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Old dipping vat discovery recalls fight with ticks
Robbie Dunagan, Jamey Overton and Bubba Norris were working for Timmy Harvell's Top Quality Dozer, spraying cogongrass behind logging crews working on Scotch Lumber Co. properties. Unusual concrete structure Near the Old Grove Hill Road west of Fulton they came across an unusual concrete structure set deep in the ground. It is about three feet wide, at least 12 feet deep and a good 20 feet long. It is an old dipping vat from the 1920s when the dipping of livestock was mandated to fight a big tick infestation. "We didn't know what it was but I went by Chilton and talked to Mr. Bealie Harrison and he told me how it worked," Dunagan said. The entrance to the chute-like vat is steeply sloped. Cattle and horses had to be prodded into the vat but once they got on the slope they slid right on in. The exit has a set of steps leading upward. At the top, a concrete platform had a drain that allowed the dip to drip off of the livestock and drain down a trench back into the vat. Harrison remembered the dipping. "We had to dip every animal we had- goats, hogs, cattle and horses- every two weeks. It was very trying times. You'd gather at a dipping vat and the inspectors would run your livestock through and they'd use a mop with green paint to mark those that were dipped. "If the range riders [enforcement officers] came through and your animals didn't have a green mark on their hip you'd be in trouble." Nathan Baugh of the Bassetts Creek community was one of the range riders. A photo of Baugh on a fine horse with a lariat in his hand looks like it was taken in the wild west! Strong solutions The solutions used were strong- and sometimes lethal. In May 1923, Dave White of Thomasville, a vat inspector, died as a result of arsenical poisoning from the concentrated cattle dip solution. While engaged in his work he sat down on a can of the solution and his pants absorbed it. He died before he got home. Dipping started statewide about 1919 in an effort to control the fever tick that was plaguing cattle. It was very controversial. Many farmers did not like it and some refused to dip their cattle. Others did more than just refuse to participate- they planted dynamite in the vats and blew them up! A letter writer to The Clarke County Democrat in January 1924 complained, "This law should be repealed. Clarke County spent last year about $28,000 dipping cows. If this money could be spent on education or for road building we would have our money's worth. If each county spent what it has cost Clarke, then we spent about $1,520,000 in Alabama. Don't you think that good roads and good schools are worth more to our people than tick free cows." Commissioners stopped dipping In February 1924, Clarke County Commissioners agreed and voted to discontinue dipping. Dr. Charles A. Cary was state veterinarian and ordered a quarantine on Clarke County livestock being moved out of the county. An article in The Democrat from the times described how farmers on the northeast side of the county who went to Lower Peach Tree just across the line in Wilcox County had to tie their horses and wagons at the county line and haul goods by hand from town unless a storekeeper provided a wagon to help them. Dr. Cary would go on to establish the first vet school at Auburn and would serve as its dean for 28 years. A biography of Cary said he was best known for his fight to rid Alabama livestock of fever ticks. "The battle was not only against the tick, but against the ignorance of men who would not accept scientific methods. He defeated the tick with dipping; ignorance he defeated with reason, or failing there, with court action." The fight would require more than reason in Clarke County. Court action would be required to enforce dipping and even then it didn't come easy. A trial on the dipping issue was set in 1926 and local Circuit Judge T. L. Bedsole ruled that the county was not financially able to resume dipping because there was less than $3,000 in the county treasury. In the last year of dipping, the work had cost the county $32,000. Repairs to the vats would cost $10,000 and the county already owed $160,000 in outstanding warrants, the judge reasoned. A second attempt by the state in 1928 to get the county to resume dipping was rejected. Supreme Court settled it Finally, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the county had to dip, even if it had to borrow the money to do so. The state agreed to help pay for the program and by January 1929 the vats were being repaired to resume the project. The county would pay for the "dope" for the dipping and the state would supply the manpower. By April, Clarke County cattle and other livestock were approved for shipment outside of the county. A list of enforcement "range riders" and dipping inspectors totaled about 40 for the county.
By December 1929, the program was declared a success and dipping ceased. Dr. W. W. Cameron, state inspector for cattle dipping, praised Clarke Countians for their cooperation but did not elaborate on the tough battles the state had fought with the county.
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