In east Alabama sits a small, rural community called Waverly. Today, the town boasts charm and tranquility, a regular Mayberry positioned squarely between Dadeville and Opelika. That, however, wasn’t always the case.
Hulking 18-wheelers and constant traffic once roared down Waverly’s two-lane road.
“When I lived here, this was the main highway, and huge trucks would come through, and my whole house would shake,” Andrew Cost, a former resident and lifelong champion of Waverly, said.
That road was U.S. Highway 280, which once ran through the center of town and earned a notorious reputation among townsfolk.
“Talk to the old folks. They said that the trucks would roll down and the china would rattle in their cabinets,” Waverly transplant Christy Dittrich said. “It really was, I think, destroying the town.”
Things changed in 2000. That’s when transportation officials rerouted Highway 280, bypassing the town and redirecting all of that traffic just south. While that sounds like death to a local economy, Waverly, then, wasn’t necessarily a thriving market for passersby, consisting of little more than a beauty shop and a post office. Instead, the people of Waverly prized a peaceful existence.
So when the project finished, there was dancing in the streets. Literally.
“The night they officially closed this road and opened the new road, we went out and laid down in the middle of the street and made basically, snow angels, or asphalt angels,” longtime local Willi Cox said. “Just laid there in the road and looked up at the moon. It was the coolest thing in the world.”
That night of celebration was the unofficial start of what would become the Old 280 Boogie. The next year, Waverly marked the anniversary of the bypass with an inaugural street party, and 25 years later, it’s still going strong.
Scott Peek and his design and silkscreen print shop, Standard Deluxe, have presented the event since the beginning, when the Boogie was free and volunteer-run, featuring cake walks and local vendors on that main stretch of road. As the cultural hub of Waverly, Standard Deluxe’s business naturally translated into a festival.
“In the mid-’90s, we were having bands play at our shop, and so it evolved from that,” Peek said. “It was a good excuse to have a festival every year and have fun with it.”
Over the years, the Old 280 Boogie blossomed into a full-fledged, multi-act musical affair, eventually moving to the grounds of Standard Deluxe and welcoming artists from across the state, the country and even the globe. The ethos of the Boogie, however, hasn’t changed.
“It will always be a festival that was derived out of community commitment and love for this town,” Peek’s partner and co-producer Amy Miller said.
For that, many of the townsfolk, like Willi Cox, are grateful, with the Boogie providing an annual opportunity to enjoy live music, celebrate home and see a familiar face.
“People put it on their calendar,” Cox said. “There are people that are absolutely positively not going to miss this if they're breathing.”
For Christy Dittrich, who lives just two doors down from Standard Deluxe, the Old 280 Boogie stands as evidence of the real Alabama she’s come to call home over the last 15 years after time spent in New Jersey, San Francisco and Hong Kong.
“I love bringing people to the Boogie because it's a great introduction to Alabama, to the art and the culture,” she said. “Where I come from and where a lot of my people are, there's a misunderstanding of Alabama, and I enjoy nothing more than having people come down so that I can show them what's going on here.”
At every Boogie, Scott Peek and Amy Miller extend what they call “radical hospitality” to locals and visitors alike. Down to the very bands that travel far and wide to play on their outdoor stage, everyone gets an opportunity to experience a warm Waverly welcome.
“I wouldn’t imagine anyone leaves without a Boogie high,” Miller said. “We hope to up the ante even more.”
There are certainly big things in store for this year’s silver anniversary. When planning the extravaganza, it quickly became evident that a single day simply wouldn’t cut it.
“Typically, we do one day,” Peek said. “So adding Sunday is special.”
On April 18 and 19, art, Southern culture, and music will collide at the Boogie, with vendors galore, as well as appearances from home state favorites such as Abe Partridge, Taylor Hunnicut, and the Pine Hill Haints, major talents like Shovels and Rope and the Band of Heathens, even an international act, The Heavy Heavy.
Over this weekend, heavier traffic in Waverly should be expected as people pack the art tables, the food stalls and the front of the stage – traffic that’s much more appreciated than the house-rattling kind of 25 years before.