Elberta, Alabama, was founded in 1903 by the Baldwin County Colonization Company, based in Chicago.  The first settlers were German farmers, who had originally immigrated to the Midwest. Lured by the land company’s promise of good soil and weather, suitable for year-round crop production, they bought the land and began building their farms in 1904.

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The town is laid out like a Midwestern town with roads running on section lines from east and west and north to south.  Property, including the farms, were laid out in squares. In the 1930s and 1940s, the town had a farmer’s hall where folks gathered for music and dance. There was a hotel, a movie theater, a butcher shop, and grocery and drugstore. St. Mark’s Lutheran Church held services in German until 1976.

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The town’s annual German sausage festivals, held the last weekend in March and the last weekend in October, draws thousands of visitors to Elberta for good, locally produced food and the arts and craft venders. Proceeds support the town’s volunteer fire department.

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Places to eat

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Roadkill Café, a country cooking, American food kind of place. Despite the colorful name, it serves a buffet of fried chicken and fried catfish and all the fixin’s, not road-killed possum or skunk. Some of the best fried chicken you’ll ever eat, in fact.  Open 6 am to 9 am except for Sundays, when they close at 2 pm. Drive on US98 east from State Highway 59, and you’ll find it in the center of the Elberta.

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Attractions

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Bamahenge and the dinosaurs and other interesting things

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These are some of the more unusual attractions in south Alabama. They stand just outside Barber Marina, which is a couple of miles out of Elberta on US 98 East near Lillian, Ala. 

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Bamahenge is a partial recreation of the world-famous Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England. The original contains at least 50 stones standing high in a circle, built sometime between 2000 BC and 3000 BC by three succeeding groups of ancient people who left no substantive trace to explain themselves or the stone monument to future generations. What has been worked out is that the stones are set to capture the summer solstice sun rays. The sun rays shine through the slit between the stones and align with a stone structure outside the circle.  Some of the second- and third-stage stones, weighing several tons each, were laboriously dragged or floated on rivers to the site from quarries over 200 miles away.

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The original Stonehenge, according to archeologists and historians, seems to have been used for religious ceremonies and perhaps even sacrifices, human or animal it is not known.

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Bamahenge is a less ambitious project in that it is not made of cut stones but like the original stones, they tower over one’s head. Bamahenge stones are made of fiberglass and are painted to look like the English structure’s stones.  Importantly, Bamahenge has the same astrological alignment as that of the original Stonehenge, so if you go on the summer solstice, and it’s not cloudy, you’ll see the sun rays line up. 

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No one has taken credit for Bamahenge construction. It is not state property, though the grounds are well cared for. And that adds to the mystery of the structures and of the dinosaur statues that sit a bit further toward the marina.

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Bamahenge, the dinosaurs, and the giant Lady in the Lake statue that sits in the water at the marina, and other statues were all built by Virginia artist Mark Cline. Barber Marina owner George Barber, who made his millions by producing and selling dairy products from Birmingham, Ala., commissioned Cline to do the work. The artist had built a similar Stonehenge recreation in Virginia, which is where Barber got the idea for his land in south Alabama.

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The dinosaurs are equal to Stonehenge in the sheer joy and amazement one gets in finding them sitting in the woods along the Barber Parkway.  A couple of the dinosaurs are obvious from the road, but the other two are harder to find among the trees. There is a brontosaurus, a T-Rex, a stegosaurus, and a triceratops.

 

The Lady in the Lake is a 50-foot statue of a young woman in a bikini sunbathing in the water.

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In addition, there are replicas of Roman columns (with a Roman-like statue) and life-size knights standing in the woods like sentries protecting the marina. They are difficult to see because they blend into the woods, so drive slowly and look closely. 

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The draw of these structures is the pleasure of finding them among the trees, without fanfare or signs announcing their locations or, rarer yet, entrance fees. Look for the geocache hidden near one of the dinosaurs.

 

There also is a calm wonder you get when you stand on the grounds of Bamahenge and get a glimpse of an ancient culture and its reverence for nature and the higher spirits.

 

Baldwin County Heritage Museum

This museum features exhibits about the development of Baldwin County and about life in the small farm town founded by German immigrants. The old St. Mark's Lutheran Church building was moved to the grounds and restored. It is located at 25521 US Highway 98, Elberta, Ala.