Harmon, Alabama

Harmon is an unincorporated community that is located in Houston County, Alabama. It is situated at the intersection of County Road 81 and County Road 8 in rural Houston County. There is an abandoned school in Harmon named Harmon School, which has been closed for many years.

History
The Harmon Community was first known as "Low Dever" because of the rough and rowdy people that lived in the area. Low Dever then became known as "Pleasant Hill" after Pleasant Hill Baptist Church was established there in 1876. The area was covered with white long leaf pine timber, the "piney woods" of the old Henry County, Alabama that reached from Abbeville to the Florida line and beyond.

After the War for Southern Independence (1861-1865), several Confederates, freedmen, and washed up planters moved out into the timber country and saw mills and turpentine stills filled up what is now Houston County, Alabama. Note the dates of the post offices in the area south of Abbeville: Dothan, Alabama (1885), Headland, Alabama (1893), Ashford, Alabama (1889), Pansey, Alabama(1890), Alga (now called Alaga, Alabama) (1893).

Harmon School
The first school built in the Pleasant Hill Community (Harmon) was by a saw miller by the name of Harmon in 1912, and the school was named in his honor. When the timber disappeared, so did Mr. Harmon and his first name is lost to the collective memory of the area.

The first principal of Harmon School was George Collins in 1912. The school house was one room with a dug well. Another school was built around 1925 at a new location. In 1926, the teachers were George Collins and Miss Clarice Ingram.

In 1936, a new school was built (as was Houston County High School in Columbia, Alabama). In 1937 the Log School, Harmon School, Whitehead School, and the Odom School were consolidated at a new fine brick Harmon School. A lunchroom was built in 1944, and indoor restrooms were provided in 1948. School busses brought the children from the surrounding communities of Crosby, Gordon, Alabama, Pansey, and Bazemore Mill to the school.

The Harmon School still silently stands having been closed in 1997.

Other Nearby Places

 * Alaga, Alabama
 * Bazemore Mill, Alabama
 * Grangeburg, Alabama
 * Crosby, Alabama
 * Pansey, Alabama

Reference

 * All credit is given to the the book entitled "Hub of the Wiregrass" by Fred S. Watson, 1972, pp. 87-88.