Little remains from the heyday of the old Zeru community in Conecuh County, Alabama

If you look at old Conecuh County maps, you’ll see the names of many old and forgotten communities that once held a prominent place in people’s lives. One such place is the old Zeru community, which sat close to the Conecuh-Escambia county line, about 14 miles southeast of Evergreen.

Johnsonville Fire Station near old Zeru community.

Last Thursday morning, I was examining one such map at the newspaper office in Evergreen, and I couldn’t honestly say that I’d ever been to “downtown” Zeru before. Was there anything in this area today, maybe the remnants of an old store, post office or school?

With this in mind, I climbed in my truck and struck off down Bruner Avenue, which becomes County Road 29 when you pass out of the Evergreen city limits. I followed County Road 29 down through Jay Villa and eventually came to Johnsonville. I then turned east on County Road 6 and then down a dirt road called Ridge Court.

According to my map, I was then in “downtown” Zeru, which was once large enough to have its own post office. In fact, sources say that there was a post office there between 1893 and 1908. Today, aside from a few modern houses, nothing remains to remind travelers of what Zeru was like in its heyday.

On the way back to Evergreen, I pulled over for a closer look at Johnsonville’s new fire station. The last time I was down this way, the old fire station had been totally destroyed by the Presidents Day Tornado of 2016. That powerful tornado ripped through Johnsonville and destroyed the community’s fire station and damaged a number of homes in the area.

The old fire station, a metal building built to withstand high winds, was lifted off its foundation by the tornado and came to rest in the wood line, 80 to 100 yards behind its foundation. I remember Johnsonville Fire Chief Frank Jones, who lives about a quarter of a mile from the fire station, telling me that he heard the tornado when it passed through.

“Once it died down, I stepped out on my front porch to look around and when I looked toward the fire station, my first thought was ‘Who pulled the fire trucks out of the station?’”

Jones said he went to investigate only to learn that no one had moved the fire trucks. Instead, to his surprise, the fire station building had been blown away, leaving the trucks out in the open.

In drastic contrast to the night of the tornado, all was quite in Johnsonville last Thursday morning. The entire time I was down there, I don’t think I even passed another car, and the only signs of life that I saw were a few yellow butterflies and a large brown dog trotting along in the grass beside the road.

Oddly, when I first saw the dog, I thought it was carrying a big magnolia leaf in its mouth, but when I got closer, I could see that it was actually carrying a big, dirty piece of concrete. Why and to where this dog was carrying this rock, I could not say. I just shook my head and kept on driving.

I made one last stop before returning to Evergreen. Once back on County Road 29, I couldn’t help but pull over for a closer look at the old Asa Johnston house. This old-timey dogtrot house was built for Johnston in 1842 by Connecticut native Ezra Plumb. This house was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1993 and to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.

In the end, if you ever get the itch to take a nice leisurely ride out in the county, it would be hard to beat the drive from Evergreen to Zeru. While there’s not much left of that old community, there is still much to see in the 14-mile stretch of road between there and the county seat. Who knows? You might even figure out where that dog was going with its piece of concrete.