKE A THIRD he named his protagonist's child bride, LOTA KYLE. In 1922 Lota Cheek was named BOSTON'S PRETTIEST GIRL . After this event was picked up by the press, Lota was soon dubbed AMERICA'S PRETTIEST GIRL in the nation's newspapers. Although her press clippings say she was from Dawson, Georgia, she grew up in Dothan and I doubt she ever lived in Dawson. By 1916, she'd already married a cavalryman on his way to the border to fight PANCHO VILLA along with Buck's brother Dan's calvary unit from Dothan. Lota's mother, Nannie Baker Cheek, died in Dothan in 1917. After Lota's "15 minutes of fame" in '22, she went on to perform as a showgirl and in theatrical companies. By 1926, Lota had divorced her cavalryman as well as another guy named Sanders and was married to English actor Tyrell Davis who is remembered today for his convincing and overstated portrayals of homosexuals in the movies. Not sure whether Lota ever made it to the Silver Screen but her life story would make a great movie. In 1901, Lota started out life in Abbeville's  Henry County Jail where her mother and her uncle W.T. Buntin were being held for the murder of her mother's first husband.
 https://theiapolis.com/actor-1PRE/tyrell-davis/

Believe it or not, this clipping probably has a DEVIL MAKE A THIRD connection. Fred Lane married Buck's sister, Vera Baker. Fred Lane would have been 20 years old in 1911 when this clipping was printed which would be the prime age for a Dothan baseball player. In Chapter 19 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, Buck says,""Papa said there ain't but three things worth fightin' over- a land line, a baseball game, or a woman. They'll cool off. Preacher's got to say somethin' an' it can't all be good. One thing sure-they wouldn't be shootin' at me if I didn't have my head up so it could be seen. I'll worry when they stop shootin'." (looks like Memory Hill did a land office business exhuming bodies in the Fifties so the Baker bunch could all be together. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26011146/fred-mathew-lane             )

Findagrave link for Fred M. Lane 1891-1933
 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26011146/fred-mathew-lane

Vera Baker Lane 1890-1980
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/80539260/vera-lane

left to right: ADELAIDE MASSEY, as Miss Tip Top Beauty Shop; FANNYE EISENBERG, as Miss Pizitz; ETHEL BECK, as Miss Persons Drug Company; MAMIE REEDER BOYD, as Miss Woco Pep; HAZEL BOWDEN, as Miss Tip Top Beauty Shop; JUSTINIA LUSHINGTON, as Miss Pizitz; MAE AXELROD, as Miss Alabama Power; ZIPPORAH DEWS as Miss General Stores Company; MYRTLE GULLEDGE as Miss Alabama Power; BLANCHE SPINK as Miss Tennille Furniture; VIOLA MANLEY as Miss Knighten Furniture Company; MARY MOSES as Miss Vanity Boot Shop; ANNETTE BROWN, as Miss Juvenile Shop

No worries
No hurries
A place beside the sea
Is where we'll be
To feed our souls
As we take a stroll

You and me and the sea
No clocks
No watches
No drama
Our love affair
Grows when we're there
We'll find our true emotion
Beside the ocean.

Ya know old Dothan's got something nobody else can claim to have. That's a world-class novel based upon one of its founding families with most of the fictional characters in the novel based upon men and women who once walked the streets of Dothan and whose remains presently rest in its cemeteries. I have identified over 25 deceased individuals who I believe inspired the creation of Dougie Bailey's fictional characters in DEVIL MAKE A THIRD and I have established over 15 Find-A-Grave links on my blog that give details of the lives of these people.  There are also many anonymous characters in this inspiring work of fiction and the descriptions of their lives go into a mix that makes this book the essential story of the formative, boom-town years of the HUB OF THE WIREGRASS. Please take a moment of your valuable time and check out the progress recently made on the DEVIL MAKE A THIRD blog. https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

Sharman Ramsey's BAKER PAGE  http://www.southern-style.com/Southeast%20Alabama%20Heritage%20Association/Baker.htm

from Ellen Dawson:

"I neglected to give you my grandfathers name, Thomas Eugen Buntin. His mother was Eugenia Baker. Who married W.T. Buntin. Eugenia is Buck Bakers sister."

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/35010217/eleanor-buntin


"As Requested, I have thumbed through the book my father has and has pulled excerpts written in the margins by my grandmother.
page 11
third paragraph. 'His mother' is under lined and in the margin reads Jane Baker.
PAGE 13
last paragraph 'Coke" is underlined in in the margin is written:
Uncle Coley whom I remember and fave me 1/2 stick of juicy fruit gum which he would cut with his pocket knife.
PAGE 14, 5th paragraph, 3rd sentence: 'Jeff and Hearn'
In the margin reads:Uncle Dan and Doug Baker
7th paragraph: Joe Bannon
In the Margin, Grandfather Joe Baker
Lat ssentence:
You Kin see the McPherson stock...
Underlined McPherson and in the margin is written 'Sanders'
Page 50, last paragraph "Myrt and Nance,"
Written in the margin 'Maggie and nanny?' There is a question mark after nanny.

More excerpts:
Chapter 6, PAGE 59, 1st paragraph 4th line. "the block of land"
In the margin is written N. Foster, Newton, N St. Andrews, Powell
PAGE 64
8th paragraph, the whole paragraph is in parenthesis and it begins with "She's a schoolteacher," and beside it in the margin is written 'Music Teacher'
PAGE 73, right above the INTERLUDE is written: ' The teachers name was Ida and Ghastie was named Ida after her and christened later when she was 2 - 3, she was renamed Ghastie.
It is not until Chapter 16 that more is written in the margins.
PAGE 171, this page is about my grandfather, Thomas Eugen Buntin Sr., Buck's Nephew.
3rd Paragraph -"He (Buck) was near the door when a small boy came slowly down the hall. Syrup dripped from a soffy hole in a biscuit held just above his mouth and the boy licked gravely at the bottom. He had bright red curly hair and his noe looked like allthe Bannons'.
In the Margins reads 'Tom Sr.'
It goes on to the last sentence
Ernestine's (Eugenia)

Also on PAGE 171, next to the last paragraph, last sentence:

"then he reached out and knuckled the red head, hard," 

This is underlined and in the margin is writtten a single word. 'Tom.'

Chapter 19, Page 195

At the top of this page is written
'Tom was hired by Buck as "water boy" at 5 cents a week.'
PAGE 196
In the center of the page where the dialog reads:
"Had it Long?"
"Ten Years,"
In the margin is written Martin Hotel
PAGE 202
5th Paragraph
"Tobe? I didn't ...."
Tobe is underlined and written 'Dominque' over his name.
PAGE 204, last paragraph
"I'm Lota Kyle,"
In the margin reads:
'Lota was the name of one of Buck's nieces, Lota B. Cheek'

And Finally the last few written words.

Chapter 21, 4th paragraph,

"Laughing" Bell right in front...

Right over Bells name is written 'Bush'

Page 289, talks about the farm Buck bought his mother.
I n the Margin in written 'Landmark'
Grandmother had unerlined in the center of the page "I've got a thousand acres and a big white house ..."
Also on this page in the first line is the name "Myrt", over it is written 'Maggie'.
PAGE 299 1st full paragraph, half way down is the name "Carmen".
In the margin is written 'Aunt Jessie'.
And Last on page 300, at the bottom of the page is underlined "the boys".
In the Margin is written 'Tommy, Otis and Joe.'

The book this information comes from is the 1st edition written is 1948."

The latest on THE DEVIL MAKE A THIRD blog: HEARN BANNON ~ based upon C.F. "Doug" Baker, 1882-1930. (FINDAGRAVE misspells Doug's name. It should read CYRUS FIELDS BAILEY.)    Douglas Fields Bailey was the pen name of Dothan author William Fields Bailey. Since Bailey's mother was Doug's sister, it's a good bet that Dougie Bailey got both his legal middle name and his nickname from his Uncle Doug. In the novel, the character Hearn is despicable. This writer recognizes the responsibility of linking a fictional character named HEARN BANNON to a deceased individual. from the October 28, 1930 Montgomery Advertiser https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

I am now speculating that Dougie Bailey based the character of LITTLE VIC (renamed Christina) BANNON in the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD upon his aunt GHASTIE BAKER MILLER. Mrs. T. E. Buntin, who was married to one of Buck Baker's nephews,  made notes in the margins of the 1948 E.P. Dutton and Co. edition. Mrs. Buntin wrote on page 73,"The teacher's name was Ida and Ghastie was named Ida after her and christened later when she was 2 - 3, she was renamed Ghastie."
Page 73 is the end of Chapter 7 in which Buck is caught having an affair with the schoolteacher, Victoria, who his mother had hired to live in her home in Aven while she taught her younger children. After Mrs. Bannon finds out about Buck climbing into the schooteacher's room late at night she fires "Big Vic" and changes her young daughter's name, who was also named Victoria and went by the nickname "Little Vic", to Christina. In 1898 Buck Baker was sued in July by Ida Clark but later on in December of the same year he married her. If this is the "Ida" in Mrs. Buntin's margin note, Ghastie didn't get her name changed to Ida when she was 2 or 3 but when she was fourteen years old. 

Besides Aven's anonymous prostitutes, Buck Bannon, the protagonist of Dougie Bailey's DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, has three sexual partners in the novel: Big Vic, Ivy Longshore and Lota Kyle. These three fictional characters have two counterparts in the life of Dothan's Buck Baker, Bailey's inspiration for his novel's main character. They are the two women who married Baker: Ida Clark in 1898 and Eula Stagg in 1919. How Bailey took the story of the two main women in his uncle's life and turned them into the three fictional characters in his book is presently the target of my research. Somebody out there in CYBERLAND seems to be interested. My DEVIL MAKE A THIRD blog had over 1000 visitors last month and has now totaled almost 26,000 views. Check it out and I'd appreciate any comments or recommendations. The ONLY WAY you can know the STORY OF DOTHAN is to understand DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. "The past is prologue" ~ William Shakespeare (Because Bailey chose to name his novel after a Shakespearean quote, it is entirely appropriate that the ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL should dramatize this ground-breaking novel. I find it ironic that Landmarks Park, located on land once owned by the Baker family, was built by the Landmark Foundation which was founded in 1976 by members of the Southeast Alabama Community Theatre who were concerned about preserving the City Auditorium, built in 1915 during the administration of Mayor Buck Baker.) https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

 from page LX of House Documents, Otherwise Published as Executive Documents, 13th Congress, 2d Session-49th Congress, 1st Session – 1834-35

"Proposals for supplying bricks and lime were advertised for at Mobile, in 1822, and Captain De Russey, in a letter written to the Engineer Department soon after the proposals were received, stated that 'lime at the kiln will be obtained at fifty cents per barrel;' and in a subsequent letter he represented that an arrangement for 4,000 barrels at that price, received at the kiln, had been entered into. With the accounts of the disbursing officers at Mobile, there are vouchers showing that 2,716 barrels were paid for at that price, and 619 barrels at 62 and one half cents; that the rate paid for the transportation of lime from the shell banks was 18 and three quarter cents per barrel ; and that, thereafter, shell lime was manufactured by the United States, and a compensation at the rate of 12 and one half cents per barrel, amounting to several thousand dollars, paid to L. De Vauberay for superintending the making of it. The contents of a barrel appear to have been about 2 and two third bushels, and at 50 cents per barrel, therefore, without any addition for transportation, the bushel would be 18 and three quarter cents; and Lieutenant Ogden's deposition, it will be seen, declares that it was valued at 20 cents. For the other ingredients, sand and water, the estimate in the proposed award makes no allowance, but, with regard to them, observes, that ' the testimony of Colonel Gadsden, Majors De Russey and Fisher, all state they were under foot, and therefore its cost is nothing.' Colonel Gadsden's answer is as follows : 'Sand and water were both on the spot : the digging of the former, and a well to be sunk (not exceeding 15 feet) for the latter, was the only expense to be incurred.' " https://books.google.com/books?id=_IkFAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA38&lpg=RA1-PA38&dq=%22de+vauberay%22+%22dauphin+island%22&source=bl&ots=xyveM67UBU&sig=BRl0W9hOnwJosNXuVLXjIzECCdE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifp5n5p6bcAhUjSN8KHeNVBi0Q6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%22de%20vauberay%22%20%22dauphin%20island%22&f=false

Probably more documentaries have been made about the 1962 ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ than any other event in human history yet the entire story begins in Houston County with the January 17, 1958 robbery of the Bank of Columbia. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+real+story+escape+from+alcatraz

www.dothaneagle.com/news/columbia-bank-robbery-connected-to-famous-escape-from-alcatraz/article_29d9b264-2157-554a-a276-90f29a199c7f.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=9S4pU351YM0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2k0NHouTJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhRNxOrZu0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oask-5owoE4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVtaxYKk74M

Sometimes this computer technology gives you so much access to the past that it's just PLAIN SPOOKY. I've been studying these Yankee raids on the St. Andrews Bay salt works and found that the superintendent of the Confederate government's salt works was named Clendinen and that being a very old Dothan name, I began to look into it. I found Mr. Clendinen mentioned in an issue of the February 4, 1863 TROY MESSENGER. After copying and saving the clipping I decided to go back to that same page of the Troy paper from the Civil War and I found a recruitment article about men being brought into the Confederate service to protect the St. Andrews salt works from the Yankee raids but then over in the lower right corner of that page I noticed where my Great Great Grandfather John Young Register (my full name is Robert Young Register) had posted a Tax Collector's Sale for property he'd condemned for back taxes. Made the hair stand up on my arms.

December 1863 salt works raid on St. Andrews Bay

UNION BLOCKADE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_blockade

USS ETHAN ALLEN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Ethan_Allen_(1859)

USS ROEBUCK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Roebuck_(1856)

USS RESTLESS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Restless_(1861)

March 1863 Raid http://civilwarnavy150.blogspot.com/2013/03/tragic-assault-on-st-andrews-bay-20.html

Grave of a man who may have served during a salt works raid https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/37785317/william-hopkins-bradford

from a Nantucket history site: http://tuckernuckjim.tripod.com/hidden/id16.html
James Folger was born on April 9, 1817; the Barney record notes that he died at sea on April 15, 1863. Accordinly in the May 11, 1863 edition of the Daily National Intelligencer, a Washington, D.C. newspaper, there is a record of the death of a James Folger, Acting Master of the USS Roebuck, who died of a gunshot wound on April 15, 1863. The USS Roebuck was a bark rigged clipper ship that made at least trip around Cape Horn to California as a merchant ship before being purchased by the Navy in1861. She was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off the Carolina coast, and intercepted several smugglers on their way to Confederate ports. On March 20, 1863 a party was sent ashore in the bark's launch to investigate a report that a vessel was loading with cotton nearby; they were ambushed and suffered heavy losses before retreating (from the "US Civil War Navies" website, by Terry Foenander). In all likelihood this is when James Folger was wounded; it would explain why a naval officer died of a gunshot wound, an injury more often associated with soldiers than with naval personnel. 

EXPLORE SOUTHERN HISTORY page http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/panamacity.html

U.S. Navy Sesquicentennial of Civil War http://civilwarnavy150.blogspot.com/2013/12/st-andrews-bay-salt-works-raids.html

1886 navigational chart https://historicalcharts.noaa.gov/tiled/zoomifypreview.html?zoomifyImagePath=LC00184_12_1886

Marlene Womack 2015 http://www.newsherald.com/article/20150920/LIFESTYLE/150919163

G.M. West's History of St. Andrews https://archive.org/stream/standrewsflorida00west/standrewsflorida00west_djvu.txt

U.S.S. Bohio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bohio_(1856)

U.S.S. Albatross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Albatross_(1858)

ON JULY 3, 2018, I documented that Google gives you ZERO RESULTS for an inquiry to search for the line "Follow me to where the sun meets the sea" We COINED that line fo' sho'! https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=WnA7W_79Ecq45gLe2JTQAg&q=%22FOLLOW+ME+TO+WHERE+THE+SUN+MEETS+THE+SEA%22&oq=%22FOLLOW+ME+TO+WHERE+THE+SUN+MEETS+THE+SEA%22&gs_l=psy-ab.3..33i22i29i30k1.1936.16612.0.17500.53.50.2.0.0.0.265.6302.9j36j3.48.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..3.50.6310.0..0j35i39k1j0i131k1j0i131i20i264k1j0i67k1j0i20i264k1j0i131i67k1j0i22i30k1j0i13i30k1j0i8i13i30k1j0i22i10i30k1j33i160k1j33i21k1.0.am3C3A4ssZk

Ya know, when it comes to knowing about the Gulf Coast, especially from the State of Mississippi's islands to St. Marks, me and my buddies(especially the crowd who I linked this post to on Facebook) know about as much as ANYBODY! There's one BIG PROBLEM we got with all those trade secrets and all that highly specialized knowledge: WE GITTIN' OLD and our old bodies are givin' out on us and THE LORD'S ABOUT TO CALL US HOME so now's the time to ACT! WE NEED US SOME MEDIA! In the interest of this endeavor I have included a link to some stuff I've written about THE BEACH. https://howtokillamockingbird-roberto.blogspot.com/ The pilot episode for OUR BEACHES could ask a single simple question to our friends and neighbors all along the coast & see what happens..."Follow me to where the sun meets the sea..."

"Hey, like I'm working on this 1948 novel based on Dothan called DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. The title comes from Shakespeare so I think it qualifies to be dramatized by the ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL. O.K. so I've 'dissected' the novel https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/and I believe the school the protagonist sends his TROPHY WIFE to (circa: 1915 and because of his money, his wife is the ONLY student who is a married woman) in CHAPTER 25 is based upon Brenau.  Anyway, I'm including some quotes from CHAPTER 25 for you and ALL YOUR BRENAU FRIENDS to look at. Even though the time of the action is 1915, the college doesn't want automobiles on campus. I looked up some stuff on student discipline @ Brenau and the #1 expulsion offence was 'NIGHT RIDING.' I'd surely 'preciate any comments or suggestions or ANYTHANG ELSE ya gotta say!Oh yeah, could the road into campus have gone underneath 'a heavy stone arch that was covered with ivy'? BEST! r"

FROM CHAPTER 28 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD:

...Buck's clumsy two-seater hack rolled swiftly behind a fast-trotting team of roans, through a heavy stone arch that was covered with ivy. Its rubber-rimmed wheels ground lightly over a driveway that sounded in the dark as if it had been thickly padded throughout most of its curving passage under heavy oak limbs."

"Must have toted pine straw out of the woods," Buck thought as the carriage swept stylishly up in front of a large grey-stone building whose white-pillared porch jutted like a firm chin onto a lawn that was still green and thick. The carriage tilted far over when Buck stepped out on the narrow iron footrest and its springs creaked as if they'd never been greased.

(clipping from the July 7, 1920 MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER)