Three Notch Road

Built by U.S. Army engineers over the summer of 1824, Three Notch Road served as Bullock County’s major transportation route throughout its history. It was constructed to facilitate military communication between Pensacola in Florida and Ft. Mitchell in Alabama near the Georgia border. The 233-mile route through a virtual wilderness was officially known as Road No. 6, but locally took its name from the distinctive horizontal notches blazed into trees by surveyors marking the way for builders. Capt. Daniel Burch oversaw construction of a road wide enough for carriages, carts, and wagons, with substantial wooden bridges over streams not wide enough to require ferries. After eastern Alabama was opened to American settlement with the removal of the Indians, it became the major thoroughfare for travelers coming from Georgia into present-day Bullock County, entering from the north near Guerryton, crossing Chunnenuggee Ridge at Enon, continuing south to Ft. Watson, then running southwest through Ox Level, Indian Creek, Blues Old Stand, and Sellers Crossroads before leaving the county near the Sandfield community in Pike County on present-day Bullock County Road 19.

Alabama · United States