After being partially closed since early June, the West Lowndes Landing boat ramp off Highway 182 is back open for business.
The boat ramp at the landing, known colloquially as Leroy’s Landing after Lowndes County District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks, was damaged after a piece of industrial equipment fell from a conveyor trailer and onto the concrete, damaging the ramp’s right side.
“They were unloading some material to go to one of the local plants,” Brooks told The Dispatch. “It was a heavy piece of equipment, and so it tilted and fell onto the boat ramp and consequently broke the boat ramp.”
Board of Supervisors President Trip Hairston said the equipment was headed to the new Aluminum Dynamics aluminum flat-rolled mill that is currently under construction on Charleigh D. Ford Drive. The company responsible for moving the equipment, Contractors Cargo Co., covered the cost of repairs, he said.
“They had to get a crane out there to lift the equipment up,” Hairston said. “When they did, they assessed the damage. Then of course, they committed to us they would fix the ramp back as good as the way they found it.”
Removing the equipment took several days, Brooks said. Afterward the county opened the left side of the ramp, which was undamaged. Then the damaged concrete was removed, rebar was added and a fresh layer of concrete was poured, Hairston said. The ramp opened for use last week.
Hairston said unloading building equipment on its way to industry sites near the Golden Triangle Regional Airport at the landing isn’t uncommon. He said the same method was used during the construction of the Steel Dynamics plant.
“That’s one way to get it off-loaded, and then they have to get it out to the construction site,” he said.
Brooks told The Dispatch the ramp was built more than 35 years ago after the then newly-established Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway prompted requests for boat ramps. Originally, he said, there was never going to be a landing there.
“I took office in January of 1984. In the middle of that month, I held a … meeting to introduce myself to the people and to try and compile a list of things that they wanted on that side of the river,” he said. “Actually, the boat ramp was kind of one of those sarcastic things. There were three guys sitting at the top of the bleachers and they said, ‘We want a boat ramp.’”
Brooks said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which designed and constructed the waterway, had previously said it would not install the ramp in that location, so it seemed unlikely to happen. Nevertheless, Brooks wrote the request down and held onto it.
“A couple weeks later I met with the guy that represents the Corps of Engineers office here, and they said (they) would look at it,” he said. “So that’s how it came to be.”
As for the landing’s nickname, Brooks is unsure how it came about.
“I don’t know who started calling it Leroy’s Landing,” he said. “It was just something they started calling it, and it just stuck with it.”
Brooks said the landing is popular for both recreational activities and industrial transportation. Its frequent use has made repairing the landing a necessity.
“We’ve had to repair it quite a bit over the years from flooding and whatever,” he said. “As a matter of fact, we’re contemplating … a floating dock to put there.”
The Dispatch was unable to reach Contractors Cargo before press time Monday.
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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