Morgan County, Alabama is a large mass of land which stretches from the area northeast

of Bankett National Forest all the way up to the Tennessee River, just southwest of

the city of Huntsville. It is just shy of being 600 square miles, most of which is made

up of woods and small interconnected towns. The largest city in Morgan County, where most

of this episode will take place, is Decatur. Decatur, also known as the River City, is

coincidentally the county seat of Morgan County. Other towns in the area include Hartzell

and Falkville, the latter of which is another area we'll visit over the span of this story.

Throughout the 1960s, Morgan County was receiving a large influx of people. Decatur was coming

into its own as one of the largest port cities along the Tennessee River, and a military

base was bringing in scores of military contractors, scientists, and their families. This military

base, named Redstone Arsenal, had originally been created during World War II. It started

out as a missile-organized storage facility just outside of Huntsville, Alabama. A large

city just north of Morgan County, but the base continued to evolve as that conflict

came to an end. After World War II, the Army's rocket research and development activities

were transferred from Fort Bliss to here in Northern Alabama. This included many German scientists

that were included in Operation Paperclip, which is another interesting story in its own

right. Throughout the 1950s, Redstone Arsenal continued to expand its mission, especially

once the space race officially commenced. President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded to the

emerging Cold War by creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, also known

as NASA. He then transferred all US Army space-related activities at Redstone Arsenal to the

civilian-led NASA, and the area began to grow pretty rapidly. The Army missile command launched

at Redstone Arsenal in August of 1962, and over the next eight years, the area would see

...