A remembered chapter of community life in the 1970s and early 1980s
Before books, information and entertainment could be summoned instantly on a telephone or computer, a small traveling library helped connect Baileyton residents with the wider world.
During the 1970s and into the early 1980s, the Cullman County Public Library’s bookmobile made Baileyton one of its rural community stops. Local residents remember the bookmobile pulling up at Baileyton Town Hall, where children and adults could climb aboard, browse the shelves and check out books without making the trip into Cullman.
The service was part of a much longer Cullman County tradition. Rural bookmobile service began on December 2, 1952, through the Cullman-Winston Regional Library program, which sought to bring library materials to residents living beyond easy reach of a library building. Winston County withdrew from the partnership in 1958, while Cullman County continued the original bookmobile service until 1981.
Decades later, the memories remained vivid. In January 2024, Baileyton resident Rhonda Van Zandt spoke to the Baileyton Town Council about establishing a Little Free Library near Town Hall. In doing so, she recalled the bookmobile that once stopped in Baileyton and the important place it held in her childhood.
For a generation of Baileyton children, the arrival of the bookmobile at Town Hall was more than a delivery. The library came to them.
Sources and Credits
- W.C. Mann, “History of the Cullman County Public Library System, Part 2: An Era of Changes (1945-1970),” The Cullman Tribune, February 15, 2017.
- Sara Gladney, “Baileyton council votes to construct Little Free Library,” The Cullman Tribune, January 10, 2024.
The detail that the bookmobile stopped at Baileyton Town Hall is preserved as local recollection. The published sources document Cullman County’s bookmobile history and later Baileyton memories of the service. Prepared September 2026 for local-history and website use.