Traveling the Great Loop

Join us as we travel North America's rivers, waterways, and canals; visit U.S. and Canadian cities, historical landmarks, national parks and river towns. We may even take you to the Bahamas.

Scottsboro, Lake Guntersville, Jackson County, Goose Pond Marina, Tennessee River, Alabama

Nov. 14, mile 378; Today’s run: 88 miles

En route

A live-aboard along the river.
Requesting permission to pass this barge, the barge captain announced we should pass on the 2, ” But”, he adds, ” Pass slow, don’t flood my engine room with your wake”! The next time we made the request to a barge, I asked the tow captain about that response. We had never heard this before. “The tow must not have had much freeboard on his stern”, the captain said, “That ‘s not the case with me.”
Nickajack Lock, mile 423.
Some boaters add name-stickers to the pins (bollards), but defacing TVA property is an offense.

Goose Pond Marina, was one of the most serene locations we had docked at. The only evident of hustle, was the owner and son who couldn’t do enough for us.

The marina had a courtesy car we could use. We drove into town.

Scottsboro, the county seat of Jackson County: population: 15, 580. Named after Robert J Scott, who moved to the area in 1856 and established a railway station on his property..

This mural by Don Howard, Disney’s first African American cartoonist, depicts the nine Scottsboro Boys at the time of their arrests while traveling by train through Jackson County on march 25, 1931. After an altercation, the young men were arrested in the town of Paint Rock, and falsely accused of rape by two Caucasian women. They were brought to Scottsboro to stand trial where all nine were hastily convicted and all but the youngest sentenced to death by all-white juries. ( Taken from a plaque underneath the town’s mural. )

The Scottsboro trials resulted in two landmark Civil Rights decisions by the US Supreme Court. Not until 2013, more than 80 years after their arrests, were they officially pardoned and exonerated for the crimes they never committed. ( Taken from a plaque outside the courthouse.)

This courthouse, is where the first ‘Scottsboro Boys’ trial took place.

The attending judge declared a mistrial in the case of one defendant. Soon after the guilty verdicts, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, (NAACP), and the International Labor Defense (ILD), came to the defence of the ‘Scottsboro Boys,” contending the trials were unconstitutional. (The movie, Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, released in 2001, is a documentary-style account of the arrest and trial of the nine innocent victims.)

This former Joyce Chapel Untied Methodist Church, is now a museum depicting the lives and trials of the nine innocent victims. The museum was not open on the day we visited.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center, is the Nation’s only merchant of unclaimed, and lost airline baggage and its contents. The store works with airlines as well as bus, train, truck and hospitality companies, collecting lost passenger belongings and unclaimed cargo. A third of the merchandise gets donated to charity, and a third is put up for sale online and at their 50,000-square-foot store in Scottsboro. The company washes and dry cleans up to 70,000 items every month, making it the largest commercial laundry operation in the state of Alabama.

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2 responses to “Scottsboro, Lake Guntersville, Jackson County, Goose Pond Marina, Tennessee River, Alabama”

  1. mjbrennan1965 avatar
    mjbrennan1965

    Great pics and some wonderful history but some shameful.

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  2. phlbrwn avatar
    phlbrwn

    It’s nice to think that all our lost luggage eventually comes to this location. So it’s never really lost. More like it’s gone to heaven.

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