Cache Location:
Flagg Mountain is the southernmost Appalachian peak over 1,000 feet, located near Weogufka, Alabama, in Coosa County, and contains a CCC-built lookout tower and shelters. Weogufka State Forest consists of 240 acres of upland hardwood on Flagg Mountain. It is owned by the State of Alabama and Managed by the Alabama Forestry Commission.
The property is open to the public. Visitors are expected to purchase a $5 day pass to visit the state forest. A pass can be purchased in advance (at website below), or on site using a QR code found on a kiosk at the parking lot. Weogufka State Forest contains many hiking trails maintained by the Alabama Forestry Commission. The Pinhoti Trail’s southern terminus ends on Flagg Mountain. (The Pinhoti Trail extends northward to Springer Mountain in Georgia, where the Appalachian Trail begins.)
The cache is accessible anytime, but the tower is only open Thursday through Monday, 9am to 6pm. The current forestry worker has worked hard to ensure visitors have a great scenic view from the site, whether or not visitors are able to/choose to go to the top of the tower.
Special thanks to fellow cachers Trycacheus and SmokinRiverRat for donating materials for this hide!
History of area:
The property was acquired mainly from Kaul Lumber Company in the 1930s to build a new state park. After the depression, the federal government created the CCC Program to provide jobs to help rebuild America. Built by the CCC in 1935, the 50’ stone tower is a unique structure. The walls are 2 to 3’ thick. Large timbers were laid in the rock in a crisscross pattern and have been replaced with inlaid stone. Additionally, ten shelters were built on the mountain by the CCC crew (with only five still existing today). Flagg Mountain Lookout Tower is listed on the National Historic Tower Site as tower #250.
Additional information about Weogufka State Forest: https://www.forestry.alabama.gov/Pages/Management/WeogufkaSF.aspx
Note on accessibility:
There is a 1/2 mile fully accessible ADA compliant trail that leads from a gravel parking lot (referred to as the "Lower Lot") to the top of the mountain and the observation tower. The trail itself is a 60-inch-wide poured cement trail with a gentle slope and many, many switchbacks to get you to the top of the mountain, leading through the forest. The parking lot is gravel, but has designated handicap parking. The road that leads to the trail is passable, but very bumpy and not suitable for very low clearance vehicles. There is an "Upper Lot", but the gate to get to that lot is not always open and there is no designated handicap parking in the Upper Lot.
Of other interest:
The first survey marker was placed on Flagg Mountain in 1889. The marker was a “beer bottle, sunk into the soft micaceous shale, which underlies the soil, until its mouth was two feet underground.” At one point, a 1.5-inch drill hole was drilled into the floor of the lookout room on top of the tower that would allow the tower to be used as a triangulation station. In 1930, a “standard bronze disc was set in the old drill hole which marked the station.”
The CCC company that built the tower was Company 260, hailing from Upper New York, New York City, and New Jersey. The company’s slogan was “We can take it.” (“It” being the isolation of the remote forest and agricultural region that he company men were unaccustomed to and the hardship of the work.
The word “Weogufka”, means “muddy water” is a combination of the Maskoke (also spelled Muskogee) word “wi” (water) and “ogufki” (muddy). The nearby town of Weogufka was settled in 1836 by a migration of 40 Cherokee and mixed White-Indian families, led there by Thomas Ridge from the mountains of Tennessee. They fled to remote Coosa County and changed their names to avoid the infamous “March of Tears” to Oklahoma.
While visiting Flagg Mountain you may hear the sound of drums. The sound would be coming from the organization Ekynv Yefolecvlke, which is a Maskoke collective that became the official land owners of 577 acres in January of 2018. The ecovillage consists of Maskoke persons whose families ended up in Florida, Oklahoma, and south Alabama. The mission is for collective members to heal in their ancestral homelands and holistically be Maskoke People in a linguistically and culturally grounded Maskoke world.
**Congrats to Leather and Lace for FTF!**
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