The location of the coast survey map makers 1854-1855 astronomical observatory on the east point of Hurricane Island was listed as LATITUDE 30 degrees 4 minutes 23 seconds and LONGITUDE 85 degrees 38 minutes 36 seconds. According to John A. Burgess in 1985,"On current navigational maps a piling is listed very near these coordinates in the open channel approximately one mile east south-east of the present day land's end (eastern tip of today's Shell Island). This corresponds with the probable location of a wharf and barracks built by Union forces on the north side of the island during the Civil War. These forces were an effective blockading effort by the Union Army to keep the channel closed to Confederate use. They even built a small prison camp and a cemetery here. Also, the site served as a place of refuge for Union sympathizers who came to the coast seeking help from the Union blockading force."   https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/323050

My latest footnote on the text of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD gives one an idea of the accuracy of the details included in Dougie Bailey's masterpiece of historical fiction based upon Dothan's formative years. Buck has turned eighteen. He's got twenty bucks in his pocket and he aims to move to Aven. He hitches a ride with his little brother on the family's wagon and as they proceed to town the sound the wagon's iron rimmed wheels make on the sand creates a white noise effect which stimulates a stream of consciousness in Buck that takes him back to the little schoolhouse he attended until he was eleven when he had to quit to work in the fields. One of the eleven statements about the images going through Buck's head reads "-his Blue Back speller that cost a quarter bushel of meal-." From what I can tell from reading old newspapers, Dougie was right on the money. Webster's Elementary Spelling Book, often compared to the Bible in terms of the number of copies printed in America, cost anywhere from 10 to 25 cents a copy and a quarter bushel of corn meal which was 12 pounds went anywhere from 10 to 25 cents per quarter bushel or peck. 

Mother's birthday October 7, 1918 https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1918.html

Great Grandfather's birthday December 3, 1818 https://www.famousbirthdays.com/year/1818.html 

1950 https://www.csalliance.org/CPSamples/CP380Sample.pdf 2014 Confederate Philatelist

http://www.jlkstamps.com/csa/archives/beau.htm 2009

Discovered a little more about an interesting TUSCALOOSA CONNECTION to the Dougie Bailey's novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD. Dougie's wife's mother, Emma Friedman Herzberg, was the sister of Sam Friedman and Hugo Friedman, both important civic leaders in Tuscaloosa and supporters of the University of Alabama. Friedman Hall where I roomed as a freshman was named for Hugo whose financial support of Alabama football enabled the team to win the championships that put BAMA in the national spotlight. Well, Sam was married to Annie Laurie Longshore so Dougie's wife's aunt's maiden name was Longshore and this was the name Dougie chose for the surname of his novel's banker who gives the protagonist, Buck Bannon, his first loan, whose daughter becomes Buck's first wife and whose threat to eliminate the City of Aven's credit leads Buck to regulate Aven's prostitutes, gamblers and bootleggers with city taxes. (the character of Buck Bannon is based upon the life of Dougie Bailey's uncle, Buck Baker, who served many terms as Dothan's mayor in the early twentieth century. https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

To "flick the lines" was a cue for the mule to pull the wagon forward. The driver would hold the reins over the mules backside and gently pop the mule's behind with them.

This maneuver made the use of a buggy whip unnecessary.

In Chapter 21 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, fifty year old Buck takes his "child bride", 19 year old Lota, out to Colorado for their honeymoon. Lota wanted to go out there because she'd never seen snow. Right when they get out West, Buck gets a telegram from his brother telling him that he's been drafted to run for Congress. Lota gets really excited about moving to D.C. but Buck tells her it's impossible for him to be elected because he has so many enemies in Aven. Her reply is "Killjoy.....Well, I'll go to Washington without you and I'll eat nothing but fried chicken and champagne." Buck responds, "You'll go to Aven and eat nothing but sowbelly and collards." The character of Lota Kyle is based upon Eula Stagg Baker Smith, Buck Baker's "child bride" who settled in Jacksonville, Florida after Buck's death. Eula ended up going "to Washington without you" and eating "nothing but fried chicken and champagne." In May of 1942, after being fired from her Jacksonville job, she was hired by Monroe Kaplan (a.k.a. John Porter Monroe, J.P. Monroe [almost sounds like "J.P. Morgan"]) as a "researcher." Monroe set Eula up in a 22 room 4 bath house on R Street in Washington and they began hosting dinner parties for D.C. bigwigs while acting as "manufacturer's agents" in negotiating contracts for firms supplying war material. After their scheme blew up, Eula became known as "THE MYSTERY WOMAN OF R STREET", "THE MYSTERIOUS WOMAN IN BLACK" (Eula wore all black with black stockings to the Congressional hearing investigating her) and "THE WOMAN IN THE BIG RED HOUSE".

"flicked the lines and pulled the mule sharply around"

"smooth whispering grind of the iron-rimmed wheels on hard sand"

"cotton quilt with the funny frocking on the edges"

"Blue Back speller that cost a quarter bushel of meal"

"pitch pine popping and sparking and scorching some while others froze"

"lunch bucket"

"fatback, syrup and corn bread"

"grabbed the lines to his chest"

"mules unshod feet"

"keep him from rattling the lines"

In an earlier post I corrected an entry in the 2010 Landmarks Foundation book concerning the building on the corner of Crawford and South Foster now occupied by MURAL CITY COFFEE. In that correction, I pointed out that the statement "In 1913, William Singletary and A.D. Whiddon opened a farm supply store on the site." could not possibly be correct because in 1913 they had gone into business in a building near the Poplar Head Mule Company building on the east side of South St. Andrews. Well, here's unnerder 'un. On page 49 of the Landmarks book, we read,"The corner of South Foster and Crawford streets was the location of a wagon yard operated by J.P. Folkes..." Well, the wagon yard was on the same block but it was over by Oates. This corner was occupied by the FARMER'S ALLIANCE COTTON WAREHOUSE in 1913. (many of you may recall that THE DOTHEN RIOT was fought over a drayage fee put on one of the Alliance warehouses by the City). That building burned in May of 1916.

At the beginning of Chapter 23 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, banker Amos Longshore, Buck's former father-in-law, comes into Buck's office in Aven City Hall and tells him that his bank will no longer cover the City of Aven's overdrafts. Since the City is not only broke but in the hole, Buck puts on his thinking cap and decides to tax all the prostitution houses, gambling dens and shot houses in town. He tells his friend and Chief of Police Tobe Parody, "Here we are givin' them police protection, streets, schools, an' a brand-new fire truck, an' they ain't payin' a dime. Legal places are totin' the whole load." In Dothan, I believe in the early days prostitution houses were located all around Dothan but when Mayor Buck Baker decided to zone Pleasant View (the area on Range Street between East Adams and East Burdeshaw) for prostitution, all of those establishments were mandated to move to this restricted district.

Dothan's 1983 National Register of Historic Places Inventory  https://npgallery.nps.gov/GetAsset/fd3391ae-00a4-4aa7-8b05-6efc123afd98

Pensacola supplier of slave made bricks http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-3958

The entire city block that was once owned by the Bakers is bordered by North Foster, Powell, North St. Andrews and Newton. During the 1920s, the upper part of the block on North Foster was owned by Mrs. E.L. [Maggie Baker] Dowling. It was later the location of Lex Dowling Oldsmobile.  504 N. Foster was owned by Mrs. Miles [Ghastie Baker] Miller. 502 N. Foster was owned by Mrs. Fred [Vera Baker] Lane and 500 N. Foster was owned by Mrs. F.M. [Willie Baker] Waters. These three houses are the models for the "gift houses" mentioned in DEVIL MAKE A THIRD which caused Jeanie Bannon to say jokingly to Buck, "Son, if just one of them acts like she don't like her gift house, we'll cut her throat with a salty meat knife." It would be nice to see pictures of these houses to see if their walkways were indeed constructed in the same manner as Dothan's city sidewalks. ~ from page 262 of DEVIL MAKE A THIRD: "He looked critically at the small white house set neatly in the angle of the corner lot on which they had planted the shrub, then his eyes wandered back and forth to the the other two corners where houses exactly like the nearest centered corner lots that were each one-fourth of the block. He could see Jeanie Bannon's home-the first house he'd ever built- still reared two stories above the fourth corner and in his mind's eye he could see the barn and the meat house and the chicken runs and the cow lot all sprawling back to the strict edge of the parcel of land that went with the house behind her. His eyes squinted along the precise white shine of smooth sidewalk that bordered the block. He frowned at the roots of the sycamores growing between the sidewalk and curb, where already big roots had pried up slabs at the foot of each tree. He followed with satisfaction, though, the same type of slabs formed wide walkways leading up to the four green steps of each house. His upper lip curled a little as he thought about those walkways, and he hoped nobody would notice that they were made out the same stuff and laid just exactly like those the city had used for sidewalk. He leaned  over suddenly and spat for luck at the trunk of the small shrub as his mother pushed back, sighing." (clipping from the November 2, 1922 DOTHAN EAGLE)

First, clean your drains thoroughly - get rid of all the black gunk by using the new zipit tool available at local stores or any device that gets out the big chunks.  Then mix a 5 to 1 water/bleach solution and flush the drains, followed by copious amounts of boiling water - at least 4 cups.  Then the next day, start  by dumping 1/2 cup of salt down the drain.  Then dump 1/2 cup of baking soda down on top of it.  Follow that with 1 cup of plain white vinegar and let the fun begin!  Allow all of this to set overnight, and flush it all down with at least 2 cups of boiling water in the morning.  To prevent future infestations, clean your drains often with this same solution.

my buddy Kenneth Redd who works with the Bay County Historical Society and has the OLD PANAMA CITY BEACH stuff on the Web, Youtube and Facebook has written an article which needs a lot of corrections and we'd sure appreciate your comments, opinions and CORRECTIONS! https://www.oldpanamacitybeach.com/2017/07/23/from-the-stage-at-the-old-dutch-to-the-opening-act-for-the-beatles/