Bald Ridge

Bald Ridge is another location referenced in Candles to the Sun as a place where the boys would shoot squirrels. In my research there were several Bald Ridge locations including a Bald Ridge Reservation in northeast Alabama. I found a Bald Ridge in Jefferson County, Alabama, which is not necessarily close to Clay County or in the Red Mountain region. One of these two locations are likely what Williams had in mind when writing Candles.

But more interestingly, there is a Bald Ridge campsite in Georgia that happens to be on Lake Sidney Lanier, from whom Williams’ received his middle name from. Now I doubt that the campsite was there, at least in its current form, in 1937 when Williams wrote Candles. It quite the coincidence.