POWERGRAMS

28 For several decades beginning in the 1970s, greyhound racing and keg beer were Eutaw's calling cards, bringing thousands of outsiders in to spend their money. As liquor laws relaxed statewide and politicians battled legal gambling businesses, Eutaw's emphasis began returning to the past. Kegs here are kaput while Greenetrack is still hanging on but Eutaw's future seems to be in its jackpot of old homes and an influx of investors who treasure houses such as Kirkwood, White Columns and Everhope. Eutaw, with less than 2,000 residents, has 27 antebellum structures on the National Register of Historic Places, and others that qualify for the prestigious listing. e population has changed little in the past century as the town has managed to keep most of its historic houses. "e centerpiece is the confluence of Civil War-era buildings and civil rights sites and achievements," says Phyllis Belcher, executive director of the Greene County Industrial Authority since 1994. Belcher left Eutaw for the Big Apple but returned to raise a fourth generation of family in her hometown. Her current office is in the renovated old Greene County Probate Office built in 1856 on one of three corners of the courthouse square occupied by similar two-story buildings. Its marble floors are just one of the impressive aspects of the facility that has period furnishings and original probate record books lining wood cases that reach the ceiling. At the opposite ends of the block stand the Grand Jury Building erected in 1842 and the library built in 1931, though those have only been restored on the exterior and are not occupied. e now-vacant 1869 courthouse replaced an earlier building that burned. Greene County governmental buildings today are mostly on the perimeter of the old courthouse square. Eutaw has its fair share of industry, with the Westrock paperboard facility employing 200 workers, Southfresh Farms catfish plant having 160 workers, and homegrown United Roofing employing about 50 in the town's industrial park. Last year, Gov. Kay Ivey came to town to break ground for Love's Travel Stop, a $14 million investment that will create nearly 55 jobs. e "Gateway to the Blackbelt," as described on a state marker on the old courthouse lawn, has a rich history concerning the drive to attain equal rights for Eutaw citizens. Black high school students marched in the 1960s to the courthouse square. Adults gathered at First Baptist Church to strategize with the Revs. Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams and Martin Luther King Jr., who in 1968 gave one of his last speeches at the local church. A fountain in the courthouse yard sponsored by Alabama Power honors Alverta Hall Hughes, a Eutaw educator and civic leader. e new courthouse is named after civil rights leader William McKinley Branch, who was the nation's first black probate judge. continued MLK gave one of his last speeches in Eutaw.

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