Category: Pell City Guide

Go see a famous musical group perform, or a traveling play that has gained national attention. Learn to paint or walk through rows of pottery, sculpture and other displays at an art show that is becoming a local tradition. Even learn to cook gourmet food, make a quilt or hear poetry read by a famous author — you can do it all in Pell City.

Pell City’s thriving arts community — supported both through private funding and government support locally and through grants — is giving residents in the region the opportunity to experience aspects of the humanities rarely seen outside larger metropolitan areas.

The Pell City Center

Originally called the Center for Education and the Performing Arts (or CEPA), the Pell City Center was a collaborative project designed to give the city a state-of-the-art theater for live performances and a sports arena complex to be shared with the school system for athletics and events like graduation.

The Pell City Center has been a success far beyond what was originally envisioned for the city. The inaugural play, To Kill a Mockinbird, was a huge success — and it also brought the center its first executive director and now artistic director, Kathy McCoy.

“I have been doing community theater I think around 23 years. I formed the Mockingbird Players down in Monroeville, Ala. No one had been doing To Kill a Mockingbird there,” she said.

“…That was the first play at CEPA. We brought up my old group from Monroeville to do the show. I was recruited from several people to take the job here. I wanted to move on and try new things.

“I walked into that theater and was sold. I looked at it and saw, as a director, that I would be able to do all kinds of things here. I said, ‘Yes, I would love to be here.’”

And the rest has been a very successful history.

The theater has hosted sold-out show after show. Sometimes it is a play like Driving Miss Daisy, Grits: The Musical or the Wizard of Oz. Sometimes it is a famous musical group like The Platters, Three on a String or Jason Petty. Some shows are a combination of play and musical performance, often paying tribute to iconic musicians like Elvis or Frank Sinatra.

And, whether the show is being performed by a famous traveling production crew or staged by the local Pell City Players or children from the theater’s drama camp, the event is a crowd-pleaser every time, enriching the lives of young and old alike.

“I think that any time you bring in culture, performing arts, it educates the community,” McCoy said.

“… People come from all over to Pell City, plus you have the locals. The theater brings them all together. Whenever we have a concert or a theater production, people stay after and meet each other and talk,” she said.

On top of its regular performances, the theater hosts a drama camp for children and works with local schools to help expose children in Pell City to as much of the humanities as possible.

“This will be our seventh year for drama camp. We have raised some of these kids in drama camp. They started here and now are graduating.

“We have some who started out at drama camp and went on to continue that. One student started out in the drama camp, went on to the Pell City Players and is going on to college to pursue drama,” McCoy said.

Like the drama camp participants, the local acting group, the Pell City Players, are enjoying having such a high-quality facility at their disposal.

“I have a background in community theater production. When I came here in 2006, I wanted to get involved in the community and thought this was a great spot to form a community theater — we would be the Pell City Players.

“We have competed at the state level and won some awards and received recognition for several things,” McCoy said.

And she expects that success to continue.

“The Pell city players have really grown too. We have 20 to 25 who are regulars. We have grown. I have grown as a director; they have grown as actors. We have done drama, mystery. Recently we did My Way, which is a musical, a difficult musical,” she said.

The Pell City Players are a true community theater group, handling everything from set and costume design to other production aspects like procuring props.

“That gives you the ability to tackle just about anything — and we have, from Tennessee Williams, to Agatha Christie, a very difficult script, to musicals,” McCoy said.

“It becomes inclusive because of that nuts-and-bolts approach. Not everyone wants to be out on stage. I have as many people who are not out front but who are backstage helping. That one has an eye for design; that one can build sets. One lady has a really good eye for props.”

In addition to entertainment and educational uses, the Pell City Center also acts as a conference center for programs that come from all over Alabama.

“We have hosted two statewide theater conferences here for the Alabama Theater Conferences, a district-wide Rotary Convention, events for the hospital — fundraisers, one brought in more than $80,000, state board of education events, and countless others, even sports tournaments,” McCoy said.

“We are unique here because we manage our space — we are sharing our space and manage the space through rentals and other entities like the cities and local governments,” she said.

“It is a unique marriage” — and one that has worked well for the Center and the Pell City community.

“It had not been done anywhere. That partnership has been fruitful for us, allowing CEPA to survive while other community theaters have been closing their doors,” McCoy said.

You can learn more about the Pell City Center or order event tickets on its website, www.pellcitycenter.com.

Artscape Gallery

The Artscape Gallery, going on its sixth year now, is a project of the Pell City Council of the Arts where local artists can showcase — and sell — some of their work.

A truly cooperative effort, the gallery, located in the historic downtown area, is supported and run by the participating artists.

Arts Council President Janice Entler points out that everyone has had to do their part to make the gallery a success.

“It’s a cooperative gallery. We all kind of own it; we all work here. Everyone works one day a month,” she said. “We took a leap of faith when we opened this. We had 14 artists who wanted to do this and did not know if we would have the money, but we have been plugging along. We always manage to keep it going.”

The gallery displays all kinds of artwork, from paintings to sculpture and pottery to glasswork. The pieces are the products of both experienced professional artists and people just getting started. In fact, the gallery works with local students and beginning artists to help teach them how to work with a gallery and display their creations.

“We are working on a program to get the high school kids to display their artwork in the gallery to give those who might want to show their work, try to sell it in a gallery, an experience in what it is like to show their work,” Entler said.

The gallery also promotes the arts in the community, especially working with children to teach them not only to appreciate art, but to create it, through an art camp and also during one of the Council’s biggest events of the year, the Artscape Festival.

“We try to provide an art outlet for the children — get them exposed. Because arts are not as emphasized in schools and other places as much anymore, that was one of the reasons we wanted to start the art camp,” Entler said. “We have had kids who started here at art camp who came back and are helpers here now.”

The Artscape Festival, which does have activities for children but is mainly an art show, has grown to be a major event for the region, averaging 40 to 65 artists displaying and selling their work. The event is held in the fall, November this year, and attracts thousands of visitors.

“We have artists that come from all over the state, even from other states, to bring art to the community. That’s what the Art Council is all about, promoting the arts,” Entler said.

In addition to the gallery and the festival, the council and participating artists work with schools and hold other smaller art showings year round and also a variety of art classes.

“Art plays an important role in the community. We have a lot of classes here so people can become involved in the arts, have something to take home. … It lets their creative side out. And they can make something they are proud of,” she said.

Pell City Library

Beyond theater, beyond painting, there is an almost endless range of the arts and humanities to explore — and the Pell City Public Library does more than its share to give residents the chance to do just that.

Often pairing a program or event with a literary component, the library works to promote the arts all year, with different presentations focused on different age groups.

“Quite a lot of the programs are art-based, poetry, music, even cooking and flower arranging,” Library Director Danny Stewart said.

“We have even done some travel programs. Not everyone can experience traveling to Holland or Italy or other places in the world, but they experience it through the library.

“Anytime you can offer someone not only the experience of reading about Italy, but have an artist show their work about Italy and talk about it, it completes the whole picture,” he said.

Most of the adult-oriented programs take place at least once a month, usually at noon on Wednesdays. “It offers them a venue that they might otherwise not experience unless they went to some place like Birmingham,” Stewart said.

And while the adult programs continue to gain popularity, the library is equally dedicated to providing similar culturally broadening experiences for younger generations.

These programs are especially popular when students are out of school, during the summer or spring break.

Recently during a break in school, “younger children did a painting program, even a cooking program — how to cook a crepe. The kids got to learn to cook from a chef. Then had a clown and dog show,” similar to a vaudeville performance, Stewart said.

The library also has Story Time, when children are exposed to authors and other people of interest, including civic leaders.

For older kids, the library merges the arts with reading through a teen book club where the students read a book, then watch a play or see a related movie, maybe even visit places relevant to the story.

In its efforts to promote literacy and the arts, the library works with local schools, holding writing competitions and helping with a recent art competition.

“The final judging happened here and the artwork was displayed at the library,” Stewart said.

Though not a traditional art project, but certainly part of the broader scope of the humanities, the Pell City Library is home to the community oral history project. Originally conceived when Guin Robinson was mayor and with the vision of the library board, the project had many older, long-time Pell City residents record their stories and memories about days gone by in the city.

“If we did not get their stories about the community, that information would be lost forever. Only a few of those people we interviewed are still alive today,” Stewart said.

The library hosts the collection of the recordings, which are also being made available online.

You can learn more about the Pell City Library and its programs at its website, www.pellcitylibrary.com.

What magic molded a sleepy little whistle stop of 40 souls into St. Clair County’s largest city? Actually, the town owes its success to a missed train and a fortuitous marriage. Pell City was blessed with both a father and a mother — Sumter Cogswell, who nurtured it from infancy, and Lydia DeGaris Cogswell, who helped rescue it from a premature demise.

A town charter was granted in 1887 at the request of six local businessmen: John B. Knox, T.S. Plowman, D.M. Rogers, J.A. Savery of Talladega, John Postell of Coal City and Judge John W. Inzer of Ashville. Postell was general manager of the East & West Railroad, and Inzer was the company’s attorney. The line was owned by the prominent Pell family of New York City, Pell City’s namesake. (See Discover August/September and October/November 2012 for more on that railroad.)

An official incorporation map shows that Pell City was only about eight blocks square, some 400 acres. At the time, there were few houses and even fewer buildings, the largest of them the two-story Maxwell Building, which still stands on Cogswell Avenue next to Gilreath Printing.

The East & West was a short line that connected Seaboard Air Line Railroad with Pell City’s Talladega & Coosa Valley line and Georgia Pacific Railroad (later Southern), giving the town an important rail junction. A shared depot was built, but Pell City remained largely dormant until an insurance agent from Chattanooga missed his train and had to lay over for the night.

A 1936 St. Clair Times story recounts: “On a blustery March day in 1890, a young man about 29 years of age chanced to be en route to Talladega and was to change trains at a place known as Pell City. … The young man was a guest at the Cornett House. … Looking out his window the next morning, the young man was so impressed with the natural beauty of the countryside, and it reminded him so much of the “Blue Grass” country of Kentucky, that he was interested. The young man … was Sumter Cogswell.”

According to records furnished by Pell City’s Kate DeGaris, Cogswell worked as an agent with North American Insurance Company, a Kentucky-based Rockefeller subsidiary. He was traveling to Talladega to meet with the Mr. Savery to discuss establishing a new NAIC agency there.

While in Talladega, he also met with Mr. Plowman, president of Pell City Land Company, which owned the town. Cogswell felt that Pell City’s three railroads, natural beauty and proximity to the Coosa River made it a natural spot for future development. Even better, the town was already up for sale.

Cogswell negotiated a two-week option to secure the property, and quickly sold it to Pell City Iron and Land Company for $50,000. They resurveyed the town, and added more housing. Hercules Pipe Company, owned by Boston capitalists, came to Pell City in 1891 to begin the town’s industrial base. Cogswell soon left town, secure in the notion that the seed he’d planted would grow and blossom naturally.

In Heritage of St. Clair County, a latter-day Lydia DeGaris writes that Sumter returned home to Chattanooga only to find that his wife had left him for his best friend. Distraught, Sumter left Chattanooga and moved to Memphis, Tenn. It was there that he would meet his future bride and Pell City’s maternal benefactor, Lydia McBain DeGaris.

Lydia was a recent widow of Charles Francis DeGaris, who was 34 years old when he and 18-year-old Lydia married. In fact, his proposal to Lydia had come as a shock to her mother, who until then had assumed Charles had been coming there to see her.

DeGaris was a well-educated, accomplished civil engineer. Their marriage lasted from 1885 until his death in 1898. They produced three sons, one of whom would actively participate in Pell City’s future. The DeGarises had designed their dream home just prior to Charles’ death. Lydia saved the plans, hoping to build it herself when things got better.

She met Sumter at one of her Uncle George Arnold’s lavish parties. Sumter was from a prominent family in Charleston, South Carolina, and had recently established a new agency in Memphis with five states under his jurisdiction. He was born on the first day of the Civil War in 1861, when Charleston’s Fort Sumter was fired upon, hence his name.

Lydia quickly abandoned her current fiancé, and married Sumter in 1900. They moved to Atlanta, where Sumter took over the management of her late husband’s sizable estate.

In 1901, Sumter revisited Pell City after a 10-year absence and found that it had almost died. In her History of St. Clair County, AL, Mattie Lou Teague Crow describes it thusly: “Upon looking from the train window, he was surprised to see a deserted village. The streets were grown up with weeds. The houses were empty, and the place had the appearance of a ghost town.” Other sources relate that goats inhabited the ground floor of the Maxwell Building.

The Panic of 1893-94 had forced both Pell City Iron & Land and Hercules Pipe Company, into receivership. According to Grace Hooter Gates, in Model City of the New South: “The firm was a failure because skilled labor would not work in Pell City, according to local stories. The iron molders would get off the train, look around and, seeing nothing but one or two stores, would climb back aboard and then ride on in search of more excitement.”

Gates continues: “Louis D. Brandeis, trustee for the company, engaged J.J. Willett of Anniston to foreclose the deed of trust for Hercules in 1893. Though the scarcity of skilled workmen in Pell City was the popular notion as to why the plant moved to Anniston, the more likely cause was the substantial savings of over 10k yearly in freights.” Brandeis won fame as a tireless advocate for consumers’ and workers’ rights, and eventually became a noted U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Lydia purchased the ruins of Pell City from Brandeis for the paltry sum of $3,000, property that had been valued at more than $50,000 less than 10 years previous. She and Sumter began nursing the failing town back to health.

According to a newspaper story, Lydia put her dream home on hold, and instead invested her wealth in Pell City. From her new holdings, she gave land for a town square to host a new courthouse after Pell City had been selected as a second county seat, 150 acres of property and an abundant spring for the building of Pell City Manufacturing Company (which later became Avondale Mills), and other acreage for a city park, schools, churches, two fraternal lodges and First Baptist Church.

According to great-grandson Sumter DeGaris, they added three rooms to accommodate five children, plus a pantry, four porches, a servant’s house, carriage house and a large barn. Their arrival boosted Pell City’s population to 40. It is reported that they brought with them more groceries than were in the local grocery store’s entire inventory. The home they remodeled still stands today, at the corner of 18th Street and 2nd Avenue North in Pell City. It is currently occupied by Sumter DeGaris and has hosted some five generations of Cogswell/DeGaris kin.

Backed by his wife’s inheritance, Sumter quickly got down to business. He hired George W. Pratt to supervise the construction of the cotton mill. Once built, Thomas Henry Rennie of New England was hired to manage the business, whose stock soon went from less than $50 to more than $400 per share.

Next, the Cogswells founded the Bank of St. Clair County, presently known as Union State Bank, with Sumter as president and a dean’s list of local businessmen as directors, including McLane Tilton, E.J. Mintz, Arthur Draper, J. Fall Roberson of Cropwell, J.H. Moore of Coal City, Frank Lothrop of Riverside, and Lafayette Cooke of Cook Springs fame.

In 1902, Pell City faced two serious occurrences which would test its civic mettle. First, a warehouse full of dynamite and gunpowder exploded, killing several, destroying the depot, and heavily damaging several other properties. The explosives were stored in that location for use in excavating the Cook Springs railroad tunnel.

As if that weren’t enough, some citizens from “the other end of the county” approached the state Legislature, alleging that it was unconstitutional to have two official courthouses in the same county. It took years to settle this highly disruptive dispute, ending with a constitutional amendment in 1907.

Cogswell became mayor in 1903, serving for some 14 years. Sumter DeGaris tells that the town had a single saloon that provided enough tax revenue to pay for a grammar school, City Hall and numerous roads. Cogswell also served for many years on the City Council and St. Clair County Court of Commissioners.

As president of Pell City Realty Company, in 1909, Cogswell published a promotional booklet called, Keep Your (picture of eye) On Pell City, which touted everything from railroads to salubrious weather to Southern work ethic, often stretching facts to the breaking point. Quoting from that book: “The climate is simply faultless. The temperature in midwinter seldom falls as low as 30 degrees, and in the summer time rarely goes above 92 degrees. Cases of prostration from heat are unknown”.

Kate DeGaris tells that the Cogswells loved to quarter and entertain important visitors and investors in their home. A huge four-poster canopy bed was reserved for two uses only — overnight guests and having babies.

She also relates a story of how Sumter Cogswell, upon watching a poor man trudge past his home every day in bitter cold while wearing only a thin topcoat, gave him a brand new, expensive overcoat he’d received as a gift, and he kept wearing his old, tattered one.

The city flourished through World War II and beyond, with Avondale Mills supplying most of the cash flow. Lifetime resident Carolyn Hall relates that Pell City was a warm, safe place to live. While the “cotton mill” involved long hours and strenuous work, it was a welcome escape from even harder times for farmers and other locals who toiled all day for as little as a bucket of syrup.

Dr. Robert Alonzo Martin was brought to town to supervise a new hospital in the mill village, which was outside the town limits in those days. Dr. Martin became a leader in all things medical, made a lifelong career of providing quality care, and delivered some 10,000 babies to local residents. Martin Street, US 231 in Pell City, is named after him.

Pell City’s hard-working, industrious populace enjoyed many benefits from the “cotton mill,” including a fine lake, seasonal parties and every amenity a progressive company town could offer. The DeGaris descendants hosted lavish yuletide affairs, which were attended by people who had come from all over the county and beyond, mainly to sample Grandfather DeGaris’ potent eggnog (See accompanying story).

John (Jack) Annesley DeGaris, who hosted these Christmas galas in Pell City, was Lydia DeGaris’ son by previous marriage. Jack graduated Pharmacy School in Birmingham, served as pharmacist’s mate aboard a troop ship in World War I, and nearly froze in the North Sea when the ship was torpedoed.

He eventually returned home to Pell City, established Citizen Drug Company on Howard Avenue and, with the help of his wife Gertrude (Saylors), ran it successfully until his death in 1952. Jack was also a local campaign manager for Alabama Gov. Big Jim Folsom.

Jack’s son, Annesley H. DeGaris, writes in Heritage of St. Clair County: “… (Jack) was one of the best civic workers Pell City ever had. For many years, Jack gave a banquet for the football players, cheerleaders and coach as invited guests. Also, one day each year, Jack let the high school senior class operate the soda fountain in his drugstore, taking all the proceeds to help with their school trip. The Citizen Drug Store was always referred to as ‘the drug store in the middle of the block’ at 1907 Cogswell. …”

Lydia never got to build her dream home, but she and Sumter presided over a dream city of their own making. They’re an indelible part of St. Clair history. Pell City’s Howard Avenue was re-named in their honor after his death.

Longtime business associate McLane Tilton penned an appropriate epitaph for his dear friend Sumter:

His life all good,
No deed for show; no deed to hide,
He never caused a tear to flow
Save when he died.

For more on Pell City,visit discoverstclair.com