I Just Wound Up At Burnt Corn, Alabama

Now Saturday is a rest day for me at this point in my life. I always joke and tell people since I am pretty much retired that, “I’m so lazy that if I got an award for being lazy, I would have to send somebody after it.”

My wife wasn’t feeling well because of a tooth situation so we had been hanging out at the house all day. She is like me in a sense. She can only sit in the house and do nothing for so long. Then, she has got to get up and get out and do something.

Finally, I asked her, did she want to go take a ride in the Jeep. She said well I don’t think my tooth will hurt any worse riding than it will sitting so I got my camera, a bottle of water, and a cup of coffee, and out the door we headed.

Just me my wife and our dog. We loaded in the Jeep and rode out and filled up with gas and headed out.

Now you have to understand something. Going for a ride in the Jeep in our part of the world is not a hard decision. Where, we end up going however, can be kind of a challenge. It is kind of like a couple that has been married for a lot of years trying to figure out where to eat supper. It is all good but where we want to go is just an elusive idea. 

I started making my way out of Monroeville and for whatever I headed out towards Drewery AL. There are many dirt roads out that way and many times when we go ride on a whim we go out that way and hit the dirt roads. 

For whatever reason I did not take one of the dirt roads but kept riding on the pavement. I was about halfway between Bermuda, and Burnt Corn when it hit me. I want to go to Burnt corn and take some photos. I haven’t taken any photos there in quite some time.

For whatever reason, Burnt Corn is one of those places that folks never get tired of taking pictures at. I honestly don’t remember the first time I took photos there, but I know that there are pictures hanging on people’s walls of the Methodist Church there that I took with a Canon AE-1 back in the 1980’s. I have taken photos there numerous times since. 

Sadly, I don’t have many of the photos left that I took so many years ago with 35mm film cameras. I took hundreds if not thousands of them. I honesty do not know how many times I took photos of the churches and such at Burnt Corn.

Today however, is a new day and I decided that today was the day I was going to go back in and shoot some photos of Burnt Corn again, like I have done numerous times before.

We drove up in front of the Bethany Baptist Church and I parked off the side of the road and got out. There is normally not a major traffic congestion issue in Burnt Corn so as long as you are not parked in the road you are good to go.

I took several shots of Bethany Baptist from several directions. As I was standing there taking photos and admiring it and how nice the paint looked, my mind went back to some time ago. I remembered another time I was taking photos of it and it had gotten in bad condition and needed painting. I had shared the photos on social media, not even thinking about how it looked.

I guess I have taken so many photos of so many little towns with buildings in bad shape that it just didn’t make much of an impression on me. The reason I didn’t think is I take photos by the hundreds of things that are in bad condition, and personally I had no ties to it other than I went to a few services there in the late 1970’s.

It did however cause a lot of people who saw it to take notice real fast. Before long there were numerous people contacting me and wanting to look at more of my pictures of it. Then a group got together and started raising funds and within weeks it was being painted. 

It actually felt good to stand there and look at it and make photos of it with a nice paint job on it. The cemetery did need some attention but everything else was in great shape as far as I was concerned.

I then walked down the road with my camera and took a few shots of the Methodist Church. I have never been inside of the Methodist Church. I know that it has been an icon of our part of the world as with most things in Burnt Corn for decades. I know that like I mentioned early on I took photos of it in the 1980’s and enlarged some of them to 11X14’s and sold several of them. 

I have heard many stories of that church, and how it came to be there, and how it came close to being torn down years ago, and so forth. What the stories are, and how they go, I am not sure, so I am not going to try to share them today, but it is a beautiful old church, and is a land mark that is recognized by many people all over the country.

Then I walked back and got in the Jeep with my wife and our little dog who were patiently waiting on me to do what I was doing.

I pulled up and parked the Jeep at the edge of the road near the Big Store. It was there that I remembered the house that sits out in the woods beside the Big Store.  I shot a few photos of it. As I stood there wondering the history of that house. I honestly do not remember anything about it. In fact, I honestly for whatever reason, did not even realize it was there until a year or so ago. I had passed it hundreds, if not thousands of times, and for whatever reason had not paid it attention. I guess my attention had always been focused on the store or other buildings.

I then backed up and shot a few shots of the Big Store from different angles. Yet again I started to reminisce. I remember when I was probably seven or eight years old my father and I went in the store. That would have been there first time I remembered going in. I remembered it like it was yesterday. I remembered that my father had a horse that Mr. Lowery had used. Now I do not know the story as to details but, I know he used him more than one time. I think that they had horses and might have had folks from out of town come in and needed an extra horse to ride. Anyway, he had a horse that was an excellent saddle horse, and Mr. Lowery had used him more than once. I know one time they came over to Hybart and got him and one time we carried him over.

Then I backed out and started taking photos of the other buildings one by one. They are like stepping back in time. The histories of the rest I do not know. I know one is known as the old Barber Shop Building. There are others that are identified by many for the purposes they served over the years. Since I do not remember on some and on others, I never knew to start with. I won’t even try to define them nor their purposes throughout the decades.

Then there is the Coca-Cola advertisement building. Over the years since it was painted, I honestly think that Burnt Corn is known more for that building than even the Methodist Church. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen photos of that building. I am not sure when the advertisement was painted nor who painted it but I know it is a well-known sight in the South.

I walked the street and took photos one at the time and then proceeded to walk back to the Jeep once again. As I was walking back to the Jeep I thought about the fact that one more unique thing about Burnt Corn is that it is on the Monroe, Conecuh, County line. The Big Store, and the Bethany Baptist Church, The Barber Shop, and the building with the Coke sign are in Monroe County. The Methodist Church and the other buildings on that side of the road are in Conecuh County. The road dividing the counties here is actually the Old Federal Road.

With that thought sliding around in my mind I got in the Jeep, and we drove on. 

Burnt Corn is a town full of history. It is much the same it has been for the last century, and hopefully it will continue to be maintained and remain the same for another century. There will always be those like me to walk through on a lazy Saturday afternoon and take photos of and reminisce and wonder about it. If it is not maintained, at least myself and many like me will have photo records of it for the decades to come.

If you have not been there you need to go. It is a magical special place.