The Liberty Restaurant on East Willow Street was built around 1951 and was first operated by Katie Allen. It has had a few other owners since then but has been popular among locals and cavers alike for their home style breakfast and lunch specials.
Dave W. Hughes, NSS #14550 originally got the idea to place a caver log book at the Liberty Restaurant in Scottsboro, Alabama from the very famous series of caver’s logs in The Court Restaurant in Lewisburg, West Virginia. The Court is now gone, and was located where the fountain is now in Lewisburg.
Dave felt that the same concept would be fun to replicate in TAG. So in May of 1976 he purchased a composition type notebook at the Georgia Tech bookstore and got permission to place it in the Liberty. At that time, the Scottsboro bypass (Hwy 72) did not exist, so EVERYBODY seemed to frequent the Liberty on their way to and from caving trips.
Dave printed the words “Caver’s Register” on the cover of the original logbook and thus a new tradition began. The original volume filled while Dave was living in Arizona, so Marion O. Smith kindly replaced it with a new, blank logbook and returned the original to him. Marion has since replaced each one as they fill up and they now reside in his own collection.
Below you will find images of some of the first entries in the Caver Logbook at the Liberty Restaurant, Scottsboro, Alabama.
The next time you find yourself caving in the Scottsboro, Alabama area make sure to stop by the Liberty and sign the caver log!
The Liberty is open Monday – Thursday, 6 a.m. – 2 p.m., Friday, 6 a.m – 9 p.m., Saturday 6 a.m – 2 p.m., and Sunday, 7 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Some more recent entries...
