Derby scrapbook adds to rich history of Rooster Auction in Demopolis

Visitors to the Marengo County History and Archives Museum (McHAM) during Rooster Day Saturday got a special treat. Along with the museum’s temporary display about the famous 1919 Rooster Auction in Demopolis, they were able to inspect a scrapbook kept by the Frank Derby family.

Derby was the Sumter County businessman and gifted promoter who devised the rooster auction to raise money to build a bridge across the Tombigbee River between Sumter and Marengo counties, a key part of the Dixie Overland Highway between Savannah and San Diego.

The scrapbook was donated to the Julia Tutwiler Library at the University of West Alabama by Derby’s daughter, Patsy Derby Chaney. Using a ledger from his business, Cobb & Derby in York, that he no longer needed, Derby and his family glued down photos, newspaper clippings, flyers, telegrams and letters pertaining to the auction.

The letters and telegrams praise fund-raising effort, send $10 entry fees and donations and even describe how roosters were being transported from Europe to Demopolis for the sale. A number of the photos have been reproduced, but many have never been seen. Among the photos are the completed Rooster Bridge and the stone marker naming the donors that now stands in Demopolis’ Public Square.

Sheila Limerick, the archives and special collections librarian at the Tutwiler library, carefully turned the pages of the scrapbook for McHAM visitors. She also showed that the scrapbook contained other entries not pertaining to the auction but of interest to the Derby Family and to later historians.

The scrapbook is kept in a case at the library and released for Rooster Day by Dr. Neil Snyder, library director. Limerick said anyone interested in studying it can make an appointment. They also can view the entire contents of the scrapbook in its digitized version here and clicking on Derby Family Scrapbook.