BAILEYTON, Ala. – Ask someone what makes a place home and the answer usually has very little to do with municipal boundaries.
In Baileyton, it might be family land passed from one generation to the next. It might be an old store, a neighbor who once stopped by for an egg or cup of sugar, a view across an open field or simply knowing the people around you.
For some, Baileyton has been home for generations.
For others, finding it happened almost by accident.
The Town of Baileyton recently turned to its residents on Facebook as it prepares to launch a new municipal website, asking them to explain why they moved to Baileyton, why they love living there and what they like most about the community.
The town also asked residents to share photographs, from Baileyton’s earliest days through the present, that capture what makes the community special to their families.
“Your testimonial may be used on our new Town website that is being designed and should be ready to unveil very soon,” the town posted.
The residents answered.
And somewhere among the stories of old Baileyton and those of its newest residents, the comments began creating something more than testimonials for a website. They became a snapshot of a small town as remembered by the people who built lives there.
Jenna Lynn Burgess said her family’s roots stretch back at least four generations on the land where she lives today. Even the road near her property, which crosses into Morgan County, carries her grandfather’s family name.
“I’m at least the 4th generation that I know of to live on the land I live on,” Burgess wrote.
There is another generation coming behind her.
“Our kids are 5th generation,” she added.
That kind of family continuity drew an enthusiastic response from Jenny Leslie, another Baileyton resident whose story begins at almost the opposite end of the spectrum.
Leslie and her husband were house hunting in 2024 and spent more than a year looking through several communities in surrounding counties. They initially wanted to remain closer to Oneonta.
Baileyton was not necessarily the destination. Then they found their house.
“We love being surrounded by farmland, being spaced out from our neighbors and having gorgeous views of both the sunrise and sunset,” Leslie wrote.
It became the couple’s first home.
“This is the one that just happened to work out for us,” she said.
That mixture of old roots and new beginnings runs throughout the responses.
Shirley Fulmer’s relationship with Baileyton began more than six decades ago when she found a house there while her husband, Buddy, was serving in the military.
When he returned, they bought it.
Over the years they remodeled the house, and even after Buddy died and Fulmer eventually sold the property, she did not leave Baileyton. She purchased land and built another home in the community.
“For the most parts it’s quite and peaceful,” Fulmer wrote. “Love this little town.”
Dennis Martin found his way back toward familiar ground in 2017 when his children’s grandmother’s house became available as he was nearing retirement.
Martin had lived in nearby Joppa from seventh through 12th grade and said he wanted to return closer to the place he once called home.
“Best move ever,” he wrote, before naming several longtime friends in the area. “Many great people in this area!”
For Kathy Smith, Baileyton exists partly in memory.
Smith grew up there before moving to south Alabama, then Texas and Oklahoma City. She still visits when possible and remembers attending the Methodist church, walking to school and going to Walker’s store.
She remembers when gasoline cost 39 cents at the small store run by Howard Burden. She remembers Shorty Tipton, the gin near town hall and the Burks family’s large picture window overlooking the community.
“Good times,” Smith wrote.
Those memories reach into Baileyton’s documented history.
The community was named for Robert Bailey, who established a homestead in the area around 1870 and operated a cotton gin. The first Methodist congregation reportedly met in his home. Baileyton’s post office opened in 1882, and local residents constructed an early school around 1885, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
The preservation of that history has long been visible inside Baileyton Town Hall.
When the current town hall opened in 2020 following a three-year project, The Tribune reported that its entrance featured miniature recreations of historic Baileyton buildings made by Orby V. Shedd from items including matchsticks, toothpicks and Popsicle sticks. Photographs of Baileyton’s past mayors and other pieces of town history were also incorporated into the building.
The connection is even deeper than the displays.
The Tribune reported in 2021 that the new town hall stands on land where the home of Baileyton’s first mayor, Rolfe Burks, once stood. At the council’s first meeting in the building, Burks’ daughter, Rhonda Van Zandt, spoke about the community vision her father and others shared decades earlier.
Some of the people responding to the town’s latest request helped write more recent chapters of that history themselves.
Myra Martin said she and her husband, Bobby, moved to Baileyton from Fort Hood, Texas, in 1964 after he completed his Army service. They raised their children in Baileyton and remained there.
Bobby Martin later served 39 years on the Baileyton Town Council, according to Myra Martin, while she served four years.
“It was a privilege and blessing to be a part of the governing decision of the town,” she wrote.
Martin said her term included construction of the new town hall.
“With the council’s help we built a very nice building and we are very proud of it,” she wrote.
Other residents reached even further into the community’s everyday history.
Cathy Hyatt Hooper said Baileyton has been home to generations of her family, including her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.
Her grandparents once operated a small gas station and garage, followed by a furniture store. Her parents bought the house where she grew up 67 years ago.
What she remembers most, however, is not a building. It is the way people interacted.
“Back then, everyone knew their neighbors very well,” Hooper wrote. “We visited them often, popped in to borrow an egg or cup of sugar.”
Hooper lived in Baileyton from 1959 until she married and moved to Fairview in 1978. She returned in 1995 and has remained there since.
Richard Meherg responded to Hooper with the kind of answer that says quite a bit with very few words.
“I’m a newcomer, been here since 1995,” Meherg joked, “not planning on going too far.”
Some truly are newcomers. Tammy Maki said her family recently arrived and found what it was looking for.
“We Love how quiet it is,” Maki wrote. “We wanted a place small town and close to things.”
Lisa Cobb said she bought a home in Baileyton to live closer to her daughter and grandchildren.
“Absolutely love the country atmosphere,” she wrote.
Even the occasional bit of small-town humor found its way into the discussion.
Michelle Brown Watwood, who said she moved to Baileyton three years ago, offered a tongue-in-cheek answer about the town’s electronic message board.
“I love how every night that electronic reader board is so bright that it blinds you,” she joked.
Taken together, the responses describe a community of just over 600 residents in northeast Cullman County where the reasons people stay are often remarkably similar to the reasons newcomers arrive: quiet surroundings, open land, family connections and a sense that neighbors still matter.
They also demonstrate exactly why Baileyton officials are asking for help as the town constructs its new website.
Municipal history can preserve dates, buildings, councils and milestones. Residents preserve everything in between.
They remember who owned the store. They remember the view through somebody’s window. They remember walking to school, coming home from military service, raising children on the same land where their grandparents lived and finding a house in a town they never originally planned to call home.
Now Baileyton wants more of those stories.
Current and former Baileyton residents who have memories, photographs or simply an answer to the question, “What makes Baileyton special to you?” are encouraged to visit the Town of Baileyton, Alabama – Municipal Government page on Facebook and respond to the town’s post.
The town said submitted testimonials and photographs may be featured on its new website when it is unveiled.
For Baileyton, the website may be new, but the stories behind it are generations in the making.
