More details emerge on the effort to make Pine Apple the county seat of a new Alabama county in the 1800s

Alabama Gov. George S. Houston

The Progressive Era has got some of the smartest readers that I know. If you have a question, just put it out there, and someone will get you the answer.

A couple of weeks ago in this space, I wrote a column about a failed effort in the late 1870s to form a new county out of parts of Wilcox, Conecuh, Monroe and Butler counties. Old newspaper articles noted that Pine Apple was to be the county seat of this new county, and that boosters of the idea were in Montgomery trying to get it passed through the legislature. As history tells us, the effort to form a new county never came to be.

In that same column, I asked readers for more information about this effort to form a new county, including who was behind it. Who was trying to create a new county with Pine Apple as its county seat? What would the new county have been called? As it turns out, not long after that week’s newspaper hit the streets I heard from good reader, Scott Mitchell, who helped fill in some of the blanks.

According to Mitchell’s research, the new county was to be called Houston County, likely in honor of George Smith Houston. Houston was the first Democratic governor of Alabama after the War Between the States. Houston passed away in December 1879, around the time that the effort was underway to form the new county.

Mitchell noted that there was a newspaper published in Pine Apple in the late 1800s called The Houston Appeal. Published by J.A. Jackson, the newspaper was established to advocate for the formation of the new county. Despite my best efforts I was unable to find out more about J.A. Jackson. (A search of Wilcox County cemetery records reveals no record of a J.A. Jackson buried within the confines of Wilcox County.)

Officials and citizens in Camden fought hard against the creation of the new county in the late 1870s, Mitchell said. Camdenites were worried because the proposed border between Wilcox and Houston counties would have only been a few miles east of Camden. If the new county was created, it was feared that people on the west side of the Alabama River would make a successful play to have the county seat moved from Camden to a place more centrally located in the newly reconfigured Wilcox County, Mitchell said.

As history tells us, the effort to form a new county with Pine Apple as its county seat never came to pass. It is interesting to note that Alabama’s newest county is present-day Houston County, in the southeast corner of the state. Houston County, with its county seat at Dothan, was formed in 1903 out of portions of Dale, Geneva and Henry counties.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with more information about this topic. I’m especially interested in hearing from anyone with more information about Pine Apple newspaper publisher J.A. Jackson and The Houston Appeal.