It’s Not Like it Once Was, and Thanks for That!

When I was growing up in Chattahoochee, Sneads was like a different land. The economy of my home town depended on the Florida State Hospital and on the large rail terminal at River Junction. Sneads, at the eastern limits of the largely agricultural Jackson County, was a smaller town, and many of its citizens also worked at the Hospital and drove home each evening across the Apalachicola River Bridge. Their trading center was Marianna, and their Saturday morning trips were in that direction. Chattahoochee was a trading center in itself. A strong bank, several hotels and restaurants catered to traveling salesmen, visitors to the Hospital and the train crews and passengers. In addition a Ford and a Chevrolet dealership, general and specialty stores and at one time two movie theaters served its citizens.

In the 1930s the Town Council members had the foresight to begin generating Chattahoochee’s own electrical power instead of purchasing it from the State. When Woodruff Dam went in, Chattahoochee was able to buy cheap hydroelectric power from the federal government. This, and the addition of natural gas later, gave a strong economic base to the local government. Fire and police protection was good and probably as up-to-date as any small town in the area.

Sneads had none of the moneymaking utilities except a potable water system. However, its citizens demanded police protection, and the city fathers provided it. At first a constable and then a marshal and finally a town police force, sometimes only one man, gave them what they wanted. Of course, along with a police force came ordinances that spelled out misdemeanors and felonies that were to be covered and tried in its own court, where the mayor was usually the presiding officer. As with most laws, these were added to as needed, and seldom erased. Abraham Lincoln once said that the best way to get rid of an unpopular law was to enforce it to the maximum extent. Perhaps some of the earlier laws were done away with by that method.

Several years ago Sneads celebrated its Centennial; one hundred years of being a municipality. We had a good time, and many of the older inhabitants were interviewed. These were the inhabitants that had blood lines in Jackson County. I moved over to Sneads in 1967 and a few years later was elected mayor and judge, but I still occasionally hear someone put me down as being “that new man from Chattahoochee”. Perhaps that person does not realize that by moving across the Apalachicola River I raised the average IQ of both places. At least that is what my friends from back home claimed.

Someone found in the files a list of offences that our police got folks for back in the “good old days”, along with the fines to be imposed if one were found guilty, and you were usually guilty because the policeman would not have brought you in unless you were. Here are some of them, along with a comment or two from me:

Fighting…. $1.00. Since it does not state how many people had to be involved, then one would assume that the total fine would be $1.00, so if you wished to save money, get a few friends together and go at it.

Cruel treatment of hogs…..$1.00. This is not described in detail, so it is best left to the reader’s imagination. If you have ever been to a “hog killing” you would be hard put to figure out what could be considered cruelty to an animal that ends up sausage.

Disorderly Conduct on Street….$2.50. Sidewalks are not mentioned, so I suppose this was meant to protect horses that were passing by or to keep gawkers from impeding traffic.

Drunk disorderly conduct….$5.00. There is no delineation of where this can happen: street, sidewalks, front lawns, but it does cost more than just disorderly conduct. However, consider this:

Plain drunk…..$1.00 or 5 days. If you add “Plain drunk” to “Disorderly conduct” and plead to both charges as opposed to “drunk disorderly conduct” you could save yourself 1.50, a princely sum in those days. Or you could save yourself even more money by moving on down to one of the many churches, getting disorderly there and paying only $1.00. But don’t cuss while in the church house, for that would cost you an extra $1.00.

Drunk and indecent would net you a fine of $1.00 or five days, but if it were in public the costs jumped tenfold. The moral was to keep your indecency well concealed from the public and your fellow citizen. So this begs the question: If no one saw the offender, how did he get arrested for indecency? That is easy: his conscience bothered him, so he turned himself in! I certainly hope that this is not still on the books. If you are a man in your eighties, and being unzipped is considered indecent, well………

This was beginning to approach the fine line between lawbreaking and morality, so the law crossed over to:

Keeping a house of ill fame, with a fine of $5.00, stealing at $5.00 or larceny. That entailed doubling your debt to society and to the Town to $10.

Speeding horse……$2.50 or five days was just the beginning of the stress that was placed on moving violations. Reckless riding was the same, but getting on a moving team would diminish your estate by $250.00, which probably approached the yearly income of a man in those days. If you simply felt the “need for speed”, then it was cheaper by $249.00 to ride a train in motion. I think I would opt for the latter, and keep going out of town.

In 2004 Billy Blackman, a columnist for the Havana Herald and, if I recall correctly, a fine musician, covered some of these same laws in his article of April 22. Billy also quoted this:

Running horse rapidly through streets on night of November 5, 1926.…..$2.00 or 10 days.

And his last line says: “The only one I don’t understand is the significance of November 5, 1926. Maybe someone from Sneads will let me know”. Billy, I am from Sneads, and I cannot tell you. But, on second thought, I am not the one to ask.

I am the “new man from Chattahoochee”.