Smuteye, Alabama
Smuteye or Smut Eye is an unincorporated community in Bullock County, Alabama, United States. It is northeast of Perote.
Smuteye is located in ZIP code 36061, but residents now use a mailing address in Banks 36005.
Smuteye Pond and Smuteye Lake are located north of Smuteye and south of Aberfoil.
History of the Name: Smuteye
An excerpt from a 1999 article in the Montgomery Advertiser reads as follows:
SMUTEYE - Major Cox squinted in the sun as he looked at the weathered, frame structure with the faded red-and-white Coca-Cola sign bearing the name Smuteye Grocery. The old sign bears the name of the community, one of a dozen or more Alabama places with strange names and rich folklore on how they got their names. The names range from Possum Trot to Bug Tussle to Santuck.
"This old store was the center of things - where men would sit around and drink beer and smoke cigarettes and tell lies," Cox said.
And they did the same thing a century earlier just across the road at a blacksmith shop where the name, "Smuteye," was forged from fire and steel and a homemade ale that the local women called the devil's brew, he said.
Cox, who has a farm near this Bullock County town, said the blacksmith's shop became quite a gathering place for men to talk and drink. The area used to be called Welcome.
"The men folk would stand around the fire in the winter time and drink moonshine," Cox said.
As the story goes, staying close to the fire left their faces smudged with smut, covering everything except their eyes.
"When they got home, their wives would take one look at their smutty faces and know where they had been," Cox said. "The women came to call the blacksmith shop "Smuteye," and soon folks called the community "Smuteye," he said.
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Coordinates: 31°58′41″N 85°39′01″W / 31.97806°N 85.65028°W