Beaty's Crossroads is a where Alabama state highway 75 and 117 cross. Named for the large number of Beaty families that lived and work on the mountain plateau know as Sand Mountain. A back woods country, that announces the end of the Appalachian Mountain chain. Once the home of assorted tribes of Cherokee, its rocky ground and sandy soil made many a new settler old before their time. The strength of the men and women who migrated to this corner of Gods country can only be imagined. It can be said that they loved their God and this land more than life it's self. This is evidenced by their determination to make a living in a hostile, unforgiving enviornment. As life was hard so thier characters became hard. These were poor people for the most part. The summers hot as a stove top, the winters bitter cold. One season would bring the climate of the Gulf Coast and good harvest, the next season would bound in with the great Artic Cold leaving little for the next year. The folks had to stay prepared for what mother nature would sling at them. And ah the good days were so good, you might think it was what heaven. One year would bring children, one right after another, the next year would take them away, sometimes before you could give them a name. The grave yards became endearing, not because of grandpa and grandma buried there, but because that is where your children went to Jesus. So come on in neighbor and share a time gone by. A time when all day singing and dinner on the ground was the joyful noise made in thanks giving. A time when broken hearts and broken bodies were mended with the eternal hope of a better day to come. Where love was all or nothing. Where the strength of the individual spirit was written on the faces of the old folks. Where the renewal of that spirit exploded from the cry of a new born babe.

• Beaty's Family Tree (3 KB)
  

• William Hiram Beaty Homestead, Ider, Alabama (117 KB)
  Pictured are William Hiram and Mary Elizabeth Pinkham Beaty, with children Lena, Sarah, Cornelia, Flavious, and Lepatry, about 1905.
• Where is Beaty's Crossroads? Why, right here. (139 KB)
  Remember the free road maps you use to get at the filling station? Anyway, this 1972 Texaco road map of Alabama clearly shows Beaty's Crossroads.
• Honea's Syrup Mill (103 KB)
  Pictured: Ernest,Mrs., Imogene, and Paul Honea, Ted Smith, Bernard, Leon Smith, Joseph Beaty, J.R. Stallings, Clyde. Hear tell this could be hazardous work, 'cause the yellow jackets swarmed to the sweet smell of the cooking cane. The syrup came to be known as Sand Mountain Sorghum. On a hot, buttered biscuit it was as good as home made ice cream and good for what ails ya.

V. Beaty Fillmore
P.O. Box 434
Valley Head, AL 35989
A-United States
bilf@roadrunner.com

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