So springer calls me up yesterday around 11am to talk about some security issues, and we decided we should go riding after lunch.  Where?  We don't care, so we decide on the river, always good roads around the river.  We meet up at exit #1 and decide we should go grab a ghost town real quick, maybe in Tuscaloosa county - but neither of us have any reference material to find the ghost town.

So what do we do?

Take a quick peek at Willy T's Handy Ghost Town Reference Guide

That gave us our first lead, a town called Oregonia, and Google Maps gave us a general location, and more importantly a destination for a ride that neither of us could decide on.

So we saddled up, half-cocked (maybe the best way) and head down the river roads to find this lost town of Oregonia - just off Hiway 69.

Well of course the ride there was superior, and the community of Oregonia was relatively easy to find, we spoke to several curious residents and finally found some older folks that remember the way things used to be.  One old feller, a Mr. Collins,  had been there his whole life, and looked to be in his 80's and attended Oregonia school, a combination of church and school that offered grades 1-6 an education.

When asked how big the community was, Mr. Collins remarked that it was not that much bigger, back then, but the Sterling community was indeed very large and now has less than 5 residents.  So off we went to see what was left of Oregonia and Sterling.

While Oregonia has a nice country church and maybe 10 houses remaining, from our conversations perhaps the community was 5 times as large in the 1930's



a separate, well-maintained family graveyard 2 miles away




6 Miles away we found the much older and lonelier community of Sterling, with a very small block church and a very old graveyard






When I asked Mr. Collins what had happened to the communities, and why people had moved away, he could not answer me.  When asked what was the main industry when he was a child, he told me there had been a cotton gin and a grist mill on the river.  We know grist mills and cotton gins don't operate on rivers anymore, but WHEN they went away is still a mystery.  perhaps that is the reason the communities disappeared?

Well I wanted to find out, so we headed towards to river.

So off we went towards North River, and we stopped on the bridge to see any remnants.

Large concrete/stone pillars still on both sides of the river.






and a large tower - 15x15 base, and 45 feet high, with what looked like a doorway at the top?

Not so sure about grist mills or cotton gins, but this structure did not appear to be more than 100 years old.

What do you think?




I would like to gather more info on the history of this region, and make another visit to this location to try and figure out what these structures were, and what caused the demise of the industry and theses communities.

Very,very cool guys....