Andalusia, Alabama

As I said previously, this town is about 18 miles from where we were parked.  Tour books had nothing to say about Andalusia, but we were looking for something to do Sunday afternoon so we drove into the town.  Local people only spoke with us about the shops and fast food places on the out-skirts of town, like that was what we were interested in seeing.  However, we wanted history, not shopping.  Andalusia is the county seat and the biggest city  in the county (population of Andalusia is 9,015 as of 2010).  A faded sign pointed us to the downtown area.  Here there were a few small shops which seemed to be doing well, but the majority were empty buildings.  Typical story of small towns in America.  Then I saw a mural on one of the buildings.  Maybe there was something interesting here!

Near the mural was a plaque stating that in 1976 the Rotary Club's bicentennial project was a Domino's Tournament.  That project has continued annually since then, with many celebrities in attendance.  In the picture above one of the men is Coach Bear Bryant.  Continuing our drive through town and into the historic district we found more murals.

On the Pirate Graphics store is this large picture of Hank Williams, a legendary country western singer.  Here he married Audrey December 15, 1944.  In the building once was a garage where they were married.  We slowly found more murals on a variety of building and could piece together some of the history of the town.

From the interpretive signs with the murals we figured out how Andalusia received its name.  It was possibly due to the town's connection with the region's chief trading center, Pensacola, which was then under Spanish rule (here we are talking of the early 1800s).  The mural above is called the Legend of Andalusia.  A Spanish soldier is confronted by Native Americans who are awed by the white stallion which he had brought from Spain.  The soldier convinces them that he was on his way to give the horse to their chief, and his life was spared.  The above mural is just a small piece of the total picture.  Very well done.

We had been seeing cattle farms along the roads here in Alabama.  The cattle were longhorns, which we generally had seen only in Texas.  It was the Spanish who brought this particular breed of cattle to America about 200 years ago.  The cow pictured above is only a calf,  other cattle with long horns are pictured in the mural.  The art depicts a young boy salting his family's free-ranging native cattle

One last picture here, which celebrates the arrival of utilities to Andalusia at the turn of the twentieth century.  In the mural children are observing a washer and stove being delivered to their home.
We did find a street in this town called Historic District Road, it led to the old train depot which houses a museum- it was closed.  
That was our interesting afternoon in Andalusia, we certainly enjoyed it more than we expected. It was good  that we had made the trip because on Monday we were forced to stay inside because of the wind and rain caused by Irma.  The one time I ventured out my feet sunk into sandy muck from which it was hard to step out of.  I immediately returned inside.  By Tuesday the ground had dried enough so we could move our rig from Alabama to Panama City Beach, Florida.  The worse of the storm was over.