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May 5, 2018 - 1 comment.

Helena History

I talked with Ken Penhale one April Sunday afternoon at the City of Helena Museum, which bears his name, and for which he is the director and curator. Following is some of our conversation.

VB: What are your early memories of the Cahaba River?
KP: I can remember my father taking me swimming in an area where there were some shoals. He also took me along a few times when he went to snare redhorse. When I was older I would camp at the river with my older brothers and cousins. The campsite was on a bluff above the river, and we slept on quilts. We set “trot lines” across the river and caught bream and gar.

Buck Creek was closer to our house, so we spent more time there than at the Cahaba. I can remember swimming under the bridge near the dam when I was around six or seven. Also as a child I can remember a neighbor taking me swimming at the “girl’s swimming hole”. My mother told of a story when she was a child and was swimming there with other girls, and a man who was naked (apparently unaware anyone was around) ran and jumped off the bank into the creek.
The tornado of 1933 (which hit Helena at 3 or 4 am, killing 13 residents) destroyed many buildings in town, including the grist mill. My older brothers would jump into the “mill pond” from the slab that remained. The mill pond, formed by the dam, was also where I learned to swim- when my older brother threw me in. (A wooden dam was placed on Buck’s Creek before the Civil War.)
As a teen, we would often walk through the woods to go swimming. Once we camped near the coke ovens. I smoked a cigar and got sicker than I had ever been. It also didn’t help that I drank a soft drink that had gotten hot. Later we had a cabin on Buck Creek near the Cahaba. We would often spend the nights there in the summer, and even when it was cold. We would also go there on Sunday afternoons.
There were several swimming holes- “gar hole”, “Scott hole” (which was mainly a fishing spot), the girl’s swimming hole, mill pond, and the “bend hole” (which was upstream from the dam. An unusual fact about Buck Creek is that it flows north.

VB: Do you know of any drownings?
KP: In 1944, a soldier home on leave during WW2 was swimming with his wife in the Cahaba. When she began to struggle, he tried to save her and both drowned. Another man drowned while fishing with two other men. Two young boys (brothers) died on the river near Blakefield.

VB: The tornado was obviously the most significant event in Helena’s history. Were there any others.
KP: There hasn’t been anything like that. Buildings have burned, including the jail. A prisoner decided he would set the jail on fire, so that they would rescue him. His fatal mistake was that the jailer lived over a mile away and no one else had a key.
There have been people struck and killed by trains crossing the trestle, including 2 children who apparently panicked and were unable to get off to safety.
There have also been train wrecks. One of these occurred Easter morning of 1959. We could hear it from my house. It resulted in train cars falling into Buck Creek.

Our main transportation when I was young was to ride the train. As an 8 or 9 year old I would go to Birmingham with my mother, and grandmother (who always wanted someone with her when she went downtown). The L & N railroad had three passenger trains which ran through Helena each day (the mail car was part of the train). The first was southbound around 7 or 8 am. At 10am we would take the northbound train in to Birmingham to go shopping. The last train brought us back later in the afternoon.
One of these shopping trips was on the same day as the Iron Bowl. The train was very long. When it stopped at the Helena station, our car’s position was on the trestle high above the Cahaba River. Looking down into the river was a frightening experience for a young boy.

Ken is at the Helena Museum most Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Stop in to see his collection of historical pictures and mining-related tools. My favorite is a mounted river redhorse, and accompanying newspaper article about a local family and their redhorse snaring.

VB

May 3, 2018 - 14 comments

Alligator Encounter

For many reasons this would be our most ambitious float on the Cahaba River. First, for us, it was an unseen area of the river. The closest I had been was to end a previous day-trip at the point this one would begin- the US 80 crossing of the Cahaba, west of Selma. Technology somewhat minimized this handicap. I was able to view the river by looking at an online map. This was especially useful in planning a potential overnight camping spot- potential being the key word.
Second, was that we had not canoed this far before- 21+ miles. Most of our trips had been limited to single days. The exception being a two day trip from Heiberger to Sprott which my boys and I made more than once with the Cahaba River Society.
In addition to these factors, this was the largest group for which I had planned- a total of nine people and five canoes. Family members comprised the majority- a son, son-in-law, brother, and two nephews. Rounding out the flotilla were a friend’s son, and a neighbor and his son.

We headed south from Birmingham early one Saturday morning in May of 2016 in four vehicles (with canoes atop all- my truck with two). After a brief stop in Selma for last minute supplies, we arrived and unloaded our gear at US 80. The next step was to get vehicles to our destination- the Alabama River at Old Cahawba, our state’s first Capital. The staff of the Old Cahawba Archaeological Park were extremely helpful, volunteering to transport us the 25 land-miles back to our starting point.

There is a lot of work that goes into a float trip, and questions of “Is it worth all of this?” sometimes pop into my head. Whenever I am finally on the river, the answer is never in question. This morning was no different.

After paddling for a few hours, we needed to stop for lunch. This part of the river had no bank on which to get out. We ate alongside an eight foot high rock wall, with all the canoes tied together, and our then anchored to some plants that were growing out of the wall. The first day’s paddling was easier than the last because water flowing into the Cahaba from the Alabama River negated the current which had gently pushed us along.

By mid-afternoon we had reached the preselected area to look for a campsite. Everyone had hammocks, so we needed multiple trees and little undergrowth. On map images I saw a power line cut and thought we might able to get into the woods next to this. Unfortunately, the vegetation was too thick in the cut and the adjacent woods. I canoed another hundred yards to where I remembered seeing a sandbar on the inside edge of a ninety degree right hand turn. The sandbar was there, but the wooded area was not open enough. During this time, by brother found a level spot that was perfect for our site.

After a dinner of grilled hamburgers, someone canoed down to the big bend in the river. The conversation went something like this, “Doesn’t that log on the sandbar look like an alligator? Yes, it sure does. IT IS AN ALLIGATOR!”

When they reported back, four more of us canoed down for a look. When we finally got too close, “he” slowly lumbered into and below the river’s surface. He later popped his snout up between our canoes like a bottlenose porpoise would at the gulf, and then swam beside us for a few seconds. Suddenly he was gone. As we quietly waited for another appearance which never came, I heard/felt a vibration in the bottom of the canoe. I checked my bag which was at my feet to see if my phone was the source. When I didn’t find a phone, I asked my son in the other canoe if the sound was coming from the river bank on the other side of them. “No…, it is coming from under us!” The realization that this was originating from alligators beneath the water was astounding and unnerving. It was a deep, continuous rumble which we felt as much as heard. This was an unexpected thrill to experience- especially from a canoe.

It also wasn’t the last gator we would see. The next day the lead paddlers rounded a bend and four or five small ones scrambled into the river. As we got closer to the Alabama River there were two times that a gator swam ahead of us for several minutes. One of these was over 6 feet long.
Alligators in the Cahaba- another surprise the river has for those who seek them.

VB