Red Bay
This is my impression of small town Alabama.
We arrived at Red Bay Alabama on the 10th of June, 2023.
This sleepy little town right on the Mississippi border is quaint and very southern. Located an hour and 40 minutes west of Huntsville, Red Bay is a red brick constructed town that was founded in 1907 but with buildings that date back into the 1800’s.
There are two fortune 500 companies in town and the they are the main industries. First is the Tiffin family. This family runs a hardware store, lumber yard and the high end Motorcoach company. The other is Sunshine industries who manufactures mobile homes and also operates a specialty dog food manufacturing facility. Between these two, they employ most of the residents here. There are also a number of RV related businesses in town such as aftermarket equipment installers and RV park operators.
When you enter this little town you notice two things right away. Almost every yard is well manicured and all are mowed to resemble the fairway at your local golf course. The second is the number of Tiffin motorcoaches as they are coming through for warranty work, annual maintenance or touring the factory. There are other little quirks such as a lack of pedestrians, traffic, loud or broken cars and animals wandering the streets as well as a perfusion of storm shelters, both private and public. There is limited dining out available here and not a ton of healthy choices. Much of the food here is heavy on grease, having been fried or deep fried along with gravy for a side or slathered on top. For a real selection of dining choices, one must travel to a bigger town along the lines of Jasper (45 minutes), Hamilton (40 minutes), Tupelo, Huntsville or even further away to much larger cities.
This town is very proud of its heritage with a fully appointed city park, modern police department and a beautiful cemetery. There is a church of almost every denomination in town with the largest being the central First Baptist church which is a sprawling brick structure. There are almost as many churches in town as corner coffee stands in Olympia. It is located in Franklin county which is dry. Dry not in the sense there is no water but dry in that there is no sale of alcohol allowed within the county. This is not unique to Franklin or Mississippi as this dry county phenomena occurs throughout the south. This does not mean that you cannot imbibe in your favorite adult beverage, it just means that you cannot do so in public nor can you purchase it in any store in the county. There is, however, a wet county in Mississippi, just a ten minute drive away, where you can have a mixed drink in a bar or purchase from the local store.
If you are a civil war era history buff there are numerous sites within an easy drive of Red Bay. The City of Corinth is an hour away and is the site of the famous railroad crossroads, Shiloh National Military Park is just over an hour away. I will expound on my take on these areas later.
Tupelo, Mississippi is just 45 minutes to the west, where you can visit the birthplace of Elvis Presley and other southern blues music history.
Red Bay is the home of a large population of transient people. These are not your regular transients, but what E and I call the Bougie Homeless. These people are the owners of the Tiffin motorcoaches and Vanleigh branch of fifth wheels. These coaches are not something your typical homeless person can afford to own. They (and we) are here for service and warranty work on our rolling condominiums. Depending on your list of “fix it” items, you may be here for a couple of days or you may be here for weeks (our timeline). Tiffin and all of the third party vendors are concentrated in one area and all of the RV parks cater to this transient population whose numbers vary from day to day but stay steady overall, every day.
I have run on enough and will see you next time. Expect a photo blog in the near future.
Until then, if you see us out there of happen to be in the Red bay area, stop by and say hi.
Jeff
