In his infrequent role as parking lot shuttle driver, Todd Flowers knows what’s coming. “When we hit the gap in the trees, where they first see the mill, you ought to hear the gasps,” he says, saying it’s one of the favorite parts of his job managing Yellowleaf Creek Mill with his wife, Danyula. It’s a similar […]

It’s not fuzzy logic to guess that life could be peachy 120 feet below Clanton’s iconic fruit-shaped water tower. Goats, geese and cows graze in the pasture beneath the creviced steel, red and yellow painted structure built for $1.2 million in 1993 at Exit 212 along Interstate 65. The road through town winds past Peachy Clean Car […]

Had William Seaborn Johnson been like his nine siblings, countless people in the past 160 years might have led diminished lives. Seaborn was deaf, which inspired his older brother, Joseph, to start a school in 1858 that years later became the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind (AIDB). Today, the wide-ranging programs on the huge campus in […]

To most of the world, Talladega is the big racetrack that opened half a century ago. The 2.66-mile NASCAR tri-oval 14 miles from downtown Talladega is familiar even to people who care nothing about vehicles racing 200 mph as 175,000 fans scream while nursing their favorite beverages in the bleachers and infield. Talladega Superspeedway is quickly becoming the “world’s most […]