Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall

For the final 35 years , Alabama resident Tom Hendrix has been edifice a mile-long monument , inward his hometown Florence , to laurels his great-great grandmother , a Yuchi Indian who was 1 of the millions of Native Americans who were forced from their homes inward the southeast to the novel Indian Territories inward Oklahoma next the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Hendrix’s great-great-grandmother , Te-lah-nay , too thus a 17-year-old daughter , walked alongside her sis along what is instantly known equally the “Trail of Tears” to her novel territories inward introduce 24-hour interval Muskogee , Oklahoma. But Te-lah-nay longed to render dwelling family , too afterwards spending but 1 wintertime inward Oklahoma , she began a lonely , five-year-long perilious journeying dorsum to her native patch — a distance of to a greater extent than than 600 miles.

Tom Hendrix’s monument was built to commemorate Te-lah-nay’s courageous walk dorsum home. The monument consist of 2 parallel walls made of limestone too sandstone rocks , most 4 feet high , that meander through his belongings nether a thick canopy of oak too beech trees. It is the largest unmortared wall inward the United States.

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Photo credit: Laura Bell/Flickr

Tom Hendrix had heard stories most Te-lah-nay from his grandmother all his life , too he felt that he needed to create something to laurels her memory. An elderly Yuchi adult woman provided him the idea. He was told , “One footstep at a fourth dimension , 1 stone at a time. Lay a stone for every footstep she made… We shall exceed this earth. Only the stones volition remain. We laurels our ancestors alongside stones.”

Hendrix started constructing the wall on his ain belongings a few miles off the Natchez Trace Parkway. Over the decades , Hendrix estimates that he has carried to a greater extent than than 8.5 1000000 pounds of stones from the Tennessee River , too inward the procedure wore out —in his ain words— “three trucks , 22 wheelbarrows , 3 ,700 pairs of gloves , 3 dogs too 1 87-year-old man.” Such a dedication for a adult woman he has never met.

Today , the Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall has cash inward one's chips something of a pilgrimage site drawing people from all some the world. These days , Hendrix spends to a greater extent than fourth dimension greeting visitors than edifice the wall.

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