I, along with Robert Hughes and Alton Parris, may be in our golden years but it didn’t stop us from regularly trekking across northeast Alabama’s on the Chief Ladiga Trail. I turned 75 on June 30 while the others are in their late 60s. All live on Hilton Road in Golden Springs.

Dr. Mike Tucker 1945 to 1985

This part of the gateway to Chief Ladiga Trail is dedicated to Dr. Mike Tucker. He was killed by a drunk driver as he was cycling in Calhoun County. He was a dedicated family man, physician and cyclist who was loved and respected by all who knew him. Mike was a heart doctor.

We start at Woodland Park, formally known as Holley Farms. The city of Anniston acquired this land in the late 1980s. This land was renamed Woodland Park after evidence revealed an Indian site home the property from 100 BC to 700 AD

Indians lived peacefully in villages and were the first to use bow and arrows and the first two farm plants native to this region.

In June of 1900, Anniston was established as the county seat. It had been in Jacksonville since the creation of the county and 1832.

From this point it is one-mile to Weaver and that is the hardest mile the entire trail. Weaver was first settled in the 1830s. The trail was a former railroad line built in the late 1860s.

The site of the railroad depot burned in 1933. The businesses around the depot consisted of a post office, to cotton gin, a drugstore, a shoe shop, a blacksmith shop and a general store. A community was located at the intersection of Main Street and Astor Street. Cave Creek Academy was Weaver’s first school. It was established in 1866.