I Need Your Help!

If you have stories you'd like to share, please email me @ ruthgivens5@gmail.com, I'd love to hear them and possibly include them on the blog.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Welcome, Alabama (as long as you're not a stranger:)


The stories being told of rural Alabama aren't all being heard. The ones being heard aren't always the most accurate. For a history of a people to be fully gathered, that history must be gathered from several sources.
I like rural Alabama. I love the people. I love the way they talk. I love our story.
The origin of Smut Eye, Alabama, is one of the stories that needs to be fully told. Until now, you have only been able to find one version of how it got it's name. If you use google, you get a nice little story of a blacksmith shop where men gathered to drink away the night and tell stories. That's nice and I have heard it many times. But there's another story. The Phillips family, Mose Phillips being the owner of the Smut Eye Grocery for years, was a rough crew. They did in fact hang around the Grocery and did have a lot of soot and ash, but they also didn't like strangers. If you came through Smut Eye, then called Welcome, you needed to keep on moving or you were likely to be "roughed up" by the Phillips family and given a "smut eye". Quite the opposite of a welcome!
So, there it is...what I feel is the real origin of the name of Smut Eye. Take it or leave it!

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