“Claybank Memories: A History of Dale County, Alabama,” by Val L. McGee, was first published by the Dale County Historical Society during the 1989 “Alabama Reunion” project. The book is rich in information that otherwise might have been overlooked or lost. In celebration of the Dale County 200th anniversary, Sept. 26, 2024, “Claybank Memories” has been re-issued in a commemorative paperback edition. In these pages, future generations of Dale Countians will be introduced to the spirit of the “Wiregrass” area they call home.
In “Claybank Memories,” McGee presents anecdotes and stories about Dale County, starting with the wild feud between Ozark and Newton for the permanent location of the county seat. Raiding parties from the rival communities burned down both towns’ courthouses! McGee recounts the coming of the first train, the lighting of Ozark with electric streetlamps, the opening of the first “Theatorium” or movie house and the excitement of the first plane buzzing the rooftops. Readers can vicariously “cheer from the sidelines” as Dale County High beats Dothan in football for the first time and then be embarrassed when the Dale County band deserts the bleachers because nobody knows how to play the national anthem. McGee records the landing of the first plane at the newly constructed Napier Field, the initial broadcast of WOZK-radio in 1953, the first class to graduate at Wallace Junior College and the elopement and marriage in Ozark, by a justice of the peace, of Paul (Bear) Bryant and Mary Harmon Black. Longtime residents of Dale County stand out in “Claybank Memories,” pioneer families like the Dowlings, Matthews, Carrolls, Adams, and Holmans, who lived in Dale County and helped lead the community. One of the most prominent leaders, McGee points out, was Ozark’s mayor, Douglas Brown, who took a stand in favor of civil rights during the 1960s when it was political suicide to do so.
414 pages, illustrated with 60 b and w photos, ISBN 9780916242954, $24.95 (Distributed by Yoknapatawpha Press)
Claybank Memories A History of Dale County, Alabama: A History of Dale County, Alabama: McGee, Val L.: 9780916242954
“THE ORIGINS OF FORT RUCKER,” by Val L. McGee
The story of Fort Rucker, Alabama (renamed Fort Novosel) begins during the Great Depression. In 1935, Ozark congressman Henry B. Steagall—confidante of President Franklin D. Roosevelt—and local county agent Doug Thomason, along with newspaper editor Jesse B. Adams, persuaded the Department of the Interior to purchase 35,000 acres of land in Dale and Coffee counties. Nicknamed “The Bear Farm,” this huge tract of land where Confederate soldiers trained in 1861 became the nucleus of Camp Rucker, constructed in 1942 and named after Confederate General Edmund W. Rucker. Today, Fort Novosel is a major U.S. military installation, vital to the life and economy of the Wiregrass section of Alabama.
Author Val McGee (1920-2015), a Dale County, Alabama, district judge and native of the Wiregrass region of South Alabama, was stationed at Camp Rucker during World War II before transferring with the 66th Infantry Division to the European Theatre of Operations.
204 pages, illustrated with 60 b and w photos, ISBN 9780916242961, $19.95 (Distributed by Yoknapatawpha Press)
