Small towns play large roles in America

Welcome to Natural Bridge, Alabama. Official population: 28.

The smallest incorporated town in the state has a volunteer mayor and five unpaid council members - an average of nearly one politician to represent every five residents.

But don't let the numbers fool you.

"The census messed up; we have a few more people than the census counted," said A.G. "Pete" Parrish, the mayor of Natural Bridge.

How did he know? "We counted them," he said.

Parrish said 49 people now live in the town, nearly double the 2007 census estimate of 28 residents.

"It could be off by a number or two," Parrish said of the town's manual count.

Small towns have been part of the U.S. psyche since they started forming in New England by settlers from the Old World, according to Bart Russell, founding executive director of the National Association of Towns and Townships.

He estimated that out of 36,500 cities and towns in the United States, 20,000 have less than 1,000 residents.

"There is a rich tradition, a powerful element of this patchwork quilt in government," Russell said.

Russell said the first towns in the U.S. originated in New England as people began forming enclaves around civic connections.

"As settlers came to the U.S., they would find value in congregating," Russell said. "It was a natural evolution that people wanted to create a legal organization to make civil rules."

For Natural Bridge, a 256-acre town, that legality came in 1914 when the town became incorporated and had its first mayor. Before then, the state's oldest public road, Byler Road, and North Alabama Railroad ran through the town.

Wayne Dickinson, who is 78, has lived in Natural Bridge most of his life, with brief stints in Birmingham.

In its heyday, the coal-mining and saw-milling town had 325 residents, by Dickinson's estimation, and had three stores, a blacksmith, Edmund's Saloon and even a newspaper: the Natural Bridge Wildcat.

Then the Great Depression hit the area and as Parrish described, residents went where the work was and moved away from Natural Bridge.

Eventually, the town council dismantled and the town faded away.

But in 1997, town residents pushed through an effort to re-incorporate themselves by reinstating their charter. Trouble was, they couldn't find it - at first.

With patience came the reward: the charter and the ability to re-establish the town.

In fact, the town wouldn't be able to exist today if not for that near 100-year-old charter, said Lori Lein, deputy general counsel for the Alabama League of Municipalities.

Lein said amendments to the 1907 Alabama code, likely from the 1980s, stipulated that towns have no less than 300 people. The first mayor was judge appointed and since then, Parrish has been its uncontested mayor.

"I saw it at its height and I saw it at its lowest, and I'm seeing it on its way back," Dickinson said.

One hope for the town's revival is Corridor X, or U.S. 78, that will eventually run between Memphis, Tenn., and Birmingham. The road will be nine miles from the town.

"I believe that's where our growth will come from in the future," said Parrish.

For now, the town's pride is a cinder block community center built four years ago, still in need of some finishing touches, with four rows of white tables lined with chairs.

Everything from wedding receptions to town council meetings take place in the building, most of which was built from volunteer labor. It will also act as this year's polling station.

Russell said in some states, there are efforts under way to dismantle small towns "for the sake of what is perceived as efficiency," he said.

For example, in February, New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine said that towns with populations less than 10,000 would receive less direct support from the state. He set aside funds for towns willing to set up new arrangements to share with local and regional services, according to a critique of the budget from Timothy McDonough, Mayor of Hope Township.

Many of Natural Bridge's town functions come from the kindness of others. Water comes from nearby Haleyville, garbage collection comes from Winston County, and the sherrif's department acts as the highway patrol.

Natural Bridge is surely a small town, but it raises the question: How small can a town be and still be considered an actual town?

Nationally, North Dakota has the most incorporated towns of less than 100 residents, 133 towns to be exact, according to U.S. Census data.

In contrast, Alabama has 17 towns with less than 100 residents, tiny towns with names such as Goldville (36 residents), Memphis (32 residents) and the positively cosmopolitan Rivertown (98 residents).

But in the how-low-can-you-go category, Goss, Mo., is one of the rarified four towns recognized by the U.S. Census with a single resident. Or maybe not.

When asked how many folks lived in Goss, Sandra Francis, clerk for Monroe County, where Goss is located, responded, "One, three, four, five, six, maybe? I'm not really sure. It's just a little place you drive through."

When towns become so small, one or two deaths can mean the end of it, which is what happened in Florida, Mo.

Warren Hagan is designated mayor and historian of the town that actually has no residents.

Hagan, a plastic surgeon who lives in Kansas City, owns land in the town that is the birthplace of American scribe Mark Twain.

In the 1990s, the Corps of Engineers dammed up the nearby river and formed a lake that diverted agriculture and transportation.

"The town didn't blow but floated away," Hagan said.

From a peak of 280 residents in 1880, by 2000, the town had dwindled to less than 10 residents.

The last resident died in 2007 and now the town is no more, even though the Mark Twain park draws 50,000 visitors per year and the lake draws 250,000 a year, Hagan said.

Even with no residents, efforts, mainly from Hagan, are under way to build a walkway that will connect Mark Twain's birth site to the town.

Resident-deprived towns can still have value: $6,888,000 in the case of Stockton in Baldwin County, a 492-acre tract of land being sold through LandWatch - a town that Lein, from the Alabama League of Municipalities, said was rumored to still have its charter.

The question remains: In such small towns, why not let them dismantle and become part of the county?

"We needed to preserve our identification - we needed to control our destiny. You miss so much by not being a town," said Dickinson, who was part of the effort to re-incorporate the town. "I just couldn't stand seeing someone take over and undo a lifetime of history."

That history includes the school that closed in 1964, the wooden jail with a single window and the former Oddfellows lodge.

Now, the Natural Bridge Stock Yard opens twice weekly, the pulp yard is active as is Clark's Pallet Co. and Clint's Tires & Repairs. Natural Bridge Restaurant is open 24 hours and several cars were parked in front of the Budget Inn on a recent Friday afternoon. Four churches are in the town, including two Missionary, one Church of Christ and one nondemoninational.

"That's a lot of churches for 49 people," Dickinson joked.

But most people know Natural Bridge for its namesake, a rock bridge formed 200 million years ago when the former sea washed away limestone and left intact iron ore veins that hold the bridge, according to a sign at the park's entrance.

The park opened in 1954 and was purchased in the early 1980s by Jim Denton, who now runs the park with his wife, Barbara.

Denton, born in Mississippi and raised in Illinois, helped in the effort to re-incorporate the town.

"At one time, 355 people lived here," he said as a reason to maintain the town's identity.

On a recent Friday afternoon, sisters Linda Wilson, of Corner, and Willadean Pearce, of Birmingham, both climbed up the ridge that lead up to the rock bridge.

"That's the most beautiful site I've ever seen, and I've been all over the U.S.," marveled Wilson. "You go halfway around the world and here is something so beautiful in our backyard."

Trevor Stokes can be reached at 740-5728 or trevor.stokes@TimesDaily.com.