II

Growing up in Limestone County and around the city of Athens you might have heard stories about Strange Street. It don’t run but a hundred yards or so across the Town Creek floodplain near downtown Athens. About the only thing its known for today is a place to drop off your cable bill. But back during Reconstruction it was known as Strangetown.

They were heady times then. Everyone was glad the war was over. The Yankees came down and brought real money. Life was coming back. There was a new promise in the air, and nowhere was that promise felt more vibrantly than in Strangetown. There was music again. It was in those years lined with shacks and cathouses, saloons and a racktrack. It was looked askance by the folks on the Hill who lived in columned mansions, and whom the folks of Strangetown called the Greeks. It was a hot bed of sin and generally disapproved of behavior, but also a wellspring of Republican votes.

Strangetown was run by three power brokers then. There was Maw Possum, a former slave and hero of the Underground Railroad before settling into Strangetown. Supposedly she ran a wide network of rackets across town. And then there was “Royal Bill” Marmaduke, who was a hero of the Army of the Tennessee and who became the Republican sheriff. All the game tables paid up to him while he kept down the Klan, who ran their own red light outfit down in Dogwood Flats. Then there was Brother Pruitt, who loved Jesus and ate and walked with the coloreds, but to whom every one paid up anyway on account of their guilty consciences. Most folks in Athens don’t think about all that went down in Strangetown, probably because its so seldom heard of. I'll see if I can't dig up more stories from this fascinating time in Limestone County, Ala.