Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Boll Weevil - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 1, 2026

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Boll Weevil - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 1, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's
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  Dothan campus, identifying and preserving historical documents
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  and photographs for research related to the Wiregrass region. More information
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  at troy.edu/wiregrassarchives.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is In Focus,
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  and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. Today,
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  genealogist Lynn Schlick joins us to launch a series
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  called Echoes from Our Past. She shares
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  the story of how Coffee County farmers lost one
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  crop to an invader and saved the farm
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  when they planted another. And the story is preserved
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  in art along the Alabama Mural Trail.
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  Lynn Schlick, welcome back to Troy Public Radio.
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  Thank you. It is so nice to be here today. Here we
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  are, early October. We're celebrating your new series.
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  It's called Echoes from Our Past: The Remarkable
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  Lives and Local Legends Within Your Listening
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  Area. You know, we have been talking for many
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  months in your Genealogy in Your Genes series,
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  but now we're taking off in another direction that relates
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  to the Alabama Mural Trail. Yes, I thought it would be
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  appropriate to talk about this. It's kickoff season,
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  kickoff for this new series,
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  but it's also football season and my
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  favorite snack when I'm watching football games,
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  and that's hot boiled peanuts. And my first
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  story is going to be about that and
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  the Alabama Mural Trail. South Alabama is so
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  famous for peanuts, and of course,
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  Houston County in Dothan has a mural about
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  peanuts. You know, it's history. Some of it
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  happens right here in our own listening area. And genealogy
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  isn't just about finding names, dates, and places.
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  It's about the stories of your ancestor.
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  The Alabama mural, one of them, puts this story
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  on a wall so that we can see it. And what I think is so
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  amazing is that This program,
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  Echoes from Our Past, puts the story on the air
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  so we can hear it, but the murals put the
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  story on a wall so we could see it. So where
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  does the overall story actually begin?
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  Well, it started with this tiny insect that
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  changed the course of Alabama agriculture, and it was the boll weevil.
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  Beginning in the 20th century, cotton was king.
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  It was the economic foundation of communities throughout
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  the South, including Enterprise. But then came
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  the boll weevil, and the boll weevil entered the United States from
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  Mexico in the 1890s, but it wasn't
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  until 1910 that it actually entered
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  Alabama. It devastated the cotton
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  crops across the state, and especially in Enterprise.
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  The losses were enormous. The boll weevil destroyed
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  the entire crop. It was an economic
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  crisis. But here is where the Enterprise story
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  takes an extraordinary turn. Instead of simply trying
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  to return to the way things had always been before
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  the boll weevil came, the farmers, who were
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  very smart, began looking for another way to
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  grow a crop. They diversified, and one of the crops
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  that they turned to was peanuts. George Washington Carver
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  of Tuskegee Institute— but Carver was encouraging the
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  farmers to diversify their crops and
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  to find new uses for peanuts. And farmers
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  in Coffee County began to embrace this change,
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  and it worked. And by 1917,
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  Coffee County had produced more peanuts
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  than any other county in the nation.
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  Imagine what it took to make that quick turnaround
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  from cotton to peanuts. Exactly.
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  This is my favorite part of the story. Most communities,
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  when something destroys their economy, they don't build
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  a monument to it, but Enterprise did.
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  And on December 11th, 1919, the citizens
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  of Enterprise dedicated the boll weevil monument.
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  And to me, this monument has a remarkable message.
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  The boll weevil destroyed our cotton,
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  but it did not destroy us. It forced us
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  to change and to find a new way forward.
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  And from that adversity came an opportunity,
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  prosperity, and a remarkable new chapter in Enterprise's
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  history. It stands, I think, as a lasting
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  reminder that sometimes our greatest challenges can
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  be the very circumstances that lead us to unexpected success.
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  Lynn, this makes you want to know more about these farmers,
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  what it took for them to make this change. When I hear a
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  story about this, I immediately begin thinking about
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  the people behind it. Who were these farmers? Were there
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  ancestors? You could go to the 1910
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  census in Alabama, the 1920
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  census in Alabama, maybe even back to the
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  1930 census. Find your ancestors that
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  might have had an occupation of farming.
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  They would have been the ones probably that were affected by
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  this and had the foresight not
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  to try to repeat what was done in the past, but to do something different
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  that they could build on and be more profitable. And that
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  is exactly what they did. Their resilience
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  led to survival. Yes, and thanks
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  to the boll weevil, I can now have hot boiled
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  peanuts when I watch a football game. Well, now,
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  Lynn, you're a professional genealogist. Besides census
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  records, what else can you do? It's important to remember
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  that you start with yourself. You put down your
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  information and then gather the information for
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  your parents and your grandparents and your
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  great-grandparents. If you put this information
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  into FamilySearch Family Tree,
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  once you get back a couple of generations, your tree will
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  start to populate. I have seen this happen to
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  people, and their tree and their ancestors went
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  back to the 1500s. Don't get overwhelmed.
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  Start with yourself. Talk to the oldest relative
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  that you have and ask them questions. What was your father's
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  name? What was your grandfather's name? Do you remember your great-grandparents?
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  Take this information that they give you and write it down,
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  and that's how you start. Then you go online to
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  someplace like FamilySearch and search for these names.
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  And I do recall that the Alabama Genealogical Society,
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  of which you're past president, does have a project
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  where they are cataloging what's in county records.
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  So if you know a county connection to your family, that would
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  be helpful. Yes. And if you go online to
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  Alabama Genealogical Society,
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  open up their webpage, and on the menu on the
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  left-hand side of the screen, there's an item
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  that you can click, and it's the Loose Records project.
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  They have, I think, indexed more than 75%
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  of the counties in Alabama, and you can click on that county
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  and you can search for an ancestor by
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  name, and that is very important. Well,
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  Lynn, before we run out of time, we do need to remind the listeners that
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  the Boleweevil Fall Festival is October 17th in
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  Enterprise. They can see the mural, they can see the monument,
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  and have a great time. I think it would be so much fun
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  and so inspiring to be in a community that took diversity
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  and turned it into a tremendous asset.
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  Well, thank you for being our guest today. Thank you. I look forward to
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  being here next time. That was genealogist
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  Lynn Schlick joining us with a story from the Alabama
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  Mural Trail in the Echoes from Our Past series.
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  If you're interested in tracing the roots of your South Alabama
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  farm family, the Alabama Genealogical Society website
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  has resources. Thanks for joining us today for In
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  Focus, which is a podcast wherever you get
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  your podcasts. And feel free to get in touch at infocus@troy.edu.
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  I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this is listener-supported
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  Troy Public Radio.