Boykin, AL news and local guide

In the 1930s the isolated community, reached by an unreliable ferry and a muddy road, received Red Cross and government aid. In 1937 the federal Resettlement Administration bought the old Pettway plantation and two neighboring farms, more than 10,000 acres, for $122,000, and rented the land to 92 families; a school, store, blacksmith shop and cooperative cotton gin followed, and photographers Arthur Rothstein and Marion Post Wolcott documented the changes. In the 1940s many families bought their farms from the government. Gee's Bend became part of the Freedom Quilting Bee of the mid-1960s, which sold residents' handcrafts to support families during the civil rights era. When many residents began taking the ferry to Camden to register to vote, local authorities ended ferry service in 1962, and the community was without a ferry for 44 years. The Boykin post office opened in 1949. Sources Wikipedia: Boykin, Alabama