My Forgotten Alabama Story

Glenn Wills

While I've spent the last ten years doing Forgotten Alabama, I can trace its origin back to the late 1970s. While I was in college, I worked for a chimney sweep named Jim Williams. He owned an old Victorian house in the Twickenham district of Huntsville. The walls of his classic old home were adorned with dozens of black and white photographs from 40 and 50 years prior. I was fascinated by them. To see life frozen in time. A mere fraction of a second of history captured for all eternity. And I realized how much I enjoyed seeing photos from the past.

While I could not go back in time and recreate the photos, I could still find the remnants of what was. One day all these things will be gone and I felt it an obligation to find and document them the best way I knew how. Through pictures.

My career was in television news. Mostly as a videographer but eventually, I became a satellite truck engineer. That position meant many miles on the road which would be the genesis of what would become Forgotten Alabama. In the fall of 2007. I was on my way to Auburn from Birmingham for my job at WVTM-TV. I noticed a classic 1957 Chevy Bel Air along the side of US 280. I stopped to look at it and came to discover it was part of a rather extensive junkyard of rusting relics. Row upon row of classic iron dating back to the 1920s. Much to my chagrin, I did not have a camera with me that day. I never traveled without one after that. The more time I spent on the road, the more I began to notice other collapsing reminders of Alabama's past everywhere I went. I got a better camera in 2012 and began to seriously pursue these vanishing remnants. During the summer of 2013, I sat down at my computer and devised a comprehensive plan to map the entire state. I broke it up into sixteen manageable sections, and with the help of satellite maps, began going through those sections one by one. Every time I would find something I thought worth shooting, I would mark it on the map. What was a handful of locations initially grew to about 2000. Over the years, I came to discover hundreds more.

The plan was set and the wheels put literally in motion. Every winter since that first winter of 2012-2013, I’ve seen every one of Alabama’s 67 counties multiple times. I have logged over 75,000 miles and taken about 65,000 photographs. My first book, Forgotten Alabama, came out in late winter, 2016. I had already gathered enough material for my second book, More Forgotten Alabama, while I was waiting for Forgotten Alabama to release. “More” was released in December 2016. By now, I more or less had this book thing figured out. I knew a third book was going to happen even as I finished “More”. However, this time, I wanted it to be the one that defined my journey. To be the most complete and comprehensive book possible. It took more than three more years to make 200 Years of Forgotten Alabama happen. It was, at the time, my crowning achievement. At this point, I figured I was done because I didn’t see any realistic possibility of making a fourth book. Still, as the years passed, that old itch came back. Realistically, I’m always shooting for that next book. I will not do another book just to do it. It has to be all new and completely unique. My journey began anew the first day of January, 2020. Over the course of that winter and the two that followed, I managed to find dozens and dozens of new things I had never seen before. The more things I found, the more I realized I had the makings of a fourth book. While it is technically a sequel, I wanted it to be better than any book I had done before. To stand on its on. Finding Forgotten Alabama is all of that. This has been an amazing journey. One that I never could have imagined even ten years ago. I firmly believe God dropped Forgotten Alabama in my lap and I have enjoyed every minute of it. My sincere hope is that you enjoy Finding Forgotten Alabama as much as I enjoyed making it!