Deep in the Alabama Black Belt, the tiny town of Gainesville (population: 163) hugs the banks of the Tombigbee River not far from the Mississippi state line.
On a sunny Thursday morning in February, a man in overalls washes a firetruck parked outside city hall. Next door, at Rogers & Son Grocery, a handful of regulars visit at tables by the window.
A little further down the road, one of Gainesville’s newest residents, Boston-born Stephanie Mitchell, walks out the front door of her family’s barbecue restaurant, a mug of coffee in hand. It’s a beautiful day and Mitchell’s commute is a five-minute walk.
She heads up Webster Street to check the renovation progress at a 187-year-old antebellum home, which she plans to open as Alabama’s first freestanding birth center.