The Deen’s Landing Little Free Library, # 22541, is open to the community and the many visitors who come to enjoy boating, swimming, fishing, and hunting on and along the Altamaha River. It was built and placed in the memory of Merle Williams Snipes (June 17, 1920 – January 9, 2016) by Wright and Dusty Snipes Gres and Bart and Peggy Snipes Durso. Merle Snipes was an avid fisherman, a voracious reader, and a lover of books. The Little Free Library is located at the Deen’s Landing Boat Ramp, River mile #118, in Appling County, Baxley, Georgia, and is within walking distance of Deen’s RV Park, Appling County Falling Rocks RV Park, and one mile from the eastern boundary of Bullard Creek Wildlife Management Area. The Altamaha River begins at the confluence of the Oconee River and Ocmulgee River and flows generally eastward for 137 miles where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Including its tributaries, the Altamaha River drains about 14,000 square miles, the second-largest watershed on the US East Coast, and remains completely undammed. It is the third-largest North American contributor of fresh water to the Atlantic Ocean. Bullard Creek Wildlife Management Area occupies the southern floodplain of the river’s first few miles, after which the river marks the boundary between Toombs County to the north and Appling County to the south. Although used in the 19th century as a route for commerce between central Georgia and the coast, the river is nearly entirely still in its natural state. The Altamaha River was named one of the 75 Last Great Places on Earth and was designated a bioreserve by the Nature Conservancy in 1991. Crossed only five times by roads and twice by rail lines, its natural beauty is largely undisturbed. It is an ideal place to get back to nature whether you are a fisherman, boater, camper, bird watcher, hiker, or hunter. Long before it was a site of recreation, the Altamaha River was a key source of fishing, hunting, transportation, and trading for Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee Indians. As early as 1740 and into the 1920s and 1930s, loggers floated massive rafts made up of raw timber – mainly cypress and pine – down from the confluence at Lumber City, Georgia, to the mouth in Darien (near Brunswick), Georgia.
The river rafters would pole and drift downstream and then walk back home, sometimes taking over a month for the journey. If everything worked out just right, they might hitch a ride back home on a steamboat. Landings where they could tie up, get provisions, or rest, were usually owned and/or named after the captains of these rafts. Deen’s Landing is named after Bill Deen, the last commercial timber raft Pilot/Captain. His son, who still lives in the Deen’s Landing Community, gave the landing to Appling County to serve as a park and boat landing. My wife and I are active Little Free Library Stewards. Dusty is a retired librarian, having served as a reference librarian and library director for more than 30 years at public libraries in Florida and Georgia, retiring as Director of the Ohoopee Regional Library System with libraries in Toombs, Tattnall, Jeff Davis, and Montgomery Counties. I am a retired tugboat captain, former tall ship sailing and marlinspike seamanship instructor, and author of two works of adventure/thriller fiction, Macedonia Passage and the stand-alone sequel, The Empty Grave. We enjoy life on the river, living on a bluff overlooking the Altamaha River between Deen’s Landing Park and the Bullard Creek WMA. We share this life with 3 dogs – a Labrador Retriever, a Pit Bull, and a Treeing Tennessee Brindle – all rescues.
