Look Back ... to the gray bats at Fort McClellan

Aug. 17, 1949, in The Star: Barbara “Babs” Blakely, Anniston’s sensational 14-year-old golf queen, staged one of the most brilliant comebacks in the history of women’s golf today at the Philadelphia Country Club. Also this date: Work is to start soon on paving of the alley between Ninth and Tenth streets and Wilmer and Quintard avenues, the contract having been awarded to Pat Pace, local contractor, yesterday afternoon by the City Commission.

Aug. 17, 1999, in The Star: The gray bat will not present a problem for the next owners of Fort McClellan, said Ron Smith, the fort’s natural resources biologist, said yesterday. “This is the easiest endangered species that we have to manage for,” he said. The gray bat was first spotted at Fort McClellan in 1995, but it does not roost in the area. Instead, streams and ponds on fort property provide feeding grounds, where the mammals swoop down on insects, especially mayflies. Nearby 45 percent of the gray bat population passes through Alabama every summer and winter.