The Lucky Spot (InDEED)!

The photo above, taken in February 1941, depicts the Wideman Lucky Spot store as it existed then at 530 Ruffner Road in Irondale.  In the foreground is James Wideman, the eldest son of Jim Wideman (background), the owner and proprietor.  Less than 100 feet behind the store is the L&N rail spur which serviced Ruffner Mine, where James’s younger brother John used to place a rarely-acquired Indian-head penny on the tracks to watch the slow-moving iron ore rail bins flatten it into a souvenir.
 
Across the street at 529 Ruffner Rd., the Wideman family grew numerous vegetables, fruits, melons, strawberries, and pecans.  A creek ran under the house. Beside it was a bountiful scuppernong arbor built from unused railroad ties and rail pieces scavenged from across the road when the line was first built.  A well with a hand-cranked bucket was in the backyard (along with the privy, near the chicken coops which yielded both breakfast eggs as well as chicken dinners).

The roughly 40-acre property where all this took place was purchased from the Federal Government in an original land grant to Thomas Henry Wideman and his heirs on March 20th, 1884, signed by then-President Chester A. Arthur. In April 1886, Wideman sold a roughly 12-acre portion lying north and northwest of the “Old Georgia Dirt Road” to Fred Sloss. That roadbed was used for the L&N line, and Ruffner Road was routed further south across the Wideman property (creating the wedge on the north side of Ruffner where the Lucky Spot was later built).

The Lucky Spot, along with the original Wideman home across the street, was destroyed in a controlled burn by the Irondale Fire Dept. in the early 1970s. The original 40 acres (along with additional land owned by the family) was later split up into lots and sold, although some still remain in the Wideman family.
 
In 2012, through the generosity of his father John, and his Aunt Margaret (who still lives across the road on the land where they both grew up), Steve Wideman was deeded the .72-acre wedge where the Lucky Spot used to be. Though a young boy at the time, the great-grandson of Thomas Henry Wideman still remembers the store well. He also remembers the sweet scuppernongs, the chickens, the privy, the well, the smells, the wheelbarrows of pecans gathered after his father climbed and shook the trees, the many hikes throughout Ruffner, playing in the creeks, catching crawfish, coming home purple with iron ore stains, and picking blackberries on the hike up to the fire tower.
 
With all these memories – and, not having children of his own, wanting it to be preserved for future generations to enjoy and remember – Steve proudly deeded the Wideman Lucky Spot parcel - .72 acres between the old Georgia Dirt Road and Ruffner Road, where you could once buy an “ice cold” Barq’s root beer or a candy bar - to the ownership, management, and conservation of the Ruffner Mountain Nature Coalition in perpetuity on February 21st, 2023. 

We are so grateful to Steve for allowing us to add more land for nature preservation!