The History of Black Bear Campby John W. Bales Around 1980 I began to search for the right piece of rural property on which to build my home. In 1982 a friend in real estate found a sixteen acre tract about eight miles from my home in Opelika, AL on the banks of Little Loblockee Creek near the Waverly community. It was purchased for $8800. About half the property was a wooded floodplain and the other half a morass of thorns and vines. The right-of-way access into the property ended short of the property at a 12 foot wide stream. After locating two 18 foot I-beams at a junk yard and oak planks at a sawmill I was able to bridge the stream. I began to clear the property by hand, using a chain saw, bush axe and fire. I then constructed a barbed wire fence around about 12 of the 16 acres, leaving the thickest part of the floodplain untouched. Completion of the fence required crawling through the 2000 foot perimeter four times pushing an 80 pound roll of barbed wire. During those months, I took a break to build a small log cabin. Logs were cut from maple trees in the flood plain and pulled uphill on rollers made from the limbs. Since no electricity was available, it was necessary to use hand tools. With the addition of this crude shelter, the property became my Walden's Pond. When the fence was completed I built a hay shed and bought cows and a bull. The cows completed the process of clearing the honey suckle, rose briars and privet, and allowed me to deduct my expenses, since I was now a farm. In 1987, I began construction of my home on the property, using hand tools at first, until electricity could be brought in. Within two years, construction was sufficiently complete that I was able to move in and sell my home in town. The profit from the sale of my home allowed me to contract out the cabinets, the central heat and air and the digging of the well. At this time, the owner of 17 adjoining acres approached me about buying his property. We were able to work it out, and my farm grew to 33 acres. Also at this time, I sold my cows and quit the cattle farming business. In the summer of 1994, I got an Auburn University student to house sit for me while I took a break from teaching to work at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, MS. At the end of the summer, the student asked if he could rent the log cabin from me. I allowed him to stay there free of charge, since it had no plumbing or electricity, and was heated by a wood stove. Besides, he was great company for me, since I gave him kitchen and bathroom privileges. After a while, though, he began to tire of the lack of electricity, so I contacted the electric co-op and inquired about the possibility of running electricity to the cabin, which was in the woods 600 feet behind my house. They agreed to do it for $50 plus a $25 deposit. But when they were about to cut the trees, the engineer asked me about the plumbing in the cabin. I pointed at the outhouse and said "There's the plumbing." He informed me that in order to be considered a residence, a structure had to have indoor plumbing. I would have to run a water line to the cabin and build a bathroom. Since there was no room to put a bathroom in the 12 x 18 foot cabin, it would be necessary to build a separate structure. Now the wheels began to turn in my head. For years I had considered the possibility of turning the 33 acres into a campground. The idea was to provide a source of non-fixed income after I retired in 2009. Since I would need bathrooms for the campground, I decided to build a structure which would contain both a womens and a mens bathroom. Now since my tenant presently had kitchen privileges at my house, it only made sense to include a small kitchen area between the bathrooms. By making the central area a little larger, it would even be possible to put in a couple of extra rooms for storage or whatever. Clearly, this bathroom was taking on a life of its own. In the end, it became a 32 x 40 foot cabin with a 12 foot wide full-surround roofed porch, with half the porch screened in, with a hot tub and a swimming pool and surrounding deck. Thus was the lodge of Black Bear Camp born, as the bathroom of a crude log cabin in the woods. In 1995 Hurricane Opal blew down hundreds of trees on the property. I used some of them in the construction so that the new structure would blend in more harmoniously with the original log cabin. The hay shed which originally stood on the site was disassembled and the materials used to build a cupola on the new building. During several work weekends over the course of four years, friends and members of the men's organization Southern Bears helped me with construction. In 1996 a few months after construction on the lodge had began, Black Bear Camp opened to members only. In the summer of 1998 we opened to non-members. My tenant, Logan, moved out in 1997, two years after I began construction. In February 1998, at the age of 54 years and after living alone all my adult life, I took a life partner, Wade. Together we operate Black Bear camp supported by our day jobs. Someday, we hope to be able to live on my retirement income plus the income from Black Bear Camp. |
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