Located off of Georgia Highway 255 in Sautee Nacoochee, GA is the 38-foot-long Stovall Mill Covered Bridge. The graffiti covered bridge dates to before the turn of the 20th century. As would be expected, parking is free and there is no admission charge to view or walk across the bridge. Picnic tables are on site so you can enjoy the views and sounds of Chickamauga Creek.
Do you remember the family road trip? Dad, mom, the kids, and luggage all piled in the family truckster headed down the interstate on vacation. Dad wanting to “make time.” Remember stopping at Stuckey’s on the way? Now, straight from Wrens, Georgia, relive those times with a pecan log roll just like you remember. Click the photo or THIS LINK to place your order and to see other delicious candies you have forgotten about.
Text for the Georgia Historic Marker reads:
Stovall Mill Covered Bridge
Fred Dover constructed a bridge and nearby grist, saw and shingle mill complex here in the late 1800s. The original bridge washed away in the early 1890s and Will Pardue replaced it in 1895 with the present 38-foot structure. Dover sold the operation to Fred Stovall, Sr. in 1917. The mill and dam washed away in 1964. Constructed as a modification of the queen post truss design, the bridge’s trusses have two vertical posts (with iron rods) separated by a horizontal crosspiece. The bridge was featured in the movie I’d Climb the Highest Mountain starring Susan Hayward.
Erected by the Georgia Historical Society, Georgia Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.
Georgia Historic Marker recognizing the Stovall Mill Covered Bridge. The marker dates from 2000.Stovall Mill Covered Bridge and Georgia Historic Marker
This post may contain affiliate links. If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. Affiliate programs or sponsors providing products do not influence the views and opinions provided in this blog.
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain, starring Susan Hayward and William Lundigan is available on DVD. This simple story directed by Henry King, follows a Methodist minister called to a rural Georgia mountain community. There he and his city-bred wife use their love to help a small town find God. The film has limited reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
The road trip. It’s as American as well, a Stuckey’s pecan log roll. For travelers on US-301, now part of I-95, South of the Border was, and still is, a destination unto itself. Whether you were headed north or south, dozens of billboards bombarded your senses making it difficult to not stop at the Hamer, South Carolina attraction.
If the road weary family needed food, drinks (alcoholic or non), a hotel room, a campsite, gas, a place for the kids to run around and get some energy out, or maybe just a good laugh at the crass commercialism of the entire place, South of the Border made for the perfect stopping place.
Welcome to South of the Border
South of the Border was the brainchild of Alan Schafer, an entrepreneur with a mind for marketing that comes along only rarely. Schafer opened South of the Border in 1949 as a small outlet to sell beer in response to a ban on alcohol in Robeson County, North Carolina. Thus, the name “South of the Border.” The border of North and South Carolina.
Over the years the highway system around the business changed and South of the Border grew to fill the needs of travelers. Schafer added hotel rooms and camping sites, restaurants, souvenir shops, playgrounds, and more. Putting the attraction into perspective, Capelotti states, “At more than 1,200 acres, it is more than seven times the size of Walt Disney’s original Disneyland in Anaheim, California—a roadside empire built on a bottle of beer.” (Page 2)
In addition to the roadside attraction came the advertising, the focus of this book. In this excellent book, Capelotti presents the reader with a story of several hundred images of billboards that made South of the Border famous. These images have been captured from South of the Border archives, photos from the John Margolies collection at the Library of Congress, and finally searching for and photographing billboards still in the wild; an ordeal that is not without a bit of danger due to the increases in traffic.
In a forty-year career, John Margolies created what the Library of Congress calls “one of the most comprehensive documentary studies of vernacular commercial structures along main streets, byways, and highways throughout the United States in the twentieth century.” At nearly 12,000 slides, the collection is enormous in its depth and quality. You can read a bit more about the Margolies collection on the LoC blog.
You Never Saw Sausage a Place Courtesy Library of Congress
Capelotti puts forth that a reason for the success of South of the Border and for the billboard advertising is that Alan Schafer never allowed the business to be taken too seriously. The author points out that one of Schafer’s billboard trademarks was to make fun of himself, his products, and at times, his customers. An example provided is “He abbreviated South of the Border as S.O.B. and left the passing motorist to attach whatever meaning as might come to mind.” (Page 7)
The author breaks his book into chapters by billboard theme which works very well, allowing the reader to see the evolution of SOTB design. In short, but heavily illustrated chapters, Capelotti allows his reader to explore the evolution, and importance, of the billboard. As we are reminded, advertisers have only a few brief seconds to catch the attention of a driver speeding along the interstate. It is important for them to grab your attention and leave a lasting impression. South of the Border has been an expert at that for seventy years.
The billboards went through various theme changes such as a black background, a yellow background, the use of sombreros and serapes, and changes to the beloved mascot, Pedro, who evolved in appearance throughout the years but continues to make appearances. While there were changes, there has been a consistency as well. The use of bright colors, a familiar and repetitive font style, a heavy reliance on puns (often with double entendre), Pedro, and the famous mileage counter. This mileage counter made sure travelers could not miss the attraction.
Camp Pedro Courtesy Library of Congress
Shafer was known for his word play with a great example pitting north versus south. An early example started life as “Southern Cookin’, Yankee Prices” playing on stereotypes of Southern speech and Yankee cheapness. When this slogan finally made it to the public sight it had been toned down a bit to “Southern Cookin’, Yankee Style.” The point was still driven home, and if you didn’t get it, the use of both Union and Confederate flags would reinforce the meaning. In one billboard that was still fighting the Civil War, a clearly nervous Pedro, in full Mexican regalia, stands to the left looking at the flags out of the corner of his eye with a concerned smile. (page 57)
This is a fun book, but one also with historical importance. The billboard has evolved and is now often the home of competing legal firms (For the People). Electronic billboards make what was never meant to be permanent, even more fleeting. South of the Border has a nostalgic feeling for anybody who traveled south (to an extent north, but mostly south), along the east coast of America. Those road trips to Florida would not have been the same without South of the Border. Both the book and the attraction are recommended!
For those interested in even more history of this cultural icon; the American Road Trip, I recommend the following titles:
Ratay offers “an amiable guide…fun and informative” (New York Newsday) that “goes down like a cold lemonade on a hot summer’s day” (TheWall Street Journal). In hundreds of amusing ways, he reminds us of what once made the Great American Family Road Trip so great, including twenty-foot “land yachts,” oasis-like Holiday Inn “Holidomes,” “Smokey”-spotting Fuzzbusters, twenty-eight glorious flavors of Howard Johnson’s ice cream, and the thrill of finding a “good buddy” on the CB radio.
Beginning as a single roadside stand selling pecans in Eastman, Georgia, by the 1950s, the name Stuckey’s was synonymous throughout the South with candy, souvenirs, clean restrooms, and the other necessities of automobile travel. During the 1960s, the Stuckey’s stores moved into the new frontier of the interstate highways, where quite often they sat alone at the exits like oases in the middle of a desert. Their bright aqua-colored rooftops were a welcome beacon for those who had been driving long distances. Travel has changed a lot since then, but Stuckey’s can still be found along the nation’s highways, still providing dozens of types of candy and nuts, plus the same mix of souvenirs, as always. Anyone need a rubber alligator or a pecan log?
This post may contain affiliate links. If you click these links and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect any price that you pay. All views and opinions provided are my own and are never influenced by affiliate programs or sponsors providing products.
Do you want to recall the great family road trip experience? Try sharing a Stuckey’s Pecan Log Roll with your kids! Click the photo or THIS LINKto order.
I’d Climb the Highest Mountain, starring Susan Hayward and William Lundigan is available on DVD. This simple story directed by Henry King, follows a Methodist minister called to a rural Georgia mountain community. There he and his city-bred wife use their love to help a small town find God. The film has limited reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Capelotti, P.J. 
