From the Dothan Eagle August 29, 2012:
Aug. 29–Henry County Sheriff’s investigators are looking for information in the theft of a Rosa Parks historical marker. Sheriff William Maddox said it’s the second time his office has investigated the theft of the sign, which was located near an old farmhouse on Alabama Highway 10 near Henry County Road 133 close to Abbeville. Maddox said the sign marked Parks’ childhood residence when she lived on her grandparents’ 260-acre farm. “It’s been missing a couple of weeks,” Maddox said. “What they did is they broke it off and left the post.”
The same sign was stolen four years ago, also during the month of August.
Sheriff’s investigators arrested three Ozark teenagers for the earlier theft after they turned themselves in and showed authorities where to find the sign. According to an earlier Dothan Eagle report, the double sided sign was entitled “Rosa Parks Lived Here.”
The sign had the following background about Parks: She was a civil rights pioneer born on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee. Shortly after her birth, her parents James and Leona Edwards McCauley moved to a 260-acre farm owned by her grandparents, Anderson and Louisa McCauley. Her father, a builder, designed and constructed the Henry County training school for black students in 1914. After a few years in Henry County, Rosa and her mother moved to Pine Level to live with her maternal grandparents, while her father went north seeking new building opportunities.
On the opposite side the sign said Rosa McCauley married Richard Parks of Pine Level in 1932. She returned to Henry County in 1944 on behalf of the NAACP to investigate the alleged rape of a young black mother by seven white youths. Rosa McCauley Parks gained national attention on Dec. 1, 1955, when she refused to relinquish her seat on a Montgomery public bus to a white man. Her refusal to go to the back of the bus sparked a successful bus boycott that earned Rosa McCauley Parks the title of “mother of the civil rights movement” in America. She died at her home in Detroit on Oct. 24, 2005.
Anyone with information about the theft of the marker can call Henry County Crime Stoppers at 334-585-5200 and the Henry County Sheriff’s Office 334-585-3131.”
UPDATE: Apparently some DOT lawn mowers damaged the sign and it was removed so that it could be fixed. The Dothan Eagle reported on September 12 that the sign had been returned.
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