2000 Map of Bee Branch

About this map

William B Bankhead National Forest dominates this landscape at the boundary of Lawrence and Winston counties, reflecting a wilderness-management era defined by the Sipsey Wilderness and the Black Warrior Wildlife Management Area. The terrain is carved by the Sipsey Fork and its numerous tributaries, including Thompson Creek and Flannagin Creek. While the interior is largely undeveloped forest, small-scale settlement patterns are evident on the periphery, particularly around Rabbitown and Shiloh Ch in the southwest. For genealogists and local historians, the map preserves the locations of several family-named burial grounds, such as Wolfpen Cem, Hunter Cem, and Johnson Cem, which provide clues to the early homesteads that predated the federal forest designation. High points like Bunyan Hill and Balls Mountain overlook a network of hollows that once sheltered these rural communities.