Autauga County Bicentennial Fair
Doster Community Center, Prattville, Alabama
Friday-Saturday 16-17 November 2018
The Bicentennial Committee
of the Autauga Genealogical Society (AGS) spent 18 months preparing for a
Bicentennial Fair which the Society hosted at the Doster Community Center,
Prattville, Alabama, on Friday and Saturday, 16-17 November 2018.
Response to and interest in the Fair exceeded all expectations, and the
Committee all agreed that the many hours of effort to create the 120+ displays
offered to school groups and the general public during the exciting two-day
event were well-spent. This was a community event worthy of its name and
a credit to its sponsor, the aforementioned AGS.
The venue included over 120 displays depicting the people, places, and
events in the 200-year history of Autauga County. The excitement
and interest were palpable, as evidenced by the animated conversations
occurring inside and outside of the Doster Community Center, among both friends
and complete strangers. Visitors came from as far away as the states of
Pennsylvania and Washington, some here at the urging of relatives who reside in
Prattville, others because they grew up here but now reside in other
states. All were at the Fair to explore the Autauga County’s history from
November 21, 1818, when it was established as a county, to the present
era. Those attending stated that to fully appreciate the impressive
collection of displays, photos, and artifacts required at least a couple of
hours.
Reenactors included Ginger Jones
as an American Indian and Tyrone Crowley, who greeted visitors at the entrance
to the exhibits in the person of Daniel Pratt, intendant (mayor) of Prattville
ca. 1870. Other reenactors included Revolutionary soldiers Larry
Cornwell, Bill Stone, and Rick Wells, members of the Sons of the American
Revolution, Confederates Jerry McMichael as Lt A Y Smith of the Prattville
Dragoons, Douglas Butler as a Confederate soldier, and Tanya and Gabriel
Haessly (who drove down from Gadsden, Alabama, to participate) who portrayed a
concerned mother and her teenage son, John Whetstone, who goes away to join his
brothers in the Autauga Rifles, Confederate States Army, and dies three months
later, a casualty of the Battle of Seven Pines. George Partridge
portrayed a soldier from World War I, and members of the Daughters of the
American Revolution demonstrated the use of a churn and other household
instruments.
There were 22 displays dedicated
to Autauga County veterans of all wars, including a special display dedicated
to the work of local women in support of World War II. Other
displays demonstrated the importance of agriculture and timber in the
development of Autauga County and of course the importance of the Daniel Pratt
Gin Company, later Continental Gin Company in developing industry in the
county. There were also displays on the history of schools, both black
and white, as they developed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
One of the most impressive displays was a American Indian village, built by two
members of the AGS, and chronologically the first display in the entire Fair.
On Friday morning busload after
busload of schoolchildren arrived and walked through the exhibits, obviously
impressed with the many displays and reenactors they saw. It was
estimated that about 900 students benefitted from their visit to the
Bicentennial Fair, then went home and told their parents and others, which
along with publicity on television, the internet, and newspapers, generated
another surge of visitors on Saturday. Many people recognized ancestors
among the many photographs and lists of names on exhibit, and recounted to
those around them what they remembered of the person and/or place. The
feeling of community generated by the resulting discussion was remarkable.
A lot of time and effort were
expended in making this event the success that it was, and the person who
deserves a large share of the credit is Mr. Larry Caver, chairman of the AGS
Bicentennial Committee, whose home was basically a storehouse for the many
exhibits until the day they were all assembled at the Doster Community Center
and had been used as a worksite to create the many trifold displays in the
months before the Fair. Mr. Caver took a week off work during the week
preceding the Fair, in order to manage the assembly of the displays and oversee
the two-day event on Friday and Saturday. Mr. Caver, known for his
books on Autauga County genealogy and history, can add another another to his
list of accomplishments in support of genealogy and local history.
No comments:
Post a Comment