Speaking about the Past to the Present for a Better Future
The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS), founded in 1953 by community leaders and local historians and genealogists, initiated a program of study and education about the history in the region of Chambers County in Alabama and Troup and Harris Counties in Georgia. Recognized in 2003 by the Alabama Historical Association, the CVHS was presented the James Ray Kuykendahl Award because of its fifty years of exemplary efforts to preserve, conserve local documents and artifacts and to interpret local history through the publishing of 21 monographs and a quarterly newsletter promoting the study of local history and quarterly public presentations on local history.
Our quarterly newsletter, called The VOICE, is mailed to members as part of their membership. Examples of past issues of The VOICE can be seen HERE. We hope you will consider joining us as we continue to study the fascinating heritage of our community. Becoming a member is easy. Just print the Membership Form, fill it out and mail it, with your designated dues for the level you choose, to Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society, P.O. Box 718, West Point, GA 31833. We hope to see you at the next meeting! We meet quarterly – on the fourth Sunday of the months of January, April, July, and October.
Read more about the continuing functions of our organization in the article below, reprinted from the Fall 2018 issue of The VOICE.
2023 OFFICERS
President: Jason Williams
VP Membership/Marketing: Tony Peregoy
VP Programs: Charlie Powers
Editor: Ron Williams
Reporting: Wayne Clark
Treasurer: Malinda Powers
The following is an in-depth article about the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society and its functions.
By: Dr. Horace McLean Holderfield
The James Ray Kuykendahl Award of 2003:
Implications for the Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society
In late August CVHS was contacted by the Alabama Historical Association(AHA) which requested information for an article to be written by former President AHA, Mrs. Gayle Thomas. CVHS, which received AHA recognition in 2003 for its work to preserve and interpret local history, was asked to report on its major efforts in carrying out its mission since 2003. Mrs. Thomas would be receiving reports from various local historical organizations and writing the report to be published as an article in the Alabama Review. Below is our summation of significant efforts in the past 15 years as we would explain our selves to persons who might not know about our area and CVHS.
At its Annual Conference in 2003, the Alabama Historical Association presented that year’s James Ray Kuykendahl Award to The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society (CVHS). The Alabama Historical Association makes the James Ray Kuykendahl Award each year to recognize the initiative and performance of a local historical society in preserving and promoting the public knowledge of local history. The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society was recognized for the award because of its fifty years of exemplary efforts to preserve, conserve local documents and artifacts and to interpret local history through the publishing of 21 monographs and a quarterly newsletter promoting the study of local history and quarterly public presentations on local history.
The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Association, founded in 1953 by community leaders and local historians and genealogists, initiated a program of study and education about the history in the region of Chambers County in Alabama and Troup and Harris Counties in Georgia. Quarterly public meetings were held for membership and the general public to hear presentations on studies in local history prepared by members, local historians, and academicians. The members of CVHS began a vigorous effort to find and collect local historical books, papers and artifacts important to the preserving and documenting life in the region of three county areas of the Chattahoochee Valley. Initially the collection of preserved materials was conserved, saved, stored in the homes of the members of the Society. The initiatives of The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society promoted the establishment of the Cobb Memorial Archives in 1976 at the same time The H. Grady Bradshaw Chambers County Library was built. Various foundations and community organizations provided the funds to construct and equip the library and archives building with the county government pledging to provide annually the operational funding. The collections of historical materials and artifacts kept in the homes of Society members were now deposited into the new archives for professional management. The Society has maintained an effort to promote the collection and the services of The Cobb Archives, under the administration of the Bradshaw Library, and assist financially with purchases of equipment, books, subscriptions and services as the availability of its resources permitted.
Since receiving the Kuykendahl Award in 2003, The Chattahoochee Valley Historical Society has continued its mission seeking to preserve and promote the history and heritage of Chambers County, Alabama, West Point, Georgia, and the associated Chattahoochee Valley area through the following functions:
Publishing Monographs: CVHS, in the first fifty years of its history stimulated much local historical research and authorship. Prior to 2003 CVHS published 21 volumes written and prepared by its membership. The authors gave their research and writing freely to benefit the organization. After sales income offset printing costs, public sales provided a modest income flow. Members also published other works on local history at their expense for personal income. Since 2003 CVHS has published or reprinted six monographs. An additional monograph prepared and edited by CVHS members took a time-consuming year in preparation where more than 1,500 pre-1945 photographic images were scanned from collections of area citizens to be considered for the Arcadia Publishing Company, Images of Chambers County, which was published in 2009 using fewer than 250 images. The work to produce this publication was a joint venture between CVHS and The Chambers County Museum. Again, all the work was volunteer in order that maximum sales revenue would benefit the two local history organizations.
Publishing Quarterly Newsletter: In 2007 CVHS decided to upgrade the quality of the paper and print in the newsletter to afford the best reproduction of historical images in possession of members, CVHS and The Cobb Archives. The VOICE ran a series of articles over seven years publishing information and images of Chambers County people, schools, churches, cemeteries commercial buildings and homes. The pattern was set where all articles were now expected to be accompanied by quality historical images.
While acknowledging that expressions of vision and creativity are always at the mercy of resources, the CVHS Board since 2003 has repeatedly declared the priority for best service to the membership and to the public to be a well-prepared quarterly publication including a descriptive or contextual article about local history. CVHS has kept its dues low as possible to insure the greatest opportunity for all citizens to belong to the Society and to receive the newsletter. Originally cost for the newsletter was borne as a gift from the Cobb family which provided the funds to build the Archives rooms in the Library building. Today eighty percent of the income from dues and gifts support the production of the newsletter which is circulated to approximately 150 member addresses each year and additionally at no cost to more than thirty public libraries, archives, university libraries, state historical agencies and county government. In 2014 CVHS decided to incorporate color as appropriate into the newsletter images. Membership has been generous with gifts to accommodate increasing production costs of The VOICE.
Financial Assistance for Local Projects since 2003: A priority of assistance from CVHS has been the Cobb Archives and shared needs with the Bradshaw Library. Since 2003 CVHS has provided funds for monographs, a microfilm storage cabinet, matching funds for digital recording of WWII Veterans’ histories, assistance in purchasing ceiling mounted digital projector, rewiring location for microfilm reader, and $7,000 on the cost of an $11,000 state of the art digital microfilm reader and printer. CVHS also maintains subscriptions of a number of memberships in historical organizations, such as the Alabama Historical Association, for the Cobb Archives which is under the administration of the Bradshaw Library.
An additional priority for local assistance is to assist local preservation and conservation efforts. Board members have helped local organizations in grant preparation to seek funds for preservation of historic buildings. CVHS has given financial assistance to The Ft. Tyler Association to replace weathered signage at local Fort Tyler, to the local New Hope Rosenwald Foundation for building preservation, to the Fredonia Community House (1919 School Building) for preservation, and to the conservation of the Civil War Fort Tyler Graves in the Pinewood Cemetery in West Point, Georgia. CVHS has also made a number of awards to support the erection of historical markers in Chambers County in recent years. CVHS annually is a patron of the Fredonia Heritage Day where members in historical dress promote the publications of the Society, the services of The Cobb Memorial Archives and in general simply meet the public to chat up history and answer questions about past people and the locale.
Documentation of Endangered Historical Sites: The first example of this function was an activity initiated by a group of concerned citizens who convened wishing to re-stimulate county government to conserve a storm damaged decaying log dwelling which had been long recognized as a fort for local settlers in Cusseta, Chambers County, during the last Indian uprising in 1836. It was decided that a well-regarded graduate student completing a definitive study on the Indian removal from east Alabama should be hired to document the building and that CVHS would supervise the graduate student whose research services would be paid from funds given to CVHS by the local legislator. The legislator was unable to fulfil this agreement and CVHS by default managed and paid for the study. Other consultants from Alabama and Tennessee were engaged who reviewed the site and research pro bono. The documentation effort could not substantiate the folklore of the use of the log building. No information about the building as a fort existed in the federal, state and other records which were descriptive of the location in 1836. The County Commissioners deeded the property back to the family that had deeded the property to the county almost 40 years ago. The young consultant Christopher D. Haverman, received The James F. Sulzby Award for his excellent monograph, Rivers of Sand: Creek Indian Emigration, Relocation, and Ethnic Cleansing in the American South, which was derived from the research he was conducting when he also was seeking to document the existence and function of our Fort Cusseta.
A second example of CVHS efforts to document and protect a historical site is described in the General Membership Meeting of January 2011, where Dr. Harry Hopkins, Jacksonville State University, spoke on the subject of Stone Structure Sites of Alabama and Southeastern United States. CVHS with the good cooperation of the land owner involved and a couple score of volunteers, to include academic archeologist, federal archeologist, folklore representatives of Indian tribes, state historical agency historians and others to remove leaf litter, reveal and review a site of two thousand or more year old ceremonial stone walls and mounds in a most remote and uncultivated location in Chambers County. The site is now well registered and has been the subject of presentations at archeological meetings in the southeast. The hidden site is awaiting more professional study. The site is not publicized and has spiritual and actual rattle snake guardians! CVHS was responsible for the manner in which this site was identified, professionally recognized and protected during the documentation.
A third example of CVHS efforts to protect a local historical site culminated in 2016 in an unsuccessful effort to arouse public and political attention to save from destruction the original 1880’s core brick building of the Langdale Textile Mill which could be repurposed as a textile museum and public meeting spaces. All four public general membership meetings of 2016 were dedicated to presenting the history of the textile industry and the five valley communities in the 150th anniversary of the founding of the textile industry at this location on the Chattahoochee River. The Board of CVHS endorsed President Malinda Powers to speak in public and political forums and advocate a plan for saving the oldest and most iconographic original brick building and repurposing that building. Articles about the important heritage of textile manufacturing in this region of the Chattahoochee Valley were published in the local press. Public and political will did not rise to support saving any portion of the historical building. The deconstruction of the manufacturing sites continued.
Tours of Discovery and Study: In 2015 CVHS inaugurated a program of study tours by bus. For obvious reasons of public interest in family research, it was decided that the first tours would be to Civil War Battlefields and Cemeteries where descendants of CVHS members fought, fell, died and were possibly buried. The fourth tour took place in 2018 and all the major battles of the upper South have been studied with CVHS members being the tour study leaders. Tours were planned to allow any income beyond the required out-lay for a minimal guaranteed enrollment to be banked to initiate future discovery activities for the public and to fund activities as have been outlined above, such as income from two years was given to Bradshaw Library to assist in purchasing a digital microfilm reader and printer. Plans are underway for the 2019 Tour to study historical sites within Alabama and promote the State in its anniversary year. Our upcoming bus trip, “ALABAMA History Anniversary Tour”, has just received official endorsement from the Alabama Bicentennial Commission (Alabama 200). We’ll be able to incorporate their logo on our publicity, and we’ll also be able to upload our trip info on their official calendar of events.
Cemetery Preservation: Old cemetery identification and preservation is a never-ending challenge for county historical societies. Many misadventures and horror stories abound across the state describing how these sacred sites have been destroyed by machinery with and without malevolent intent. In 2004 CVHS convened a workshop with the support of professionals from the Alabama Historical Commission, Georgia Department of Resources and the Alabama Cemetery Preservation Alliance to introduce the latest issues and consideration to persons interested in cemetery preservation. CVHS needed to know what were the best practices and what were the legal issues involved in preservation. The workshop was well subscribed and the information provided by the presenters became the baseline for best practices future advice from CVHS to interested parties. CVHS had maintained an effort to record on paper the interments in county cemeteries until the advent of Findagrave. CVHS now recognizes members and individuals who have assumed the mission to load all graves, and many times additional genealogical information, to Findagrave. A number of cemeteries in the county have all interments in the Findagrave database.
In conclusion this evaluation of past performance has not taken into consideration the disastrous impact of the total disappearance of the massive textile industry from our county and the depressed economy which resulted. Community social and economic needs persist. Economies wax and wane; times always change. Manufacturing, automotive related, promises to stimulate prosperity which may provide more support for libraries, archives, etc. Hopefully the guardianship of our history will also benefit from these waxing times of foreign investment but one does wonder. Generational depth in economic and community leadership no longer exists with the new industries. Our efforts are humble. Sustaining local historical society efforts is always a challenge!