POWERGRAMS

29 FAYETTE In Fayette County, the courthouse is revered, a generations-spanning, comeback status symbol of the artistic community where it stands. When fire swept through Fayette on March 24, 1911, in less than two hours the entire business district disappeared. Losses for 56 destroyed businesses totaled nearly $400,000, an astronomical sum in those days when 90 percent had no insurance. But three weeks later a $58,447.21 contract was awarded to build a new courthouse. Three days short of the one-year fire anniversary, a courthouse worthy of a state capitol opened. Noted for its gold-leafed, multi-domed and columned tower with identical clocks at each compass direction, the Fayette County Courthouse is easily the most graphically reproduced person or place in these parts. A visitor seldom enters a building, passes a mural or views an internet site related to Fayette that doesn't have a painting, photograph, model or some fanciful representation of the seat of government for the county named for the Marquis de LaFayette. The courthouse walls themselves are lined with photos and paintings of the courthouse. About 4,600 of the county's 17,000 residents live in Fayette, where buildings spurred by construction of the courthouse still ring the old yellow brick, three-story structure. Bolling Pharmacy & Gifts, established in 1961, is one of the oldest continuous businesses, along with Robbie's of Fayette, which has sold clothing and accessories for nearly 60 years. Citizens have for a century deposited their savings and secured loans through Citizen's Bank, which has been in its "new" building since 1956. On Sundays, they've filled the pews of Fayette First Baptist, listened to sermons next door inside the Spanish mission-style First United Methodist Church or taken membership in any of the four adjacent churches along Temple Avenue. All around downtown are art-related shops and galleries, befitting a town whose biggest annual event is the Fayette Arts Festival, which in 2019 celebrated its 50th year and is Alabama's longest continuous-running fair. Just across from the courthouse is Laughing Crow Art Studio & Gallery, and within a couple of city blocks are three other studios, several framing shops and the Sipsey Arts artists collective. The main welcome sign at the city limits promotes the 1998 Fayette County High Tigers' football state championship and four runner-up trophies, but a smaller sign below it notes that Fayette is the home of the late Jimmie Lee Sudduth, "Internationally Known Artist." Even Sudduth painted a rendition of the courthouse. Throughout the town are murals on buildings, including a pair by Missy Miles across 1st Street Southeast from each other: one of frogs — stemming from the previous town name of Frog Level, when Fayette was mostly swampland — and another covering the entire north side of the two-story Golden Eagle Syrup factory, depicting the founders, honeycombs, a giant bee and the message "A syrup without an equal for any meal." A huge Miles' outdoor painting of Sudduth graces one wall of The Times-Record building across from the Depot Museum. Fayette newspapers go back to 1849, with many bound volumes available for reading in the courthouse. The town radio station is a century younger, as WLDX first broadcast on Sept. 3, 1949. Listeners have tuned into the homespun "Morning Call" for four decades, as original host John Gordon has teamed the past 10 years with current program director Chris Champion to tell their audience about birthdays, obituaries and other purely local news. A mural in the park across from City Hall portrays several prominent Fayette buildings, centered by the courthouse (the real version being easily seen from that vantage point by merely looking over one's shoulder). The mural is dedicated to beloved teacher and children's book author Louise Nolen, who died in 2009. The park itself honors Herb Lowe (1930-2011), who owned the Piggly Wiggly, was three- time president of the chamber of commerce and was known for his volunteer work. There is one traffic light in downtown Fayette, and visitors may wonder why, since it is almost immediately followed by Annual Frog Festival celebrates town's roots. Fayette County High School Band marches during Homecoming Parade.

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