Russellville Watermelon Festival

On August 15, 2009 Lori and I headed to northwest Alabama to check out the Russellville Watermelon Festival. While we were up that way we thought it'd be a good idea to see some other towns in the area. Our first stop was the tiny town of Mt. Hope, which is located on Lawrence County Highway 23 at the intersection with Lawrence County Highway 32, about a mile or two south of Alabama Highway 24.


The largest building in the town is an old cotton gin. A sign on the front indicates that it is a product of the Continental Gin Machinery Company. Continental Gin was a conglomeration of five gin producers, one of which was originally founded by Daniel Pratt, founder of the city of Prattville. Although the building appears run-down and abandoned, there was a strange noise emanating from within. Upon further investigation I noticed a rather large and newer forklift inside with oxygen canisters on a pallet inside.


While looking over the building I heard a noise coming from the roof. I looked up at the hole in the side of the building and out flew a hawk. A minute later another one flew out. Lori said she even saw a third fly away. Makes me wonder if the noise I heard was some machinery running in the building, or them protecting their nest.


Neighboring the gin is the defunct Gilbreath Grocery building. Painted on the front facade are two bolls of cotton and what appears to be a bail of cotton. Apparently there's a resident artist in the community as the buildings "downtown" have murals painted on them as well.


"Downtown" Mt. Hope is made up of a post office and an apparently abandoned building. Someone has painted some doors on the front of the building as well as signs for what was, presumably, the original occupants of the space. On one end is Sibley's Barber Shop, where haircuts are just 50 cents. The largest tenant is Dukeminier's General Merchandise. A sign at the top of the wall reads "Mt. Hope 1912". It's funny that someone went to all that trouble to paint the doors and signs in a town with a population of maybe 20 people. Remarkably several cars passed through in the ten minutes we were there.

Across the highway from the large gin is what appeared to be another part of the gin. Across the roof of one of the buildings is painted "Mt. Hope" in large yellow letters.


After Mt. Hope we headed to the Watermelon Festival in Russellville. It had everything you'd expect from a festival: car show, antique tractor show, art and crafts, food vendors, etc. It had everything except for actual watermelon. We saw a few people walking around with a huge chunk of fruit, but never found where they got it. We got there a little earlier than we thought we would and didn't feel like waiting around in the heat and crowd long enough to get lunch from one of the vendors.


On the way back to the car I saw this "mailbox". I had never seen anything like it, and thought it would come in handy as I have a few frayed and damaged flags that need to be respectfully destroyed. Lori and I plan on visiting Russellville again, so we'll have to remember to bring the flags.

We hit the road headed north toward the Shoals area and just had to get a shot of this drive-in sign just north of Russellville on US Highway 43. The theater was operational when we visited and they were playing films that had opened on a couple of weeks before. There is another drive-in in Childersburg on US Highway 280 and it plays new movies. I never would have thought that drive-ins would be so up-to-date in their selections.

The next town we visited was Tuscumbia, birthplace of the deaf and blind Helen Keller. Tuscumbia has a very nice old train depot. As you can tell by the trash can and handicap parking sign it is still in use. I didn't go in, but it's probably some sort of museum now.

Next came Muscle Shoals. For some reason Muscle Shoals is a very popular place for recording music. Many hits have been recorded in Muscle Shoals or the nearby city of Sheffield. FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) Studio was the original recording studio in the area. It was first located on the second floor of a building in dowtown Florence, right above a pharmacy (that building has since been torn down and is a parking lot). It was moved to another location, then to the location seen in the picture, after the original founders split up.

After the original members of FAME split up two of them formed Muscle Shoals Sound and setup shop in a little building on Jackson Highway in Sheffield.

In 1978 Muscle Shoals Sound moved into a new studio next to the Tennessee River. The building was originally used by the Navy Reserve but had been abandoned prior to being used as a studio. The building is now home to Cypress Moon Studios.

Just up the road and across the Tennessee River from Tuscumbia is Florence, home of the University of North Alabama (TUNA), and Dale's Restaurant. Dale's is famous throughout Alabama for their steak marinade. Dale's started in the cellar of an apartment building in downtown Birmingham and grew from there. From what I can tell the location in Florence is the only one left open.

Lori and I had lunch at Rosie's Cantina in downtown Florence. The food was alright, but was way overpriced.

After lunch we headed next door to Trowbridge's Ice Cream Bar. It has been there since before World War II (or was it World War 11?) (1918 to be exact) and serves sandwiches and ice cream. I had a scoop of cookies-n-cream and Lori had their famous orange-pineapple ice cream, which has been on the menu since the restaurant was first opened.

After ice cream we explored downtown Florence. It's definitely one of the best downtowns around. It was very clean, no crumbling buildings, and most all storefronts appeared to be occupied. The Shoals theater resides in Florence and, of course, has a great neon sign. I found it interesting that next to the courthouse is a handicap parking space complete with parking meter.

Greensboro, Alabama

Located in Hale County, Greensboro is The Catfish Capital of Alabama. I was unaware that Alabama had a Catfish Festival, and we only saw one catfish operation while we were there. However, we did see a lot of urban decay in the downtown area.



A fireplace can be seen on the exterior of a decaying building.



What's left of a bank vault. The rest of the building has fallen apart around it.



Another abandoned and falling apart building, sometimes known as the "Alamo." Grass carpets the interior, and the walls are decorated with vegetation that literally grows through what's left of the structure.



Some of the buildings were still in good shape, although on this particular mid-Saturday afternoon, the town was pretty deserted. City Hardware wasn't too bad, and I think I might have seen a person go in. There seemed to be several younger people roaming around the downtown area on bikes or foot. They may have been heading to Pie Lab down a side street. Pie happens to be one of my favorite things, but we were a little unsure of what exactly the place was, if it was open or if there was actually pie. There was what looked like cleaning or construction equipment on the front porch, so we didn't venture in. According to their website that I found later, they do indeed have pie, as well as conversation, ideas and design. I must say that it seems a little out of place in Greensboro, but good luck to those who are trying to make it work.

Farm, Home and Wildlife Expo at Chilton Research and Extension Center

As a Shelby County Master Gardener, I have many opportunities to volunteer in a variety of horticulture-related ways. One of the big events for Shelby and Chilton County Master Gardeners is the Farm, Home and Wildlife Expo that is held every August at the Chilton Research and Extension Center in Clanton, AL. The center is part of the Alabama Cooperative Extension Center, and here they focus on fruit and vegetable crop research. With several acres to play with, they have large areas planted with kiwi, grapes, figs, persimmons, strawberries and more.

In a way the Expo is a very specific and specialized event, but there are a variety of activities to keep everyone in the family busy, and there were huge crowds of people there. More than 200 varieties of peaches are grown at the station, and at least 50 of those were available to taste in the fruit tasting tent. Many of the varieties were still in the experimental stage and not yet named. Watermelon, grapes, heirloom tomatoes and figs also had a spot in the tent. I manned the fig sampling station where we had 12-15 varieties of figs, including some unique ones that were supposed to have a lemon flavor. While the lemon flavor was debatable, many people, including myself, agreed that the best is the good 'ole brown turkey variety that many people have growing in their yards.

There was also a dessert tasting area with many types of breads and cakes made with peaches, blackberries, figs, muscadines and blueberries. The peach fried pie was delicious, as was the peach cobbler. The homemade blackberry, strawberry and muscadine ice cream were also very good.



There was an expansive area filled with tractors, trucks and other lawn and farm equipment, such as these plows.



There were too many other demonstrations and events throughout the day to name them all, but this area demonstrated turf grass management for various types of turf. Thrilling, right? There was also a talk on Alabama's 10 worst invasive weed species. Kudzu has to be on that list.



The goats and cow were a little more interesting. They were on hand for anyone who wanted to give them a pet and to demonstrate milking practices. Corn shelling and fritter frying, food preservation, blackberry culture and trellising, home fire ant control, growing and pruning crape myrtles, cage fish culture, stir fry cooking, kiwifruit production, gun and drug dog demonatrations and hoophouse culture were just a few of the other topics being demonstrated or discussed at regular intervals throughout the day. Although we did not partake in the fun, everyone who attends the event has the opportunity to hang around and enjoy free hamburgers and entertainment at the end of the day.