Post 90 putting HQ building up for sale after 74 years
By DON FLETCHER
News Staff Writer
The three-story building on the southwestern corner of Main and Church streets has served for the past 74-plus years as the home of American Legion Billy Glenn Rushing Post 90. Apparently, the building won’t serve in that capacity any longer.
“Our executive committee voted 9-0 to move forward with selling the building,” said Post Adjutant Paul Chason. “We sent letters out to our members (the post has only 49 ‘active’ members, he said) and the vote was unanimous to sell the building.”
Before they could do so, Post 90 officials had to first gain approval from the Alabama Department of American Legion’s executive committee. Chason said the committee “unanimously agreed that we could move forward” with the plan to market the building.
The decision to put the building, which was dedicated on November 11, 1949, on the market does not mark the death knell for the local post, although its meetings will be held in less formal surroundings which could change from month to month.
“We haven’t put it on the market yet, and I don’t know exactly when that will occur,” Chason said. “We will keep our charter and continue to operate as a post, just not at a regular meeting place.”
He said the post has a “handshake agreement” with Atmore Historical Society to use the Watson Cabin at Heritage Park, and that meetings will be held at local restaurants like David’s Catfish House, Jalisco’s Mexican Restaurant and any other that has a meeting room.
Chason said the post has cut all its normal operating expenses, except for electricity and water, which costs about $300 a month. If the building is sold, the utility bill will go away, and since a provision of the sale is that at least 10 percent of the receipts must be used for Post 90 operating costs, the money will likely be used to buy lunch for the transitional meetings and to finance the continuation of the post’s biggest projects.
“We’ll be able to buy lunch for everybody that comes to the meetings,” he said, pointing out that a 10-member attendance has been a rarity lately. “We will use the money to continue our support of the community, like Boys State, Girls State and the annual American Legion Oratorical Contest. We will still try to do the same things we would do if we weren’t selling the building.”
He pointed out that the post had been approached several times in the past about selling the venerable structure.
“We had one proposal to sell the second and third floors and we maintain the first floor,” he said. “We had another proposal from some folks who wanted to tear the building down. Now that (Atmore) has a historic district, things have changed, so I don’t know how that’s going to affect the sale.”
He reiterated that the future is uncertain, as far as the sale of the building is concerned, saying, “Once the sale process starts, it could move quickly.”
The building sustained roof damage from Hurricane Sally, and two wrecks caused even more structural damage. The post or the drivers involved in the wrecks were apparently under-insured, and the proceeds from claims weren’t enough to pay the expenses of repairing the various damages, like a $1,400 estimate to replace two window frames in the former Gayle’s Income Tax office, which was the post’s final tenant, and which closed this year.
He added that post membership hopes to “get the process started while we can still pay the bills,” also noting that “the building is going to continue to deteriorate, and it’s right on a corner in downtown.”
Chason pointed out that the building’s changing of hands or demise doesn’t mean the demise of the local American Legion presence.
“We have no more tenants, and we don’t have a recurring source of income,” he said. “But the American Legion is not the building; the American Legion is the people.”