By Marla Ballard
Reporter
DEKALB COUNTY -- Locals might want to save this article for the next time out-of-town guests come to visit and take their visitors on a trip into the past. While every town has a history not every town tells a tale that includes The Trail of Tears or has a multitude of easily accessible historical markers and landmarks. Visiting the past is easy when a plan and information are readily available.
Self-proclaimed tour guides might want to start their tour at 324 Gault Ave. N. at the Sawyer building. Take your guests back 144 years to 1879. While the building currently houses Boomtown Makers Market it has been the home to the Post Office, Alabama Power Company, the Water Office, Whaley and Burt Store, and Myrtle Bigley’s Hat Shop. It is an interesting place to pick up some local artwork or take a photo of Pete the Cat before traveling north one block and ten years back toward the future.
At 510 Gault Ave. N. visitors will find the oldest theater in Alabama, the Fort Payne Opera House. This time-honored theater is the only one in the State of Alabama still in use. The structure was built in 1889, to put that in perspective, it was the same year Washington, Montana, and the Dakotas were admitted to statehood. It was also the same year the Eiffel Tower was inaugurated. The building has been used as a movie house and live theater, these days yoga classes are taught and annual events such as the Fiddler’s Convention can be found keeping the place lively.
Crossover to the Northeast side of the street to the Fort Payne Depot Museum and land two years later in time in 1891. Architectural enthusiasts will enjoy the Richardsonian Romanesque style with its thick walls made from locally quarried pink and white sandstone. For 85 years the depot served the Alabama-Great Southern Railroad. The Museum is on the National Register of Historic places and serves upwards of 3,000 visitors annually. History buffs will enjoy the exhibits and artifacts on display.
Take a drive up Lookout Mountain and jump forward in time to the Depression years at DeSoto State Park when visiting the Civilian Conservation Corps Museum (CCC) and the Lodge. The small but informative cabin-sized museum can be accessed by appointment during the off-season. The CCC was a government-made work program during the Great Depression. The CCC was developed as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, designed to bring relief to millions of unemployed. Few work programs during this time matched the success of the CCC as it contributed to the preservation of county, state, and national parks.
Planning a tour to visit the Trail of Tears, Historic Wills Valley School, Willstown Mission & Cemetery, Council Bluff School and more can be researched by visiting landmarksdekalbal.org.
“A generation which ignores history has no past and no future,” - Robert Heinlein, American Author (1907-1988).
