Wisdom Ride to bid farewell
Organizers are retiring, and no one has stepped forward to fill their shoes.
The John Wisdom Wagon Train Ride has been a harbinger of fall in Rome for the past 40 years, but the ride this October will mark the final time horse enthusiasts saddle up their horses and mules.
The event started in 1979 as part of the very first Heritage Holidays celebration, an idea of Rome broadcaster Mike McDougald and others.
The original ride was a reenactment of the John Wisdom ride from Gadsden to Rome to warn of the arrival of Federal troops in May of 1863.
McDougald said he was always looking for projects that related to a community’s history. Before moving to Rome, he was involved in the reenactment of 15-year-old Emma Sansom’s effort to aid Confederate Gen. Nathan Forrest in his pursuit of Yankee troops on May 3, 1863.
As a result of that, he was already familiar with Wisdom when he bought radio stations in Rome in the late 1970s.
“I hit the jackpot when I met Billy Puryear,” McDougald said.
Local cowboy Billy Puryear played the role of Wisdom and has led the wagon train throughout its four-decade run.
“I understood it was going to be a relay ride,” Puryear said of the 68-mile ride from Gadsden to Rome. “Everyone backed out but me.”
Wisdom’s ride resulted in his being dubbed the “Paul Revere of the South.”
Those first few rides followed the route Wisdom rode, south through Forney and Cave Spring, but the wagon train, led by Junior Bohannon, rode into Rome from the Cedar Bluff, Alabama, area.
That first ride attracted between 400 and 500 participants and has attracted close to 750 during some years.
The first ride took Puryear about 7½ hours. He continued the long ride from Gadsden another two years before the event became solely a wagon train event. Over the years, the route of the wagon train changed several times. In recent years, it has started and ended at the Coosa Valley Fairgrounds where the participants camp out Friday through Sunday.
Puryear said that a lot of the participants have been in
the event all 40 years, however when he revealed plans to retire after the 40th anniversary event this year, no one has actually stepped up to take a leadership role to keep the event going. Lisa Smith, director of Georgia’s Rome Office of Tourism, said the biggest loss will be the experiential part of the tradition. She said that she hopes that information about the Wisdom ride and what it represents to Rome will continue to be taught in local classrooms and highlighted in print material put out by the tourism office.
McDougald said that was part of his original plan associated with the first event 40 years ago.
“I made a promise to myself that I would try to speak to every history class in the city and county schools,” McDougald said.
The ride this year will take place on Saturday, Oct. 19, and will include a parade of horses and wagons on Broad Street before ending at the fairgrounds again.