Randolph County AlArchives Newspapers.....Street, James Drowns In Tallapoosa River April 7, 1951
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Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 March 20, 2023, 9:43 pm

Roanoke Leader
Authorities today continued to search for the body of a young Negro man believed 
drowned when a pick-VP truck he was driving plunged into the Tallapoosa River 
near Wedowee this weekend. The Negro identified as James Street. 22. of Ashland, 
disappeared when the truck skidded several yards and rolled into deep water. A 
white man, Boyd Gordon, of Goodwater. Route 1 was riding in the truck at the 
time of the accident but managed to escape the sinking vehicle. Authorities 
immediately began dragging the river in an attempt to find Street's body, but 
they had not succeeded at noon today. Highway patrolmen who investigated said 
the testimony of witnesses and of Mr. Gordon indicated that Street was driving 
at a high speed and was intoxicated at the time of the accident. The accident 
occurred at a ferry crossing of the Tallapoosa River about five, miles west of 
Wedowee on Alabama Highway 48.

April 19:
The body of James Street, 22-year-old Ashland Negro, was recovered from the 
Tallapoosa River Tuesday afternoon, about 10 days after the pickup truck in 
which he was riding plunged into the river at Cravers Ferry, west of Wedowee. 
Streets body was discovered about the middle of the day by W. K. Mitchell and 
his two sons, about two and a half miles down the river from the ferry, on the 
east side, according to State Highway Patrolman W. B. Ozley. About two inches of 
the body was out of the water, but the swift current kept the whole body 
submerged at times. Only the day before, a group of Ashland citizens had offered 
a reward of $100 for the recovery of Streets body. The body was somewhat 
mangled, was taken to a Clay County funeral home, where an autopsy was to be 
performed by a state toxicologist at the request of Randolph Sheriff Grover B. 
Payne and Clay Sheriff D. C. Little. When the pickup truck plunged into the 
river Saturday night, April 7, Streets white companion, Boyd Gordon of Goodwater 
Rt. 1, swam ashore safely. He was placed in the Randolph County jail for 
questioning and was later released under bond. For the next few days an 
intensive search was made for the body of James Street.



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