Magazine Features Demopolis–City Of The People

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Alabama’s Black Belt was once awash in cotton, and every fall the planters who grew it would come to town to do business. In the Black Belt, town often meant Demopolis. Situated at the confluence of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers, Demopolis has had a storied history, one that arcs and dips with that of the society and economics of the region around it. And, after considerable challenge and some hardship, it thrives today.

Stuart Flynn and T. J. Beitelman tell the story of Demopolis and its recent renaissance in the winter 2001 issue of Alabama Heritage magazine. They began tracing the town’s life from its very inception as an ill-fated vine and olive colony run by exiled Bonapartist soldiers in 1815. They end in the 1960s, when Demopolis developed a symbiotic commitment to its past and future through the historic preservation of its significant homes and buildings, Bluff Hall (1832) most notable among them. Along the way, Flynn and Beitelman note the achievements of various Demopolites, such as Gwyn Turner, who spearheaded much of the movement, while underscoring the nature of historic preservation and its relationship to a small town’s economic and social development.

Stuart Flynn, associate editor of Alabama Heritage, has a law degree from the University of Arkansas, and T. J. Beitelman, assistant editor of Alabama Heritage, has a master’s degree in English from Virginia Tech. Both are MFA candidates in Creative Writing at The University of Alabama. Beitelman also serves as editor of the Black Warrior Review, a national literary journal published by UA.

Alabama Heritage is a nonprofit quarterly magazine published by The University of Alabama and The University of Alabama at Birmingham. To order the magazine, write Alabama Heritage, Box 870342, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0342, or call 205/348-7467.