The third day of our April and May trip to the southeast states, Tuesday, April 26, began at Childersburg, Ala., just southeast of Birmingham. We had driven through Birmingham on Monday evening, and then had begun looking for a motel for the night. I was actually surprised that we found a nice motel in Childersburg. Just by looking at the town’s name on the map, I had expected Childersburg to be a little wide spot in the road. As it turned out, Childersburg was a sizable town. I should know by now not to judge a town based on the sound of its name.

As we drove through central Alabama, I began noticing timberlands along the way. Evidently trees and timber are major sources of income in Alabama. Of course when one observes tree farming, especially the scene after a woodlot has been harvested, the sight can be pretty dismaying. Rather than the two-man cross-cut saws of years ago, or the manon-a-chainsaw commonly seen in today’s northwest Arkansas, timber harvest in large production areas is usually done by massive machinery, and the immediate outcome is a smashed and slashed look in the cleared woodlot. But, as we traveled, we would pass by cleared lots that had beenreplanted, and we could see the stand of trees being re-established for the next tree crop. In a few towns we saw large lumber mills.

Parts of Arkansas usedto have a major lumber industry, as well. In the late 1800s, when Rogers and Fayetteville were being built up, the Van Winkle Mill, located over near War Eagle off Arkansas Hwy.

12, was a huge supplier of lumber for all of northwest Arkansas. But when the trees had been cleared, the industry faded away. Likewise, the Jonesboro area in east Arkansas was once a major timber supplier, but much of the timberland was cleared for farming, and today it is big grainproducing area.

Alabama seems to be working their timber as a renewable crop, and maintaining an ongoing industry. Interestingly, this morning as Nancy and I were driving through Bella Vista, we passed a truck carrying a huge load of lumber, from Alabama no less!

On Tuesday, April 26, our main morning destination was the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, located on the Tallapoosa River in east central Alabama, near the town of Dadeville. The March 27, 1814, battle there was the final battle in the Creek Indian wars, which was part of the War of 1812. This battle was the last stand of a band of about 1,000 Creek Indian warriors called the“Red Stick” faction, who had determined to repel the encroaching white settlers from Creek ancestral lands in today’s Alabama and Georgia by violent overthrow. General Andrew Jackson, with an army of about 3,000 soldiers, assisted by friendly Creek and Cherokee Indians, surrounded the Red Sticks at a bend in the Tallapoosa River called Horseshoe Bend.

In the brutal fighting on the afternoon of March 27, 1814, almost 800 of the Creek warriors were killed, and the Creek resistance was ended. Shortly after, the Creek nation ceded almost 23 million acres of their land to the United States, land which would soon become the state of Alabama.

I became very interested in these southeast U.S.

events, because they are thebackground of later events that would result in the settlement of our part of northwest Arkansas. Partly due to the fame he gained at the battle of Horseshoe Bend, Andrew Jackson was able to become president of the United States in 1828. In 1830, much to the dismay of Indian tribes throughout the southeast part of our country, President Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, compelling all the tribes - Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and even Cherokees - to be relocated to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. That began the Trail of Tears movement of Indians to Oklahoma, with some of the bands passingthrough the Elkhorn Tavern area, near Pea Ridge, in the mid-to-late 1830s, with awful suffering and much loss of life. The early white settlers came to Pea Ridge in the 1830s and 1840s, and Pea Ridge dates its origin from 1850, when the first Post Office was established in our town. Horseshoe Bend was a very sad and sobering experience for me.

Our next destination was Warm Springs, Ga., where President Franklin D. Roosevelt had his Little White House. He used the little white house as a retreat, and seems to have found great satisfaction in participating in the community life of Warm Springs.

President Roosevelt passed away there in 1945, shortly before the end of World War II. We visited the museum on the site, and were able to walk through the small white house itself.

I was also fascinated by a 1940s Willys car which the president used at Warm Springs. The Willys company is gone today, but the brand continues in the name Jeep.

In the evening we spent the night at Americus, Ga., a town that came to national attention during the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history.

He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected], or call 621-1621.

Community, Pages 5 on 06/08/2011