The Brundidge Historical Society was loosely organized by a group of like-minded people some time in the late 1980s. No one knows for sure because no one thought that it mattered.
Then in 1990, the group put together a quilt show and called it the Collier’s Store Quilt Show. It was a great success and put $46 in the group’s pocketbook. In 1991, the group decided it was time to become official and organized the Brundidge Historical Society for the purpose of promoting and preserving the physical and cultural heritage of South Alabama.
The first ambitions project was to invest every cent of the $46 into a community-wide harvest and heritage celebration that paid tribute to the town’s proud heritage in the peanut butter industry and the little nut that stuck around to provide a giant boost to the area’s economy. The Peanut Butter Festival became a reality and will celebrate its 27th year in October 2018.
The overly ambitious, like-minded people known as the “hysterical” society now sponsors Alabama’s Official Folk Life Play, “Come Home, It’s Suppertime,” which was the 2008 recipient of the Governor’s Tourism Award, not bad for a town of just over 2,000.
The BHS also sponsors the Pike Piddlers Storytelling Festival, the Chili Country Christmas storytelling event, the June Buggin’ story show and Old Christmas at Clay Hill.
The organization has restored the Johnston Peanut Butter Mill as a museum of local history and produced two CDs of traditional music, “Off the Porch Strong” and “The Benton Brothers & Company Live at the We Piddle Around Theater.” The CDs feature the singers and musicians who appear at the organization’s events.
The BHS has other projects on the backburner but takes humble pride in the many people from every walk of life who come to piddle around and hopes they leave thinking, as we do, that all of the piddling has been worthwhile.