As those of you that have followed me on Facebook and other means know that I am working on several projects. One being get a drone video of as many standing Forest Fire Lookout Towers that are still standing in Alabama as I can. Another project that I want to accomplish is to visit all 67 counties in Alabama. In those counties I like to document the buildings left standing that probably won’t be a decade from now. I also like to document as many churches as I can that I see. Most times it is the old country whitewashed ones standing out and away, but many of the others as well. Of course, I will photograph anything interesting, different, or historical.
As I say more times than not when I write, I photograph the decay of our beloved Southland not to point an accusing finger nor degrade any local areas but rather to bring awareness to what has happened, and the damage done.
As is true with many I run into it bothers me to see what has happened to our great beautiful land. I try to shy away from politics and finger pointing as to the issues and rather to just show what has happened and allow those that see to make their own determinations.
I know all of this sounds redundant, but I feel that it needs to be said over and over.
Another decade and much of what we see in whatever forms of decay won’t be standing at all.
On this particular, trip my goal as to travel East from I-65 to the Georgia state line taking a zig zagging route pretty much North of Al. Hwy 10. This was to be my third trip across on this venture. The previous two trips had been across at lower levels with me working across one day, spending the night on the East side and working back West the second day.
As I was planning a recent Ramble, I was looking at my maps. I was trying to make a determination on what route I wanted to take. As the paths across move northward it requires more driving over the same areas already covered to get to the starting point so to speak.
For whatever reason my eyes settled on Fort Deposit. I have been through what we all know as Fort Deposit on I-65 hundreds of times in my lifetime. I however, cannot say that I have ever visited the town of Fort Deposit other than many years ago I went to the Calico Fort Arts and Craft show a couple of different times.
For whatever reason I honestly thought the town itself was on the East side of I-65 and not the West.
As my eyes settled on Ft. Deposit I started to settle on a route there taking the back roads. On this route I found Mt. Willing where a Fire Tower is still standing that I did not have photos of, so I could check something else off the list of things I Was working on. I actually wrote about that in an earlier post. https://jacksonsramblings.com/mt-willing-lookout-tower/.
Now as I drove the route up, and shot photos of various things, primarily old churches on the way up, and got the Fire Tower shots done, I made it to Fort Deposit.
According to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Deposit,_Alabama
Since 1890 it has been the largest town in Lowndes County, AL. According to the information on Wikipedia it grew from 2000 to 2010 but then declined between 2010 and 2020. I would venture to say from the appearance I saw it is declining sharply since 2020. I have no way of knowing that for sure and I honestly hope something changes to reverse that.
Reportedly the town sits on 5.6 square miles.
Fort Deposit was named for the fort built there under orders of General Andrew Jackson. It was a supply fort that was built to supply soldiers during the times of the Creek Indian Wars. It was incorporated February 13, 1891. It also is supposed to be the highest point between Montgomery, AL. and New Orleans, LA.
Again this information came from Wikipedia and is referenced there is anybody chooses to source it all out.
Now as I arrived in Fort Deposit I was not certain what I would see. From experience of traveling small old towns, I figured there would be some buildings that were vacant and in various stages of decay. Sadly, very seldom do I visit an older Southern Town do I not see that.
The very first thing I saw upon entering town was a gathering of people. Curious I slowed down and realized that it was a food giveaway. There were trailers with pallets of food that was being distributed. There was a line of cars with folks waiting in line to get food. This is a sight that is all too common across the country. I did not take time to even estimate how many cars there were nor how many people but I know that the length of the line was incredible to me. This added to my thoughts of how depressed our beloved Southland has become.
I rode around and took various pictures of the various places in town. This is a town that has suffered immensely. A once bustling beautiful town that is like hundreds if not thousands more across America that are nothing more than rotting down buildings.
I say it every time I go into a town like this it breaks my heart. As I have seen on the various trips I have taken in the past and would see on this trip these towns are everywhere as I will write in blog posts to come.
Stores, post office buildings, doctor’s offices, churches, and many homes. So many times just sitting there deteriorating.
Many times, you can identify the place by the sign or remnants of a sign that is there still. Other times there is no sign and if a local does not fill you in you have no way of knowing what was there. Clothing stores, mom and pop grocery stores, all closed up.
Overlooking the town there was a beautiful painted water tank. That is a sign of hope. It is a thing of beauty. As always that is still a sign of the future. I also saw numerous houses well kept up in the residential areas of town. That is a positive as well. Although the businesses were forced to close fortunately people are still able to. Live there.
One beautiful thing to me was this beautiful church building. I hope somebody will chime and with comments and tell me all about it. It looks to me like it is going through some sort of renovation, which I think is awesome.
I saw other positive things here. There were other churches that were still kept. Even though there were many buildings that were empty or just there, there was life still in this town which I am glad to see.
Like so many of our southern neighbors this town will most probably be here many years to come and somehow I would not doubt it coming back to something of its former glory one day.
As always it was a pleasure to visit Fort Deposit, Alabama and hopefully I will see it again in the not too distant future and hopefully there will be signs of growth and comeback that are evident to all.