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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 296
talked with mentioned making “home brew,” and each one of them had said “you only made what you wanted to drink right away, because if you kept it, it would explode.” Apparently, they bottled it before it got through breathing. Molasses strap was used to make corn moonshine. Many people made moonshine. Walter smiled as he remembered: We had a hog lot by the creek that went all the way to Huntsville Creek to Triana. Daddy had option on land for timber [this land was later taken by TVA]. In the summer we had to go down there and take barrels of water to the hogs. We went down there and noticed the hogs weren't up in their feeding place. I found the hogs. The guy who had a wildcat still dumped his mash out there in the creek. The hogs found it. The Bridge and the Ford The Bridge. Walter said: First they built a bridge and then later on they extended [what is now] Patton Road because they built a bridge. That took ten years because of the County Commissioner. He had the materials, so he just built the bridge, even though the road didn't go up to it. You would have to climb a ladder to get to the bridge to walk across it. The bridge was just down river from Horton's Ford. The Ford. Walter said: The ford wasn't more than a half-mile above the bridge, off what is Patton Road. We had to bring the cotton, so we would ford there above the bridge. What they used to do before the arsenal contaminated the river was they would drive the horses to it and let them drink water. This was probably Horton's Ford that has been mentioned by other former residents. The Tennessee River and TVA “The river would back up so much that the road would be cut off,” Walter said. “The water went all the way up and under the school [Horton School, which was on the Farley-Triana Road]. Walter stated: When they [TVA] decided to put Wheeler Dam in, they backed up all that land with water. When the TVA came, there were 77 acres down there [toward the river] that they bought up and totally cleared up. Walter's father had an 296 - (4329)