Gerard was originally what might be compared to a cesspool. Here, in consequence of the

lawless condition of the country, was collected a conglomerated mixture of gamblers, black

legs, murderers, thieves, and drunkards, all of whom mingled together indiscriminately produced a moral

odor offensive to the idea of good morals. Those were the words of Reverend Francis Lafayette

Cherry, who, along with being a preacher, was a farmer in Russell County, Alabama in the mid

1800s. Russell County was in the east central part of the state on the Chattahoochi River across

from the mill town of Columbus, Georgia. Gerard was the county seat, and many of the residents on both

sides of the river shared the reverend sentiments. The town was so debauched and so immoral that it had

earned a biblical nickname, Sodom. But no one could ever point to the time when the moral fall of the

town took place. To the men and women of Russell County, it seemed like the patch of land that was

home to Gerard had always been cursed. It was as if something vile had mixed with the dirt and

red clay to spoil anything people tried to build there. Fort Mitchell, which once occupied the area that

became Gerard, was supposed to be an outpost to help maintain order during the Creek Indian war in

the early 1800s. But that ground attracted violence of all kinds, not just acts of war.

Loads some men robbed and pillaged Native Americans and each other. If a dispute in Columbus, Georgia

escalated to violence, the combatants took it across the Chattahoochi River to Gerard to settle it.

The town had already become a haven of liquor and gambling and prostitution by the time the United

States began the Civil War. When Union and Confederate troops clashed in Gerard near the end of the

war, the town burned. But the burning didn't cleanse the soil to prepare for a new type of

rebirth. Gerard quickly rebuilt itself in its old image and returned to its old ways, and it only

grew in lawlessness and reputation as the new century began. The First World War couldn't slow

down Gerard. In fact, it inadvertently added fuel to the fire. When a new army base was created

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