POWERGRAMS

9 COMMUNITY Alabama may be crowing about its bicentennial celebration this year but Demopolis recently did the same for a 100-year anniversary of a different sort. In 1919, the southwest Alabama town held one of the most unusual events ever to raise money to build a bridge – a rooster auction – with celebrity birds received from President Woodrow Wilson, other world leaders and Hollywood stars. It put Demopolis on the international map, making the front page of The New York Times and reported by The Times of London. The two- day auction a century ago raised $45,000 (nearly $700,000 in today's dollars) for a bridge across the Tombigbee River – the last unfinished water crossing of the Dixie Overland Highway (now U.S. Highway 80) from San Diego to Savannah, Georgia. Combined with state and federal funds, the Rooster Bridge was finished in 1925. To commemorate the event, the Marengo County Historical Society in 2016 decided to organize another auction – but with more than roosters, including luxury vacations and guided deer hunts. "Rooster Day" is now an annual event featuring an auction, music festival, food booths, 5K and 1K runs, arts and crafts and all sorts of family fun. This year's centennial celebration on April 13 drew a crowd of more than 2,000. On Aug. 15, a rooster auction talk and exhibit at the Marengo County History and Archives Museum will coincide with the actual date of the first auction (see marengocountyhistoricalsociety.com). "This is a great historical event for our community to rally around and express pride for what our town experienced 100 years ago," said auction chairman Diane Brooker, the Demopolis Business Office manager for Alabama Power. Alabama Heritage magazine and the Marengo County Historical Society note the rooster saga started with the Dixie Overland Highway Association, a group of supporters eager to build the bridge to complete the transcontinental highway. Marengo and Sumter counties – on either side of the river – weren't financially able. The association tapped Frank Inge Derby, an unconventional yet successful fundraiser from Sumter County. He was famous for raising $73,000 for the Red Cross by auctioning 57 bulls at the Tutwiler Hotel in Birmingham. Association officials watched as Derby sold a rooster for $7,500 to help build a small bridge in the Sumter County town of York. They were sold on Derby's talent. Derby thought the competitive juices of local people to outbid others for the roosters donated by the rich and famous made it likely the auction would reach the $75,000 goal. Derby conjured up an out-of-the-box idea, and just so happened to be at the right place at the right time. President Wilson was meeting in France with "the Big Four" allied leaders for the Versailles Peace Conference after World War I. Derby asked Alabama Congressman William "Buck" Oliver and other U.S. diplomats to convince Wilson to ask the prime ministers of Britain, France and Italy to donate roosters. The birds were shipped to the United States on the USS Northern Pacific. The New York Times ran a front-page picture with each rooster in a cage adorned by each country's flag. Wilson, back in Washington, presented them to a delegation from Demopolis and the state of Alabama. Newsreels of the ceremony gave the event more national exposure. Derby, meanwhile, acquired a rooster from Hollywood silent movie star Mary Pickford. Helen Keller, who thought it unladylike to send a rooster, sent a blue hen that fetched a winning bid of $15,000. The 1919 auction drew between 10,000 and 40,000 spectators, depending on the source. It was a spectacle. The Big Four roosters traveled by train, spending one night in the Tutwiler bridal suite. Another rooster arrived by parachute before its owner landed on the Tombigbee in a hydroplane. "With the huge amphitheater jammed with humanity gathered from all parts of the state, bands playing, aeroplanes humming overhead and cinematography machines busy recording scenes of one of the most historic events in the country," the auction got underway, wrote The Montgomery Advertiser. "The two-day event featured the largest barbecue and Brunswick stew dinner ever held in Alabama," wrote the West Alabama Watchman, a current Demopolis website. "The state Legislature closed up shop and all the politicians came to Demopolis. Trains carried folks from all over to the small west Alabama city." Admission to the auction and barbecue cost $2, with rooster picture buttons serving as tickets, which alone raised $22,000. Unfortunately, the local auction accounting efforts didn't match the heights of the international fanfare. "In all the excitement, proper records of some of the purchasers and their bids were not made and a great deal of money was never paid," wrote The Demopolis Times. Wilson's rooster drew the highest bid at $55,000 but was never collected. Between $200,000 and $300,000 was pledged, but only $65,000 collected. After $20,000 in expenses, $45,000 was secured for the bridge, leaving Derby empty-handed, since he failed to meet the $75,000 fundraising minimum to earn his $25,000 fee. The $45,000, combined with state and federal money, paid for the bridge. Originally called Memorial Bridge in honor of World War I veterans, the Legislature in 1959 renamed it what it had been called all along: Rooster Bridge. The original two-lane structure was demolished in 1980 and a new one built several miles upstream, still carrying U.S. Highway 80 traffic. Last April, live and silent auctions were held at historic Lyon Hall. Although a few token roosters were auctioned for tradition, major donated items included a vacation at the Grand Hotel in Point Clear; a guided deer and hog hunt at Canterbury Hunting Lodge; and a 10-couple soiree at Shack 33 of Soggy Bottom Lodge. Since 2016, Rooster Day has raised more than $115,000 for the Marengo County Historical Society, for upkeep of historic Lyon Hall and Bluff Hall. The two Demopolis mansions were built before the Civil War and are now museums. The society provides heritage education in area schools. By Gilbert Nicholson A B r i d g e t o S t a r s DEMOPOLIS CELEBRATES 1919 BIRD AUCTION WITH REVIVAL On opposite page, top right, President Woodrow Wilson, wearing white pants and black blazer, sends off his rooster and roosters from the leaders of Italy, France and the United Kingdom for the first Demopolis bridge auction. It has continued as an important community event for a century.

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