The Jackson County Chronicles
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ISSN-1071-2348 January 2020 The Jackson County Chronicles Volume 32, Number 1 In this issue: January Meeting: The Jackson County • Goodbye to an Old Friend: An Historical Association will meet Sunday appreciation of Rev. James January 26, 2020 at 2:00 p.m. at the Thompson who shared his acting Scottsboro Depot. Our guest speaker, and writing skill with us. David Ivey, will present the history of shape • Alabama 200, The End of the note music and its connection to Jackson Three-Year Party: A review of County. Mr. Ivey, originally from Henagar, some of the ways that our county Alabama, is a National Endowment for the benefitted from the bicentennial. Arts National Heritage Fellow and is one of • Review of the Second Cedar Hill the leading scholars on the subject of sacred Cemetery Stroll: A recognition of the actors and people who made harp or shape note music. the stroll possible. Ivey was born into one of the most • Jackson County and the Goat- recognized of the Sacred Harp singing Gland Doctor: A Jackson County families of Sand Mountain, Alabama. He resident who journeyed to Texas to began attending singing schools in Henagar, Alabama, under such be treated by quack doctor and notable singing masters as NEA National Heritage Fellow Hugh radio pioneer J. R. Brinkley. McGraw and Leonard Lacy, He is the recipient of numerous • A Brief History of Cotton in Jackson County: A historical apprenticeship grants through the Alabama Folk Arts Apprenticeship perspective of the amazing Program. He was one of the youngest of the seven-person committee comeback of a crop that had that revised the 1991 edition of The Sacred Harp, today's most popular nearly disappeared. edition among singers nationwide. • NACC Digital Collection Helps He has founded a camp to promote the art form, Camp Fasola, and Reunite Two Vietnam Vets:: A worked with famed music producer T. Bone Burnett to make the portrait of two veterans reunited sacred harp recordings that were included on the soundtrack to the through Dr. Ron Dykes’ book. • Jackson County’s Oldest movie Cold Mountain. Surviving Structures: An essay Yearbooks Project: All fall, I have been scanning Jackson County from retired state architect Robert yearbooks and putting them on the JCHA web site. I scanned them Gamble and a look at what using optical character recognition (OCR) software so that the outsiders value in Jackson County. yearbooks can be searched. You can, in fact, search any part of the • Active JCHA Members: The JCHA site or the whole site using the google site command. From a annual listing of our members. google command line, type Editor: Annette Norris Bradford site: http://www.jchaweb.org “searchstring” Associate Editor: David Bradford and press Enter. This yields clickable hits inside the JCHA web site. I Editor Emeritus: Ann B. Chambless have done the first 50 years of Jackson County High School and many JCHA Officers yearbooks from Woodville, Skyline, Bridgeport, and North Sand President: Lennie Cisco Mountain. I am missing most of the 1930s and the late 1940s. If Vice-President: Blake Wilhelm anyone has yearbooks from this time, please write me at Secretary: Tammy Bradford [email protected]. I have only three Pisgah yearbooks and none Treasurer: Elizabeth “Bunny” from Section. Please help me create this resource. Mountain © The Jackson County Historical Association January 2020 1 of 30 ISSN-1071-2348 January 2020 Goodbye to an Old Friend JCHA member, contributing author, and friend Dr. James Thompson died the week of Thanksgiving at his home near Florence, AL. Dr. Thompson’s most recent and visible role with our organization was in the 2018 Cedar Hill Cemetery Stroll when he portrayed aviation pioneer Cecil Floyd. Cecil Floyd was a Scottsboro native who lost his life while flying a military jet fighter prototype, the P-80, during a test flight in 1947. Within a few years of Floyd’s death, Dr. Thompson was flying the first production military jet, the F-86, logging 71 combat missions in Korea and receiving the Distinguished Flying Cross. Dr. Thompson was the central figure in an incident that has entered Scottsboro lore: As a recent Auburn graduate who had returned to live with his parents before mustering into the Air Force in 1950, Thompson heard a small aircraft repeatedly passing over downtown well after midnight during a heavy storm. He called Frank Henshaw, a veteran military pilot who was working late at his business, Scottsboro Funeral Home. The two used the spotlight on the funeral home’s ambulance to signal the small plane, and the pilot flashed his lights and tipped his wings, acknowledging their signal. Thompson Jimmy Thompson as Cecil Floyd on the 2018 Cedar and Henshaw, with the aid of pharmacist Charles Hodges and Hill Cemetery Stroll telephone switchboard operators Veda Maude Sumner and Bert Woodall contacted local residents, who gathered at a makeshift airstrip off Tupelo Pike, lighting the landing path with the headlights of their cars, guiding the badly disoriented pilot to a safe landing. Coincidentally, the pilot of the plane, Bob Kieran, had been a fraternity brother of Thompson’s at Auburn. Kieran and his passenger went home with Thompson, spending the night with Thompson’s parents before continuing on their way to Birmingham the next day. The incident made the national network newscasts. James Knox Thompson was born October 28, 1928 to John Knox Thompson and Teresa Adams Thompson in Scottsboro. He grew up in a home which still stands at 405 North Market Street. There, he formed lifetime friendships with nearby residents Jake Word, Ralph Powell, and Eddie Ray Hembree. He graduated from Jackson County High School in 1947. After graduating from Auburn University, he joined the US Air Force and became a fighter pilot in the 4th Fighter Wing in Korea. Following his service, he entered the ministry, receiving a Master of Divinity from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta and a Doctorate of the Science of Theology from the San Francisco Theological Seminary. The Westminster Presbyterian Church in Florence, AL was among his prestigious pastorates. © The Jackson County Historical Association January 2020 2 of 30 ISSN-1071-2348 January 2020 Dr. Thompson felt compelled to share his remarkable knowledge of county history with readers of The Chronicles. He published a profile of high school classmate General Fate Melton in our January 2017 edition, a biography of fellow pilot Cecil Floyd in April 2018, and an article about the amiable resolution between two factions of the Presbyterian church who avoided a confrontation over the disposition of a shared church building in the early 1950’s in our October 2018 edition. We frequently called on him to verify our historical sketches. He was able, for instance, to confirm for us that Germany’s Graf Zeppelin passed over the courthouse square in the early 1930s. He had witnessed the event from the front yard of his home, one block off the square. When asked to portray Cecil Floyd in the 2018 Cedar Hill Cemetery Stroll, Dr. Thompson, then 89 years old, expressed doubts that his health would allow him to perform for two hours. In the end, he told cemetery stroll organizers, “I’ve got to do it. This will probably be the last time Cecil will be remembered publicly.” At the stroll, he engaged hundreds of listeners with his first-hand knowledge of the early years of jet aviation. Dressed in his flight suit and helmet from his combat missions 68 years before, he posed for dozens of pictures with young admirers. James Thompson was a gentleman who was willing to give freely of his time and talents to preserve his memories of growing up in Jackson County. We have lost a valued friend and remarkable talent. We are deeply saddened by his passing. Alabama 200: The End of a Three-Year Party Following designation as a territory in March, 1817, Alabama became the nation’s twenty-second state on December 14, 1819. The state’s three-year birthday celebration ended December 14, 2019 with special concerts, a parade, and the dedication of a new park in Montgomery. During this three-year celebration, the state bicentennial commission has invested in schools and teachers, engaged communities, and encouraged citizens and visitors alike to explore and learn about the state. The Heritage Center ran a passport program similar to the national parks’ program where visitors toured the sites called out in passports and had their documents stamped to remember their visits. Heritage Center Directory Jennifer Petty reports that she stamped quite a number of passports. The county also received several grants from the Bicentennial Commission. In June 2018, the Northeast Alabama Community College and the Jackson County Historical Association received a $2,500 grant to fund their first Cedar Hill Cemetery Stroll, held October 24, 2018. In August 2018, the Alabama/Tennessee Trail of Tears Corridor Association received a $5,000 grant. In August 2018, four schools in Jackson County were recognized as Alabama Bicentennial Schools and received $2,000 grants: Bridgeport Middle School, Woodville High School, and Pisgah High School. Chosen from a competitive pool of nearly 400 proposals, 200 schools were selected, and 56 schools received $500 honorable mention grants, including Hollywood School. And in January 2019, the Stevenson Library was chosen as the county’s site for the state traveling exhibit, “Making Alabama. A Bicentennial Traveling Exhibit.” We all benefited from our participation in the bicentennial events. Well done, State of Alabama! © The Jackson County Historical Association January 2020 3 of 30 ISSN-1071-2348 January 2020 Review of Our Second Cedar Hill Stroll The second Cedar Hill Cemetery, held on October 6, 2019, is now history.