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Familiar sight: Harold Banks comes back to Lake Martin to Chimney Rock in Tallapoosa County.

Banks continues journey back to Lake Martin

By Harold Banks | Alex City Outlook

Published Thursday, June 11, 2009

Editor’s Note: This the seventh in a series of Dadeville resident Harold Banks’ travel journal made during his 258-mile descent of the Tallapoosa River. The series will continue in the next edition of The Outlook.

April 22, 2009, Day Seven

Hi 77, Lo 41, partly cloudy

the head of Lake Martin

Last night I heard something creeping around the back of my tent and I could suddenly visualize a coyote making off with my food pack, so I got up to bring it inside. The wildlife interaction continued this morning as I broke camp. I shook my plastic ground cloth to get the leaves off and a turkey gobbled nearby. I shook it again and he gobbled again. I conversed with the old Tom several more times the same way. If I ever take up turkey hunting, I now know the secret of locating a gobbler.

I carried my gear to the river bank and saw my first challenge of the day. Power generation had obviously ceased at the Harris Dam and the river was now at minimum flow. The nice shelf I parked my canoe on yesterday afternoon was now a perch above a 3- to 4-foot vertical drop with deep water below. No way to get in at this spot. I drag the canoe across the pasture to a place where I can lower my loaded canoe by rope to the water. A steep slope, but doable. I’m finally off and although I’m not getting much help from the current, at least the wind isn’t blowing hard – yet.

I go through some mild shoals and in about four miles come to the site of Bibby’s Ferry. This was the last old-style ferry to operate on the Tallapoosa River and was maintained by Chambers County until the mid 1980’s. I used to drive over here with friends specifically to ride the ferry across. When you got to the river, you would simply blow your horn. The ferry operator lived at the top of the hill on river left and would walk down to take you across. The ferry was a barge just big enough for one vehicle and was powered by an ancient farm tractor whose axle drove a paddle wheel. The ferry was attached to an overhead steel cable to keep it from drifting downstream. Every time I rode across the old ferryman would tell the same story about the time when against his better judgment he carried an insistent man across the swollen river. Halfway across, the cable broke and they floated three miles downstream before making it ashore in an eddy.

Bibby’s Ferry is just down the road from one of my favorite community names, Frog Eye. Local legend has it that a tavern there during prohibition days kept a ceramic frog with closable eyes on the counter. If the frog’s eyes were open, it was safe to ask for illegal liquor. But if the eyes were closed, local residents knew to keep their mouth shut because there could be law enforcement nearby.

I know every crook, turn and rock in the river from here to Martin Dam and feel very much at home. In about a mile, I cross into Tallapoosa County. In a few more miles I pass the older ferry site of Frederick’s Ferry at the end of None Such Drive. There must have been some real characters around here to come up with these good names.

The river becomes lazy between Bibby’s Ferry and the Germany Ferry Bridge and with the exception of a couple of shoals, it would be about as easy to paddle upstream as down. It is a pleasant float though and is reputed to have some of the best fishing on the river.

Chatahospee Creek enters on the left and I spot three otters. The two larger ones, maybe Mom and Dad, take off up the creek immediately, but Junior hangs back to look at me. Mom and Dad are chirping and squealing and he finally goes upstream too. I follow slowly and Junior’s curiosity gets the best of him and he stops to look at me again. Mom and Dad are now screaming at him as if to say “Get away, that thing’s dangerous.” We play this little game a while longer and finally they all dive under and disappear. I turn around in the creek to head back into the river and am surprised to see the three otters already in the river. Those sly rascals swam right under my boat.

I come to Germany’s Ferry Bridge and see my old buddy Skip Turner at the boat ramp. I ask him if there is cell phone service here and he says no, but he can drive me a couple of miles to a high hill where there is. He drives me toward Daviston to the top of a high hill and I’m able to get through to Amy.

A few miles below Germany’s Ferry I come to the beginning of Griffin Shoals. This is one of my favorite places, but few get to see it because there is no public access except by water. The river splits into dozens of channels around pretty little islands with rocky shoals singing the river’s song. The shoals are long and tricky to negotiate without grounding in low flow, but I take a channel on far river right that goes by an old grist mill. Portions of the old wooden dam and stone foundations of the mill remain visible.

Below the shoals on the left side of the river was the village of Neuyauka, sometimes spelled Niuyaka. This Okfuskee Creek settlement was reportedly renamed after the 1790 Treaty of New York signed between George Washington’s Secretary of War Henry Knox and 27 Creek leaders. Among other provisions, the treaty described the Creek’s sovereign territory and promised perpetual peace between the U.S. and the Creeks. This site is no longer cultivated, but I have walked freshly plowed fields over this site in years past and was amazed at the profusion of pottery fragments scattered over several acres.

A little further down river and I am entering Horseshoe Bend National Military Park, site of the famous battle that helped launch Andrew Jackson to national prominence. Before the battle in March, 1814, the Upper Creeks had already been besieged since the summer of 1813 on all sides by armies from Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Their villages were burned, thousands of inhabitants killed and remaining populations scattered or went into in hiding. But the massacre that occurred inside the horseshoe forever broke any chance of the Creeks determining their own fate in the South.

At the end of the horseshoe is the site of the old Miller Covered Bridge, now replaced by a modern steel and concrete bridge. Most of the stone support pillars of the old bridge are still standing. At the time the Miller Bridge collapsed in 1963, it was the longest covered bridge in the world at 890 feet long. It was condemned long before it collapsed, but I have fond childhood memories of riding through the bridge with my father.

To catch fish, Indians often stacked rocks in the river to create fish weirs or traps. I know of several remaining examples, but one of the easiest to view is from the new Horseshoe Bend bridge looking upstream near the base of the island.

Most bridges going over the Tallapoosa are not in the most scenic spots and few people realize just how pretty and special this river is. For someone wanting to catch a glimpse of its scenic beauty, it is hard to beat the section from Horseshoe Bend to Jay Bird creek. It is a good half day trip by canoe or kayak that can be turned into an all-day trip with a picnic and frequent stops to play. The river has interesting shoals and light rapids most of the way, but it is not too tough for the novice. For those unfamiliar with the river, it is easiest to find clear channels by sticking to the far left side of the river from Peter’s Island on down.

Peter’s Island begins about one mile below the bridge. This island is so large that cotton was once grown on it. Emuckfaw Creek empties into the river on the right side of the island. The famous Battle of Emuckfaw Creek occurred several miles above here where the Creeks turned back Andrew Jackson’s first attempt to invade the area and forced him to retreat to Fort Strother.

I would advise canoeists to keep to the left side of the island unless the water levels are really high. At the tail end of the island, water coming around the right side, now with the combined waters of Emuckfaw and Fox creeks, percolates through a short but spectacularly beautiful shoal. Aquatic water lilies (Cahaba lilies) bloom in and near these shoals from late May to early July. The left side of the river is a steep hill with bare rock extending into the water. All these features combine to make this one of my favorite places to stop and I have my afternoon chocolate break here.

In about two miles, I cross under high transmission power lines signaling the beginning of Irwin Shoals. For almost two more miles, the river spreads out very wide with multiple channels and shoals. In anything less than normal flows, the only way a canoeist can avoid running aground in shallow water is to keep to the far left channels. There are a lot of pretty picnic spots here. When the shoals and lively water end, I know I am at the beginning of Lake Martin and just above Jay Bird Creek.

Jay Bird Creek empties into the river on the left, and shortly after there is a concrete boat ramp built by Tallapoosa County. This is a popular fishing spot for good reason. It is also very heavily used by locals as a weekend camping and partying destination. I am a little reluctant to camp here for that reason, but I am dead tired and because it is a weekday, I figure I’ll take a chance.

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