SPANISH FORT, Ala.—When organizers of Spanish Fort’s inaugural Delta Woods and Waters Expo claim they are trying to create a community event with a little something for everyone, their landing of featured speaker John C. Hall speaks even louder than their words.

In addition to educating area youth in the knowledge and intrinsic environmental value of the surrounding Mobile-Tensaw Delta, the three-day expo—slated for May 7-9 at the Five Rivers Delta Resource Center—will feature Hall’s expertise prominently and for a variety of audiences.

As founding curator of the University of West Alabama’s Black Belt Regional Museum, Hall considers himself equal parts educator, historian and naturalist, and his primary objective during the expo will be to bring the work and works of storied naturalist William Bartram to life for festival-goers.

“We are so fortunate to have a speaker of Dr. Hall’s caliber on our itinerary, and we’re just so blessed that he saw the value in what we’re trying to do here and agreed to lend his expertise to our efforts,” said Claudine Andress, the expo’s acting chairman.

For the unacquainted, William Bartram traveled through Alabama in 1775, recording firsthand data on the region’s undisturbed natural environment and native inhabitants. Because he was able to document many native plants unknown to Western science, Bartram ultimately published his findings in the 1971 “Bartram’s Travels” that Hall calls “one of the most important documents of American science and the first book of Alabama natural history.”

Indeed, Bartram’s extensive documentation of the Southeast’s flora and fauna secured his work’s place in literary history as the first classic of environmental literature penned in the United States, and his writings were deemed so eloquent by audiences abroad that Bartram is credited with inspiring Romantic poets such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth.

During the first two days of the expo, Hall will present Bartram-era artifacts for some 550 fourth- and fifth-graders.

See the rest of this story in the April 16 Spanish Fort Sun.