Marion County history

The youngest daughter of William David Mitchell and Zilla (Frederick) Mitchell, shown to the right, kept this portrait hanging on the wall in her home. The portrait is now in the possession of her great-grandson, general manager of the Journal Record.
Dave and Zill, as they were known, lived most of their life in the Chalk Bluff area of Marion County, a few miles south of Hackleburg. Zill moved in with a relative in Hamilton after Dave died. They are both buried at Union Hill Cemetery near Hackleburg.

This photo was made in Brilliant in April 1944. The brick building is a general merchandise store and was constructed about 1918 by D.T. Cochran. Behind the horse is the west side of the Dickinson General Store. The horse and buggy, owned by John Leonard, delivered the Birmingham Post newspaper to town residents in the late afternoons. Guest riders this afternoon were Clair Hipp and Doris Dickinson. Photo submitted by Jim Dickinson.

Pictured in 1915 is the Wright Motor Company, a Ford dealer, in Guin. It was opened in 1913, and closed in 1933. President of the company was Robert Raymond Wright Sr., a native of Calhoun County, Ala., who also remembered selling his Model T in 1913 to Ivy Thompson, mail carrier of the Star Route from Guin to Hamilton. According to Wright, the title of the owner of the first car in Guin was Gus Hallmark, who purchased one in Birmingham one month before Wright opened his business.

This photo was taken on March 3, 1936, and is of a drug store of the time called apothecary. It was located on what is today known as County Road 13 in Bexar on the western end of Marion County.
Noticeable in the photo are the stove pipe coming out the front window, the wooden doorsteps, the rock foundation, the piece of pottery in the other window and the detailed woodwork on the building. Also barely seen is what looks to be a clothesline running from the tree to another building on the left.