Bat Findley and a companion use a horse and buggy in a time before Highway 31.
In the early days of the automobile travel was anything but consistent. Muddy pig trials and dangerous bridges awaited travelers who dared venture upon the roads on their iron horse.
As time passed the state legislatures determined that roads needed to be uniformed and cover long distances. Early attempts can be seen in Santa Rosa County where the county built a brick paved road which was intended to connect to the roads of other counties. Eventually the state governments saw that large scale planning would be needed if the highways in planning were to spread across an entire state.
The first planned highway in Alabama was Highway 31. The highway was a joint project with other states and stretched from Spanish Fort, Alabama to the top of Indiana. The state apportioned funds for the construction of the highway and soon work began. The work was slow going and took years to complete.
Small towns like Canoe, Alabama bristled with construction workers and heavy equipment as the highway came through. At Wawbeek, a highway worker spent most of the day digging up flowers in an elderly woman's yard and replanting them elsewhere so that the highway would not destroy her beautiful plants.
The highway soon took on a life of its own. School children would skate along Highway 31 as in travel was light in the early days. One individual who grew up in the 1930s recollected skating from Canoe to Atmore and back at night.
It was the early motor age and the "Roaring Twenties" roared through Canoe, Atmore, Flomaton and Brewton. At one point in time the only connection between communities was tiny roads, the railroad or foot traffic, now the connection between the area would start to resemble our modern era as traffic rolled by on their way to other destinations. In an age before the interstate, freight trucks took to the highways and traveled not only across Alabama but across the nation.
Gas stations were another creature of the highway. With the coming of Highway 31, small gas stations emerged along the sideways and byways of the region. Gas stations such as Baggett's Gas Station in Canoe was an early example of such a filling station.
Highway 31 was an engineering marvel for its day, unlike anything that had been previously attempted. Concrete was poured in slabs and placed in the roadbed. The result was a distinct bump as one drove up and down the road. Local newspaper editor R.W. Brooks wrote of "riding on the new-modern highway," in a 1936 article about the old settlement of Evansville.
Highway 31 was something of a template for other highways. A decade after its construction the WPA (Work's Progress Administration) began a huge construction project to build Highway 4 across Northwest Florida. It is likely that many of the same workers who had aided in the Highway 31 project also assisted in the Depression era building of Highway 4.
By the 1950s things were changing. The Eisenhower administration spearheaded legislation to construct a national interstate system. The interstate system was originally part of a defense appropriations bill and was for the purpose of allowing the rapid transport of men and material in the event of a war with the Soviet Union.
With the coming of the interstate, many small town communities began to dry up as motorists began to prefer the rapid homogenized interstate to the slower local color of the highways. By the early 1960s most of the stores which were in part supported by highway traffic in Canoe had closed and the area would enter a new chapter in its history.
Purchase Shadows and Dust Volumes one and two, as well as Canoe-History of a Southern Town for the low price of $50 for all three books or $20 per book. Send check or money order to Post Office Box 579 Atmore, Alabama 36504.
Coming this summer: Shadows and Dust III
