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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 163
Earl P. Lacy
(Born in 1908)
Interviewed by Ed Peters
Source: “Mullins Flat, Pond Beat were Unique Communities,” The Redstone Rocket, July 8, 1987.
Where He Lived
.FT .
Earl Pensacola (Early P.) Lacy was born in 1908 in a house that stood on the north side of Buxton Road, west of Patton Road in Pond Beat. He was 79 years old when he was interviewed in 1980. Ed Peters described him as a “little gentle man with an encyclopedic memory of the people, places, events, and minutiae that define a place that has no written history.”
His Family
Earl was the son of Henry Lacy and the grandson of James Lacy. He said James was
Earl P. Lacy
the son of a White man (and a slave) and “the first in his family who ever was allowed to own land”??"he was deeded a large acreage by his White father. The Lacy ancestry from a White Englishman for whom Lacy Springs was
named was discussed in the interview with Hodie McGraw.
Pond Beat and the Ponds
Lacy explained there was a series of Ponds extending the width of the community “all the way down to Triana.” By 1980, some of the ponds had been drained, but others were still in place, although they were known by different names. Thiokol Pond used to be called Mack Pond. The Test Area 2 Pond, which was on the Lacy property, was known as Rock Pond. Igloo Pond was Round Pond.
The Community
Ed Peters suggested, “The homely names of the Pond Beat and Mullins Flat communities fit the circumstances of these places. There was no electricity, no plumbing, and no telephones.” Early Lacey said that the roads were so rough “it took four mules to pull an empty wagon.” Mullins Flat and Pond Beat were separated by Huntsville Spring Branch,
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