Yesterday as I was out showing a 13 acre tract of land for sale that joins the Talladega National Forest in Perry County, Alabama, my customer and I came upon what I perceive to be a "trail tree".
Trail trees were reportedly used by native Americans to mark travel routes, establish local boundaries, or point to food, water, or shelter. They were shaped by lashing or bending a small sapling (usually oak) in the direction they wanted it to face.
There is a small stream roughly 50 yards from where this tree is located. I was elated to find it standing in the woods. They are fairly rare in Perry County, which is in the Black Belt of Alabama. I saw them more as a teenager in the hills of north Alabama near the Tennessee state line.
This tree doesn't add any monetary value to the tract, but it does make you wonder why it is here. If it isn't old enough to have been shaped by native Americans, could it have been used by local troops in the Civil War to mark a hideout or some other cache of supplies? Maybe some young boys heard stories from their grandfather about bending trees to make signposts and they experimented on this one. Whatever the case, it is a neat find and a part of history most people never see anymore.
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Buying or Selling Rural Land in Alabama? Let Jonathan Goode and the AlaLandCo team help you.
Jonathan Goode is a licensed Realtor and professional land agent with AlaLandCo. Jonathan works with buyers and sellers of rural land in the Black Belt of West Alabama. He and his family live in Marion in Perry County.
Jonathan is a member of the Realtor's Land Institute (RLI) and specializes in marketing hunting land, farmland, and recreational properties in Perry County, Bibb County, Hale County, and Dallas County, Alabama. Click here for a map of all of my current West Alabama land listings. You can see more pictures and get more information about all of my propterties on my website or follow me on facebook to stay current on what is happening in Alabama's land market.
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What a really great find! Really exciting for you to find one! Locally we occassionally come across old Stills in the woods, its really neat to find one. Thanks for sharing it!
What an interesting bit of history! Even though that tree isn't old enough to have been shaped more than a few decades ago, I bet it was done by someone who knew the history of the tradition.
When I was a child, we would look for trees that had trunks that had been bent with a portion horizontal to the ground, making it possible to ride it like a horse. That was fun!
I just learned something reading your post. I had never heard of a "trail tree" before.