THE DAY BEAR BRYANT DIED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luqTtwwTk68

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih_kFjiYFHc&fbclid=IwAR1cZqYEGTu-vIaWfwRh24bQtnpg77t3ZUu7FsbqYmbNEbm7J3qxYlRLJRI

 https://www.google.com/search?q=BEAR+BRYANT+FUNERAL&sxsrf=ACYBGNQtg9D_SkXUcOcU-6urn9N-TMGeyA:1575468569203&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=jgUGf7GHcsJKPM%253A%252CEZMP0f2024g5fM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kSfq3ONCsLQ212ESY_cgHvIbes7rw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi73K_jlZzmAhWFUt8KHVGfDEUQ_h0wIXoECBAQCg&biw=1978&bih=1178#imgrc=jgUGf7GHcsJKPM:

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

In the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, 18 year old Buck Bannon awakens on his first morning in Aven and finds that the new town consists of  "a single business street"  made up of "a row of tin-roofed store buildings lining the street nearest the railroad." As he walks along contemplating what he sees, Buck absent-mindedly stumbles into his first business deal in the form of a calf being held by a young country boy standing in front of a store named Green's General Merchandise. It is here that Buck discovers "the shortcut" to riches and over the next three chapters, he acquires enough money to buy Titus Green's store as well as the entire city block across from the store where he builds a large house for his parents and the Bannon siblings.(later in the novel Buck will build the three "gift houses" that his Mother requested for his sisters). On the first page of Chapter 6, Buck admires the big house he has just completed on land he'd paid too much for but Buck believed it was worth it because "a man oughtn't to live over two hoe handles from his business."

Well this week, by examining a copy of the 1935 DOTHAN CITY DIRECTORY,  I found out that the old Joe Baker house @ 509 North St. Andrews was directly across the street from Green Grocery @ 200 East Powell on the southeast corner of North St. Andrews and East Powell. Dougie Bailey grew up in a house next to the old Joe Baker house. His Mother, Willie Baker, owned 500 North Foster. Her sister, Mrs. Vera Lane, owned 502 North Foster, and another sister, Mrs. M.A. Miller owned 504 North Foster. These were gift houses built according to the wishes of their Mother, Mrs. Joe Baker.

During this holiday season please encourage your young friends and family members to explore their own heritage; not just the stuff about their parents-grandparents-great-grandparents but also the story of their town, their county, their region. Yesterday I studied five volumes which are CRYSTAL CLEAR WINDOWS into Dothan and Tuscaloosa's past: The 1935 Dothan City Directory, the 1939 Dothan City Directory, the 1902 Tuscaloosa City Directory, the 1916 Tuscaloosa City Directory and the 1924 Tuscaloosa City Directory. Because members of the Black race are noted in all five books, it is easy to find Black and White neighborhoods as well as Black-owned businesses along with Black schools and churches. For example, in 1935 Dothan had 7 Black-owned restaurants and 9 Black-owned grocery stores. I was also surprised to find that back then Dothan's Black high school was called South-East Alabama High School. I'll be sharing more of my discoveries but remember that these old city directories are one helluva research tool. If somebody was doing their job, all this stuff along with the old newspapers with THEIR LEGAL NOTICES would have all been online a long time ago as a PUBLIC SERVICE TO ALABAMA CITIZENS but, unfortunately, that ain't the case. (This 1902 Tuscaloosa City Directory does not have the typical street address log listing all the addresses, occupants, intersections, etc. This early directory is made up alphabetized lists of businesses and citizens with addresses under the new avenue and street grid. With today's technology, I believe that a 1902 Tuscaloosa street guide could be constructed using existing information.) https://archive.org/details/tuscaloosacitydi00unse/page/n6

During this holiday season please encourage your young friends and family members to explore their own heritage; not just the stuff about their parents-grandparents-great-grandparents but also the story of their town, their county, their region. Yesterday I studied five volumes which are CRYSTAL CLEAR WINDOWS into Dothan and Tuscaloosa's past: The 1935 Dothan City Directory, the 1939 Dothan City Directory, the 1902 Tuscaloosa City Directory, the 1916 Tuscaloosa City Directory and the 1924 Tuscaloosa City Directory. Because  members of the Black race are noted in all five books, it is easy to find Black and White neighborhoods as well as Black-owned businesses along with Black schools and churches. For example, in 1935 Dothan had 7 Black-owned restaurants and 9 Black-owned grocery stores. I was also surprised to find that back then Dothan's Black high school was called South-East Alabama High School. I'll be sharing more of my discoveries but remember that these old city directories are one helluva research tool. If somebody was doing their job, all this stuff along with the old newspapers with THEIR LEGAL NOTICES would have all been online a long time ago as a PUBLIC SERVICE TO ALABAMA CITIZENS but, unfortunately, that ain't the case. https://sites.google.com/site/onlinedirectorysite/Home/usa/al/houston

After years spent playing around with the characters, incidents, place names and colloquialisms of the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, the process of footnoting the entire novel began with 52 footnotes containing both text and images for Chapter 1. All of this work has been preserved on the blog The DEVIL MAKE A THIRD Commentary. The footnoting will continue but a new endeavor has begun which will be a study guide which will closely follow the story.

"Chapter 1: Buck left the farm when he was eighteen."

The novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD opens with young Buck Bannon behind the plow "blinded by the sun", with sweat stinging his eyes and burning as it soaked  into the raw places on his neck chafed by the mule's reins but none of that mattered because "he was eighteen  and he was following a mule for the last time." The reader has no idea whether Buck had spontaneously made this momentous decision or whether it was made after careful planning. One thing is for certain, the main thing on Buck's mind is how he's going to tell his Mother he's leaving the old home place forever and moving to the nearby town of Aven.
https://privatepropertynotrespass.blogspot.com/

 After years spent playing around with the characters, incidents, place names and colloquialisms of the novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD, the process of footnoting the entire novel began with 52 footnotes containing both text and images for Chapter 1. All of this work has been preserved on the blog The DEVIL MAKE A THIRD Commentary. The footnoting will continue but a new endeavor has begun which will be a study guide which will closely follow the story.

"Chapter 1: Buck left the farm when he was eighteen."

The novel DEVIL MAKE A THIRD opens with young Buck Bannon behind the plow "blinded by the sun", with sweat stinging his eyes and burning as it soaked  into the raw places on his neck chafed by the mule's reins but none of that mattered because "he was eighteen  and he was following a mule for the last time." The reader has no idea whether Buck had spontaneously made this momentous decision or whether it was made after careful planning. One thing is for certain, the main thing on Buck's mind is how he's going to tell his Mother he's leaving the old home place forever and moving to the nearby town of Aven.

Dr. John R. Drish owned a large farm on both sides of the Greensboro road reaching from the boundaries of the old corporation southward to where the depot of the Ala. Great Southern Rail Road now stands. His residence is now the Jemison schoolhouse. It was planned and its building was superintended by a Negro slave of Dr. Drish. From its front door northward to the corporation line (ed. note: present day 15th Street) extended a broad avenue of elm trees which still stand. At the corporation line was the entrance gate; on the west side of which was built a porters' lodge, occupied by a family of Negroes that were the property of Dr. Drish. Someone was supposed to be always in attendance to open and shut this gate as needed. The style was that of an Englishman's country estate, and this large plantation was well cultivated at all times. West of this residence of Dr. Drish, extending from the back yard in rear of the residence nearly to the Greensboro road on the west, was a long row of brick rooms where the Negroes lived who cultivated this farm.


In the large field on the west side of the road that reached from the corporation line down to about where the oil mill now stands, and perhaps 200 yards west of Greensboro road, was the gin house and long-armed wooden screw press to gin and press all the cotton raised on the place and that of many neighbors contiguous with smaller farms. Dr. Drish owned also a large plantation in Mississippi, where overseers were employed to manage his business. I do not remember that he had any children except one son and one daughter who married a Mr. King, who had two sons, John Rigor Drish King, and Edward D. King. The elder, John, was about one year older than I, and Edward about the same age. Their mother had lost her mind, and was kept as secluded as possible in her father's residence. I was intimate as a schoolfellow of the boys and often visited them at their home with their grandparents, but I do not remember to have ever seen their mother. I suppose that their father had been divorced. Alabama at that date had no hospital for the insane. Ed. King was my bunk mate in Lumsden’s Battery the last two years of the Confederate war, and I never once asked any question whatever about his family affairs.

I'll be sending you the Pickens County Herald clippings about your Daddy in my next email because those images are on Kevin Pake's computer and he's busy on it right now. This email will give you some information about the 1887 panoramic map of Tuscaloosa. I plan on composing a guide to portions of the map which deal with Peco's downtown properties on Greensboro (Market Street) , University (Broad Street and Huntsville Road) and Lurleen North (Washington Street). Very few changes had occurred on Tuscaloosa's landscape between 1865 and 1887 so this 132 year old map gives us a window into a lost civilization which occupied this matrix (Tuscaloosa Street Survey 1821) from 1821 until the Federal invasion and occupation of 1865. Here's a link to one of my blogs where I taken a photograph of the large map we now have in the Pake Realty office and have begun to examine the neighborhood around the Peco building near the intersection of Queen City and University. https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/11/i-have-identified-5-demolished.html

This link is to a guide to the 1887 buildings around the present-day Bama Theater @ the intersection of 6th Street (Cotton Street) and Greensboro Avenue (Market Street). This black and white image came from an online version of the 1887 map. https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/10/autobiography-of-james-robert-maxwell.html

This link is to other guides I have worked on concerning downtown areas of the 1887 map. https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-two-large-buildings-in-middle-of.html

The Library of Congress has a wonderful collection of these maps that are begging for interpretation.  They have 1491 panoramic maps from the U.S.A. and many from Canada. New York state has 204 of these maps which were produced from about 1875 up until WWI. I am confident that they are just as accurate as Tuscaloosa's. They have 10 Alabama panoramic maps ( Anniston[1887, 1888], B'ham[1885, 1904], Gadsden[1887] , Huntsville[1871], Montgomery[1887], Selma[1887], Tuscaloosa[1887]. They also have 13 Florida panoramic maps, 15 from Georgia, 12 from Tennessee and 4 from Louisiana online.  https://www.loc.gov/collections/panoramic-maps/index/location/?sp=1

Please let me know if you are interested in any of this stuff or if you'd like to have an enlarged and mounted 1887 Tuskaloosa Perspective Map.

Best,
r

I made a big mistake. It wasn't necessarily that I was stupid. It was more like I was ignorant. Yes, we live in the AGE OF SUPERFICIAL but a better way to describe it is SHALLOW MIND TIME... https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/shallow.html?p=13

I have identified 5 demolished buildings in this image. #1 is on in the left corner, Prince House #1(University Masonic Club) located where the Shell station now stands on the Strip; #2 is to right of it in the middle of the next block parallel to Huntsville Road, Prince House #2 which was located on 7th Street about half-way down the block west of 15th Avenue; #3 is the large red brick structure at the top right of the image, Verner High School. It was located just east of the intersection of 16th Avenue and Bryant Drive; #4 is Alonzo Hill's Female College near the middle of the image labeled "8" and to the right of the name "East Margin". It was located near the southeast corner of the intersection of Queen City and University; #5 is the Buck House, present-day 1818 University Boulevard, on the northeast corner of Broad Street (University Boulevard) and Bear Street(19th Avenue) . A dependency for this house still stands at the intersection of 19th Avenue and University Blvd. I have also identified 11 buildings in this image that are still standing.

The 14 buildings still standing in 2019 which are pictured on this 1887 image include #1. Ormond Little House (c. 1835) 325 Queen City. It can be seen as the brick building midway along the left border of the image just to the left of the street name "East Margin". #2 University Club (c. 1834) 421 Queen City is to the right of it. #3. Jones House (c. 1833), 1804 4th Street, on this image is across East Margin from Ormand Little and it was a two-story structure in 1887. #4. Buck Carriage House (c. 1854) 1818 University Boulevard is behind the Buck House in this image that once stood on the northeast corner of "Bear St." (19th Ave.) and "Broad" (Univ. Blvd.) #5. Guild-Verner House (c. 1822) is the red brick building across "Bear St." from the Buck House in this image. #6. Owen-Free House (c. 1826) 1817 3rd Street is a part of a complex of buildings on the right side of the square in this image occupied by #3~Jones House. #7. Moody-Warner House (1822) 1925 8th Street is toward the upper right corner of this image one block above the title "Union Street" (7th St.). #8. Jemison-Brandon-Waugh (c. 1840) 1005 17th Ave. is in the upper right corner of this image. #9. Marmaduke Williams House (c. 1835)  907 17th Ave. is to the left of #8. #10. Foster-Murfee-Caples House (c. 1838) 815 17th Avenue is the large house with the circular drive which is to the left of #9. You can see a line of tenant houses proceeding to the left of #10. To the right of this line of what were originally slave quarters is #11. McEachin-Little House (c. 1842) 709 Queen City. Across the street to the left of #11 is #12. Turner-McAlpin-Fellows House (c. 1840) 621 Queen City Avenue. #13. Jemison-Wilbourne House (c. 1870) 1904 7th Street has not been identified on this image but structures on "Union Street" are present where it should be located on this map. The same thing goes with #14. Palmer-Deal House (c. 1866) 1902 8th Street has not been identified on the image but should be among the structures pictured across the street from #7.Moody-Warner House.