West Blocton’s Cahaba Lily Festival got its start 20 years ago when members of the West Blocton Improvement Committee tried to come up with ways to perk up their hometown.
Organizers hope the 20th annual festival, to be held Saturday downtown at The Lily Center on Main Street, will do the same thing.
“We have a wonderful community, but we are down economically,” said Myrtle Jones, a member of the West Blocton City Council. “The festival is a bright spot in our year.”
Jones, a founding member of the West Blocton Improvement Committee, said the group organized twenty years ago and cleaned up trash, planted flowers and planned events, such as the Wild West Blocton Day and the Cahaba Lily Festival.
Begun as a small-scale local party, the lily festival has blossomed into a day-long event welcoming visitors from Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and surrounding communities. Various organizations offer presentations on wildflowers and preserving the Cahaba River. Artists and craftspeople display their work. This year, the Red Mountain Chamber Orchestra will perform in the morning and The Cahaba Olde Tyme Music Society, a dulcimer group from Centreville, will play that evening.
There will be presentations from groups ranging from the Cahaba River Wildlife Refuge, Friends of the CRWR, the George Wood chapter of the Alabama Wildflower Society, Bibb County Citizens for Wildflowers, the Bibb County Cahaba River Authority and the Nature Conservancy, among others.
The luncheon served will rival the best family reunion spreads. “It’s a smorgasbord of food,” Jones said. “We have a large group of ladies who all will cook a dish for us.” The menu varies from year to year but usually includes fried chicken, ham, turkey and dressing and lots of casseroles. The dessert table will overflow with sweets such as coconut cake, blackberry cobbler and lemon icebox pie.
And of course, the star of the show is the Cahaba lily (Hymenocallis coronaria), which is in bloom from about mid-May until the middle of June.
“After the luncheon we have shuttle buses to take people to the river. It’s about four miles,” Jones said. The viewing is good from the river banks, or visitors can rent canoes for $10.
There are only a handful of places in Alabama where this rare flower blooms, and one of the best spots for viewing the stunning white lily is along the rocky shoals of the Cahaba River as it flows through Bibb County.
“I’m always enthralled by the beauty of looking out in the river and seeing these lilies grow in moving water,” said Charles Allen, a member of the West Blocton Improvement Committee. “Some seeds float, but these fall to the bottom and catch in the rocks there.”
The lily also grows in Georgia and South Carolina but is known as the “shoal lily” or the “shoal spider lily” outside of Alabama. The stand of lilies found in Bibb County is one of the largest anywhere, attracting photographers each year trying to capture the short-lived beauty.
The Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge was dedicated in 2004, making the removal of the plants from their natural habitat here illegal. “We were pleased to have the refuge established because in years past people would dig them out and put them in their yards,” Allen said. “And that’s not the variety that will grow in yards. It’s only in water where you’ll find these.”
After the viewing of the lilies, storytelling will take place at 4 p.m. at the Lily Center. “Last year was the first time we had it and it was extremely interesting with people telling about old times and the history of the area,” Allen said.
The dulcimer concert inside the center will start at 6 p.m., and by 7 p.m., everybody will move outside where the streets will be rocking with bluegrass.
Throughout the day locals will have yard sales in full swing, native plants will be for sale, and artists will display their works on downtown streets. “Earnest T. Williams and Don Coley will have their folk art,” said Judy Stewart who is in charge of street activities.
Peggy Hubbard will sell her Cahaba lily soap and artist LaRue Burt will have paintings as well as note cards featuring the lily. Local artist Betty Tillery will also display paintings for sale.
“Brian Cunningham will be selling cornmeal ground at his West Blocton grist mill,” Stewart said. “And his daughter Lindsay will have jewelry that she makes out of shells and rocks that she has found on the banks of the Cahaba River.”
During the late 1800s the coal industry was responsible for huge growth in the West Blocton area. But by 1928 all the mines had closed and the town foundered with most businesses moving away. During the Great Depression, hobos used the abandoned coke ovens as shelters. There will be someone on hand in the afternoon at the historic Beehive Coke Ovens to tell the story of the ovens and answer questions.
Categories: Tuscaloosa | Events | Conventions
Tags: lily festival, tuscaloosa festivals
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