Before we crossed the Chattahoochie river into Georgia, leaving Alabama for the last time, we stopped in Eufaula. We took a stack of photographs of the beautiful homes that would make up barely one block in the tiny town of Eufaula, which is really no bigger than Dalby in Queensland. Around 13,000 population.
Eufaula has a complex history filled with difficult race relations tangles, but it is for its astonishing homes that we may well remember it. The homes are tied to its history, with the movement of immigrants oozing westwards out of Georgia, pushing the Indians, the Eufaulas, out of these lands, even further west.
One of the generals who came to occupy Eufaula territory set up a steamboat wharf near the early settlement, which then grew rapidly. As the population increased and produced items for trade, local cotton and peanuts were shipped to ports as far away as New York and Liverpool. Steamboats returned from the coast with marble and fine furniture for settlers who chose to live a town life rather than a plantation existence. And so Eufaula grew.
These homes survive to show how prosperous Eufaula really is. Or was, in its heyday. And, how skilled the builders were, who crafted these homes.
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