ONEONTA -- It takes a little faith to cross a river gorge for the first time on a one-lane, wooden covered bridge 70 feet above the rapids.

For residents along the Calvert Prong of the Warrior River a few miles north of Oneonta, rattling across the 72-year-old Horton Mill Bridge is simply part of everyday living.

Horton Mill is one of three covered bridges still in use in Blount County. The much smaller Old Easley Bridge spans a small creek west of town, and Swann Bridge spans the Locust Fork, another of several forks of the Warrior River, which eventually unite east of Tuscaloosa.

The Swann, outside the nearby town of Cleveland, is the longest of the three at 324 feet, but it isn't the longest ever in Blount County.

"We also had the Nectar Bridge, which was 385 feet long. But vandals burned it," said Charles Carr, holding out a pile of newspaper stories, both local and from Birmingham, bemoaning the April 13, 1993 destruction of the bridge. "It crossed over a popular place where families would picnic on the sandbars below and swim," Carr added.

If you want to meet people inOneonta, Carr is your contact. He knows everyone in town, and a few hours spent touring Oneonta with him is a lesson well spent in people skills. Carr is a retired educator and businessman who, four years ago, took charge of the Blount County-Oneonta Chamber of Commerce.

It's easy to study the Blount County seat's history, from its founding as a crossroads and as a railroad and agricultural center, where much of Alabama's cattle, poultry and eggs are produced.

Oneonta got its name from the city in south-central New York. The railroad was abandoned years ago, but the town's commerce lived on along the two crossing highways: U.S. 231 and Alabama 75, about 310 miles northeast of Mobile and 45 miles northeast of downtown Birmingham.

But Carr is far more interested in the history of Oneonta that unfolds daily before him.

"On the average, one family of four moves to Blount County every day," Carr said. Oneonta in recent years has absorbed a considerable amount of exit migration from three surrounding cities -- Birmingham, Gadsden and Huntsville.

Fewer than 3,000 people called Oneonta home in 1950, but the city swelled to more than 6,000 in recent years. Unlimited growth, however, does not appear to lie in Oneonta's future.

"We're confined by our geography," Carr said.

"This is classic Appalachian Ridge and Valley terrain," Carr pointed out. Highlands rise all around Oneonta, some as much as 600 feet above the valley floor. But what physically confines the city's growth also provides treasured recreation opportunities.

The best view of Oneonta and vicinity can be found at Palisades Park, atop 1,300-foot Ebell Mountain. From here, one can view much of the city and Heritage Golf, one of two golf courses in the area. The park has nature trails, rock climbing and a small amphitheater used frequently by a choir of shape-note singers.

"Members of that choir were some of the singers featured in the movie 'Cold Mountain,'" Carr said, referring to a scene in which a choir sings in the gospel style that was widespread across the South in the 19th century.

Another Appalachian tradition -- quilting -- is alive atop the mountain. The Blount County Quilters Guild has its own building in the park, and on this Thursday, seven women were busy creating a large quilt intended as a prize at the guild's annual show in October.

Joyce Foster, the guild's treasurer, said the group practices outreach to younger people. "We have gone to the schools, and I've made presentations to the high school home economics classes," Foster said. "We've brought fourth-graders up here, and we make presentations to the girls who are home-schooled as well."

Foster added the efforts are paying off. "We have women in this group from age 12 up to past 80," she said. "And one man, too."

Carr said his office has succeeded in getting three new industries to Oneonta in the last six months, and he's especially proud of efforts to get local people to go into business as well. He pointed out one such story in Oscar Bothwell and his wife, Beverly.

"My husband always liked to cook, and we started bringing around a portable trailer to the Covered Bridge Festivals and other events," Beverly Bothwell said. The popularity of their barbecue eventually led them to set up a permanent location a year ago.

O'So Good is now a thriving barbecue restaurant along U.S. 231 where the road to Palisades Park meets the highway.

Still, Carr wishes he could do more. "About 50 percent of all the workers in Blount County commute outside the county to work," Carr said. "Every time the price of gasoline goes up, these people take a pay cut."

Among those commuters is Carr himself. A native of Summit in northern Blount County, Carr makes his home on Brindlee Mountain in Marshall County, about halfway between Oneonta and Huntsville.

For now, Carr has a major project on his hands -- four breakfasts in Oneonta, one a month, with the four gubernatorial candidates. "We'll have Don Siegelman this month, then Roy Moore, Gov. Bob Riley and finally Lucy Baxley," he said.