April Roadtrip, Day 2... Around Columbus

Day 2

Sunday, April 2, 2023

    Today was simply about exploring Columbus, Georgia.  There were no set plans for the day.  As an added bonus, no rain like the previous day.  And while I did gripe about the traffic noise at the Motel 6, I did get a nice sunrise on my way down to the Waffle House for breakfast.  

    Being Sunday morning, the city was pretty quiet.  After breakfast, I simply walked the half mile down to the river.  

   Just two blocks from the water sits this small park and marker...

     While Col. LaGrange was busy in West Point, Maj. Gen. James Wilson was headed south to take over the city of Columbus.  He had 13,000 men under his command, as opposed to 3,500 defenders.  

     Confederate Maj. Gen. Howell Cobb set up his first line of defense across the Chattahoochee River in what is today Phenix City, Alabama.  With only two bridges across to Columbus, he knew exactly where to expect Wilson.  The north bridge was heavily defended.  The south bridge wasn't.  It was a trap.

      Union forces easily took the Alabama side of the southern bridge and started to cross.  That's when they discovered the trap.  Planks had been removed on the Georgia side making it unusable.  The bridge was then set afire with the advancing troops on it.  They realized what was happening fast enough to safely retreat.  

      Gen. Cobb sent word he expected a large battle the next morning.  Gen. Wilson had other ideas.  At 8P, his troops stormed the confederate positions at the north bridge.  In the confusion and darkness, Union troops were running across the river side by side with retreating Confederates.  

     The next morning, Gen. Wilson ordered the burning of any infrastructure that could still be used to supply the Confederacy.  They captured the ironclad CSS Jackson, lit it on fire and set it adrift.  

    A few days later, word of Gen. Lee's surrender reached General Joseph Johnson.  He had been fighting near Durham, NC and expected reinforcements from Lee.  Instead, he began negotiations for surrender of the last large army on the confederacy.  President Andrew Johnson declared the war over on May 10, 1865.  

     Quite a few cities have riverwalks.  In Columbus, it stretches over twelve miles.  This morning I simply chose to head north.  I was impressed this seemed completely undisturbed.

   Something tells me there's a story here.  And where's the second shoe?

   This mill is a mile up the walkway, and my turnaround point.  I worked my way back to the pedestrian bridge across the river.

     Each colored canopy represents a part of the city's history.  The red one commemorates John Pemberton.  Before the civil war, he ran a local pharmacy.  As a member of the Georgia Home Guard, he was called up to serve in the city's defense.  He received a saber gash and bullet wound in the fight.

     Afterwards, he went back and reopened his shop.  One of his inventions was something he called French Wine Coca.  It was a mixture of red wine, kola nut and coca leaf extract.  He claimed it offered relief from all kinds of stomach ailments.

     He brought his concoction to Atlanta and due to local laws, was no longer allowed to manufacture it with wine.  Instead he added sweeteners and rebranded it as Coca-Cola.  

     After doing a google search for coffee shops, I decided to take the long way back to the motel...

      

      Somehow this just seemed wrong...

      Eventually, I did wind up at Iron Bank Coffee.  Yes, it's a repurposed bank.

     While it doesn't look that much different than any other old building here, it's actually made of cast iron.  When Gen. Wilson's troops were occupying Columbus, they came to the bank and searched it looking for hidden vaults.  There was a rumored $2 million in Confederate gold stored there.  They found nothing.

     After working my way back to the room, I checked to see what was actually open on Sundays.  The Columbus City Museum was in the process of moving.  A few others were simply closed.  

      A great deal has changed since my last visit to Columbus in 2008.  One place I found interesting was the Confederate Civil War Museum.  It was pretty small at the time.  Over the years it's expanded a great deal and is now the National Civil War Naval Museum.  

      In the biggest room they have the frame of the CSS Jackson.  This was the ironclad captured when Columbus fell.  It was set on fire and then adrift.  In 1962, recovery of the ship's hull began.  The white metal frame above outlines the burned upper section.  

     CSS Jackson's overall length was 220 feet, and she was 58 feet wide.  She was protected by four inches of iron plating over two feet of wood.  

      This photo is from the Columbus Daily Enquirer, December, 1864.

     In another room sits the remains of the CSS Chattahoochee.  It was scuttled downriver from Columbus to avoid its capture by the approaching Union forces.

     Another room houses a recreation of the USS Albemarle.  It was a smaller Confederate ship, protecting the Pungo River in Pamlico Sound, North Carolina.  Captured by Union patrol ships, it served the remainder of the war as a storage and supply ship.

      Which brings us to another roadtrip rule.  If you see something interesting as you drive by, turn around and go back.   Traffic patterns made that difficult.  But, I did go back after I left the museum.  There's just something about an abandoned antique market.   This is also the former location of the Lunch Box Museum.

       By now it was mid afternoon and definitely time for some lunch.  I ditched the car in an area they call Uptown.  It's the first few blocks off the river.  My parking spot was next to the Bradley Theater.  The theater opened in 1940, but closed in 1977.  A few years later, the seats were removed and it reopened as a teen center.  That didn't last and it would eventually be turned into a multi use facility hosting concerts, weddings and private parties.  

      In 2006, concerns over its use were brought to the Columbus City Council.  Residents complained the theater was being used as a nightclub.  With a capacity of 1,500 people, that meant a lot of people suddenly out on the streets when it closed at 3A.  It closed for good in 2010.  You can see pictures inside the theater thanks to the folks at cinematreasures.org.  
       By now you know I can't pass up a new brewery.  So, lunch was at a place called the Cannon Brew Pub.  The staff couldn't have been nicer.  The food was your basic brew pub fare and the beer I tried flavorful.  Not the best of the trip, but definitely a place I could return to some day.

       Up the street is the Momma Goldberg Deli.  I only mention it for the building.  For decades I'd pass a former H.L. Green store on my drive into work.(It still feels weird saying that in the past tense)  It was part of a chain that reached 227 stores at its peak.  The last one closed in the late 1990's.  

     After heading back to the room to write up some notes from the day, I was back down by the river for sunset.  

     Walking back towards the room, I passed Country's Barbecue.  While the smell wafting in the breeze was certainly inviting, I definitely wasn't thinking more food.  But, I walked by.  They've repurposed the old Greyhound Bus terminal into a barbecue joint.  

     

Coming Up,

I'm heavily encouraged to get the heck outta town

April Roadtrip, Day 1...Heading Out

Day 1

Saturday, April 1, 2023

    The original plan was to be up and out nice and early.  April in the deep south has a way of mixing things up though.  With the car packed and ready to go, I checked the weather one last time.  This turned out to be the best decision of the day.  A line of storms was headed my way.  For reference, Fayetteville is just north-east of that blue dot, Peachtree City.  

        My house is on the north side of town.  The driving route for the morning would have taken me south, through the center of town, then west through Peachtree City.  If I had left at 8A as planned, I would have driven right into this...

     That blue dot is the center of town.  The red highlighted area was a tornado warning.  While it never touched down, one did start to form.  It dipped out of the clouds, then went back up again causing no damage.

           The sky was starting to clear by 9:30A, but more rain was coming.  Not wanting to wait another hour or two, I left for Columbus.

    

    The tour of the south-east begins in the city of LaGrange.  It began as an unincorporated cotton farming community.  French General and Revolutionary War hero Marquis de La Fayette passed through in 1825 while on a national tour. He commented that it reminded him of his wife’s country estate outside Paris that she had named LaGrange.  

     With cheap slave labor, the cotton industry thrived in this part of the state.  Access to the Chattahoochee River meant it could easily be shipped downstream for export.  The small community turned into a city and became the county seat of Troup County.  

     If you take a visit to the Georgia Statehouse, you'll see not only a portrait, but a statue of Benjamin Harvey Hill.  In LaGrange, you can tour his home, a place he called Bellevue.  

      Hill's career started out in the law before being elected to the Georgia state legislature in 1851.  With potential civil war brewing, he openly spoke out against secession.  It wasn't because he was a big believer in the union.  He was convinced it would lead to the end of slavery and the southern lifestyle.  

     Once the Confederate government had been formed, he was elected into the Confederate States Senate.   

     When the war ended, he came out against reconstruction.  His passionate speeches around the state got him noticed.  He was elected to the U.S. Congress for one term before returning to the Georgia Statehouse, then eventually the U.S. Senate.  

     Across town, there's a small park with a very large clock tower.   The tower is dedicated to Fuller Calloway.  In 1888, at the age of eighteen, Calloway used his savings and some family money to open a small department store in LaGrange.  It would eventually expand to a small chain of stores.  

     Calloway also noticed something happening and took advantage of it, saying, "every town wanted a cotton mill."  So, he started building cotton mills.   This would eventually lead to his owning warehouses and banks in the area.

      En route to the tower, I passed a small sign at an intersection simply saying, "Book Sale."  Naturally, I backtracked and found the Friends of the LaGrange Library were raising money for their new building.  An unexpected and pleasant surprise to begin the trip!

     A few years ago, I was passing through on my way home and stopped into Beacon Brewery.   I hadn't given it much though considering how early I had planned leaving.  However, it was just afternoon and another nice bonus to the day.

     The sandwich was great and the beer just as good as I remembered.  When I asked Wendy my waitress for coleslaw on the side, she said, "I have to warn you, we don't use mayo."  Delicious, and oddly enough not the last time you'll hear about coleslaw on this trip.

    From LaGrange, it’s a short drive to the town of West Point, named for its location as the westernmost point on the Chattahoochee River.  This is where you’ll find Fort Tyler, the last Confederate fort to fall in the waning days of the Civil War.

     The fort was named after their commanding officer, Brig. Gen. Robert Tyler.  General Tyler only had a hundred and twenty soldiers, as well as a hundred local men and boys who agreed to make a stand.

     Union Major General James Wilson  had already captured Selma and Montgomery, Alabama.  As he moved east, he destroyed railroad lines and infrastructure.  General Wilson tasked Colonel O. H. LaGrange the job of taking the bridge across the Chattahoochee River and the rail yards in West Point.  Meanwhile, he would head south to take the bridge into Columbus.

     Col. LaGrange set his artillery on a hill overlooking the fort.  As the cannon fired, his infantry dashed across the bridge and surrounded the Confederates.  After Gen. Tyler was killed by a sniper, the defenders surrendered.  

      There are two different versions of how Tyler died.  One claims he was simply looking out at the battle.  The other claims he had made a promise never to surrender.  To keep his promise, he put himself in a position to be killed, thus allowing the fort to surrender.

       Either way, it ended the battle.  

       This was April 16, 1865, seven days after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant after the Battle of Appomattox Court House. 

      With the battle over, Col. LaGrange had his men empty the cars in the rail yard before burning them.  Some of the food was given to the mayor of West Point to feed the townspeople. The rest was distributed to the armies and wounded on both sides.

       In the parking lot to the fort, there's a memorial.  On the side it reads, "A tribute of love from the women of the south to the heroes of the Confederacy."

      From there it's a very short walk up a paved path to the fort...

      Sadly, a week before I left, storms rolled through Georgia and spawned an EF-3 tornado that touched down in West Point.  It damaged over eighty buildings, with thirty sustaining heavy damage.  The good news is, only two people were treated for minor injuries.

       On the edge of town, the storm created a break in the fence of a drive through safari attraction, temporarily freeing two tigers.  One wandered out and then went back in.  The other didn’t stray very far and was returned after a brief search.

       From West Point, the drive was a series of back roads to I-185. Along the way, I encountered a mystery.  This certainly looks like an old railroad depo.  But, the usual websites dedicated to abandoned rail lines don't show one here.  

     The name on the side is McCulloh.  But, there's no McCulloh, Georgia.  Stranger still, the adjacent road had this sign...

     This isn't even Lee County.  That's three counties east. Very strange.

      Part of me does regret not going down that road though.

     Onward to Columbus, my home for the next two nights and the only motel on this trip I definitely wouldn't stay a second time.  The room was fine.  It was clean and the bed relatively comfortable.  I even had a decent view.  That's Hwy 27 down below.  

     I can deal with the drove of traffic.  I can even deal with the sirens.  But, apparently loud mufflers are officially a thing again.  That got really old.

     On the plus side, it was an easy half mile walk down to the Chattahoochee River.  The city has a really nice series of walkways up and down the river.  It seemed the perfect place to settle in to watch the people fishing as I awaited sunset.

     This guy was great...

     He took the time to explain to some curious kids what he was doing and the proper way to remove the hook from the fish's mouth.  He even explained why he had to throw some of it back.  

      Not a bad way to wrap up the day...

    From the walk back, spring in the south.