In the fall of 1985 we moved to Haleyville, AL in Winston County. Winston Co. was called the Free State of Winston because they tried to secede from the State of Ala. during the Civil War.Jim went to work for Kayser Roth Corp. when he resigned from Bali. I had never heard of Haleyville. We rented a house for 3 months until we bought a large house near the Bankhead Forest and the Sipsey wilderness area - 6 miles from Haleyville.
(http://www.lightinside.org/bike/sipsey_wilderness_area.htm) This house had so many features such as a commercial stove and built-in appliances in the kitchen, all kinds of electrical gadgets available from Ala Power, marble floors in bathrooms, big garage with separate garage door openers, storm shelter underneath one side of the house, and much more. A small catfish pond
was at the edge of the yard. The large 5 acre yard was beautifully landscaped and we had to hire someone to take care of it. A red barn was used for storage. We felt lost in such a big house with so many rooms, but this was the only house we could find to buy when we moved there. We moved in during Christmas week. Ron, Cindy and Elizabeth came from Texas for Christmas, and Bill came from Columbus, OH. It was snowing thenight the arrived and was a very cold week.
I became interested in the history of Winston Co. and I helped research and write a history of the county and Phil Campbell Jr. College wrote a musical play from this history for an outdoor drama about the Free State of Winston. It was performed the first time in the parking lot of a grocery store in the county seat of Double Springs. For the past several years, it has been performed at Looney's Tavern amphitheater in Double Springs www.archives.state.al.us/emblems/st_drama.html
I must go see it again some day to see if it's anything like the original one we wrote. We got to know the sister and brother of Pat Butram who was on Green Acres (the farmer, Mr. Haney). Most of the industry of that area was building mobile homes. We were there only 8 months when Kayser Roth announced they were closing the Hayleyville plant. This was a shock for this small town and Jim agreed to stay on to assist in closing the plant down. In November someone wanted to buy our house and we moved into a rental house and stored much of our furniture until Jim finished his job and looked for employment elsewhere.
We decided to move to Dothan, to be close to our tree farm in Elba, AL and Jim bought a commercial real estate franchise to sell businesses. He had a real estate license and thought he would try his hand at selling real estate. So in the spring of 1987 we moved to Dothan, AL.
