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