50 years and counting on Logan Martin
Story by Roxann Edsall
Submitted photos
Ask just about anyone who lives or plays on Logan Martin Lake for directions to General Lee Campground and Marina, and they’ll point you toward Treasure Island, across the water from St. Clair Shores.
The 16-foot-tall orange and blue Gulf sign easily identifies the campground and serves as a beacon for sunbaked campers coming home from a day on the lake.
Ashley Morton has never known a life that wasn’t heavily influenced by the campground, both the business end and the people who make up the community. She was born into the business, and it has matured alongside her. Now she and her husband, Scott, have continued what her grandparents and great grandparents built, managing the day-to-day operations of the campground at General Lee.
Ashley grew up around the campground, spending most afternoons and summers helping her grandparents, Jean and Sonny (Floyd) Goodgame, with chores around the property. Jean made sure Ashley learned life skills while in her care. “Grand momma taught me what I know about handling money and running a business,” says Ashley.
“In the store, we played what we called ‘grocery games,’ where she would give me a $10 budget and tell me to bring as much food as I could buy with it. But I had to figure in taxes as well. We had fun and learned a lot.”
“My family lived really close to the campground, so my cousin, Blair (Goodgame), and I would ride our bikes to the campground to play,” continues Ashley. “It was so much fun that Blair and I would hide under a pier when they called us to go home. We didn’t ever want to leave.” To this day, summers at the General Lee are teeming with children. It’s a tradition of summer fun that Ashley hopes to share with her own two girls, 3-year-old Aspen and 9-month-old Presley.
Grand momma Jean made things fun for her grandchildren, but she also made sure they learned and practiced the right way do chores, like raking leaves. “Grand momma taught us that you don’t rake them into piles,” Ashley explains. “Of course, we did a little bit, so we could jump in them. But she taught us to rake them into lines so we could burn them safely.”
Leaf raking was, and still is, a never-ending need at the campground. The beautiful trees that provide much-needed shade in the summer relentlessly cover the roads with leaves in the fall and winter months. It is those trees around which the children ride their bikes and conduct squirt gun battles and play hide and seek games in the thick of the summer heat.
And around those trees are nestled the campers and tents that house visitors in spring, summer and fall. There are 111 camping spots, some with full sewer hookups, and others with just water and power. A bathhouse, store with bait and covered storage round out the amenities.
People have been enjoying the amenities at the General Lee since just after the impounding of the Coosa River, which created Logan Martin Lake in 1965. Jean and Sonny, along with Jean’s parents, Clarence and Pauline Lee, built the campground and marina, which opened in 1966, originally selling Chevron gas. Shortly thereafter, they changed to Gulf brand gas and erected the sign, which, though the oil company went out of business in 1985, still stands today.
For people around the lake, that sign has become a landmark. “People tell me all the time that they find their way here by looking for that sign,” laughs Ashley. The marina no longer sells gas, offering only a boat launch and dry boat storage.
“My parents and grandparents built the campground together,” said Craig Goodgame, Ashley’s dad, and owner of the campground. “I was just three when they opened, so, like Ashley, I grew up helping and learning about the business my whole life. It was a great playground. I remember having a good time with the kids who were here at the campground, playing our made-up games of crow and snake.
“When I was a bit older, I used to work all day on the gas island,” he adds. “I’d lather up with suntan oil and lay out on the island until a boat came up for gas. Then when they left, I’d get back to sunning.” He also admits to slipping off while he was supposed to be working, on occasion, to ski with whoever was running a ski boat nearby.
In those days, the campground was run by Jean, Craig’s mom, and Ashley’s grandmother, along with Jean’s best friend, Nita Staggs. “Nita and Grand momma did everything that was needed, from pulling out trailers to launching boats. They had an old Willys jeep to pull things in or out,” remembers Ashley. “Everyone thought they were sisters because they were always together. When Nita passed away from cancer in the late `90s, Grand momma ran it alone. She worked seven days a week.”
“Mom was a very, very hard worker,” said Craig. “There used to be a game room and a hot dog hut and an ice cream counter. Then, later, when they sold the hot dog hut, they added an ice cream hut. We still rent kayaks and canoes, but we also used to rent tubes. My mom ran all of that.” These days, the hot dog and ice cream huts are gone, replaced by a picnic area that doubles as an entertainment space that often features live music.
David Burrage has been camping at the General Lee for 54 straight years. He is from Hueytown and camped and fished at the General Lee every summer with his family as a young boy. “I remember my dad would go to work from the camper, and my sister and mom and I would spend our days playing on the lake,” Burrage said. “I brought my own kids here every summer, too. Now that they’re grown, they still come some and bring my grandkids. It’s very family oriented. Everyone watches out for each other.”
Providing a place to make family memories are what Ashley and Scott Morton hope to continue to offer at the General Lee Campground and Marina for many years to come.
And, in case you were wondering, the General Lee is not named after the noted Confederate General Robert E. Lee. The general in this name is Ashley’s great grandfather, Clarence Lee, not a military general, but a man, his family says, who had many of the leadership qualities of a general and ran his world with similar decisiveness.
