Owned a limestone quarry between Blount Springs and Bangor, documented in a 1907 U.S. Geological Survey bulletin as an open working with a face almost 80 feet high, extending nearly to the top of the outcrop on the escarpment. The limestone was used as flux in the furnaces at Birmingham and Bessemer. In July 1916, Blount County sent him as a delegate, alongside Edward J. Bryan and Walter Melville “Mel” Drennen, to a Forrest Highway association meeting at Clanton to organize what became the Bee Line Highway.
A real candidate for his full identity: William Franklin Harrell, a documented descendant of Whitmell Finis Harrell (1806-1877) through a son named Finis Ewing Harrell - two independent source excerpts give slightly different numbers of generations in between, so whether he was a grandson or great-grandson isn’t settled, only that the line runs through Finis Ewing. No birth date, death date, or burial location has been found for him yet. He does not appear in the Harrell Family Cemetery roster as currently documented in this project - but that roster, like this project’s other cemetery research, was gathered searching for burials with births before 1850, which would systematically exclude a man active decades later. He is very possibly buried there after all, simply not yet captured.
Appears in: The Bee Line Highway & Prohibition Moonshine. Sources: Charles Butts, “Limestone and Dolomite in the Birmingham District, Alabama,” U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 315-G (1907); Harrell family genealogical research shared publicly by descendants.