According to newspaper reports published in the early 1970s, the material turned over to the state archives shortly after the ‘68 campaign unfortunately didn’t include any of the legal papers and other documents stemming from Wallace’s Herculean ballot access efforts that year.

In any case, I think what Peter Gemma was referring to in comment #164 — and Peter please correct me if I’m wrong — are the additional personal papers and memorabilia, stuffed in wooden boxes, that the Wallace family wanted to donate to the state archives shortly after Wallace’s death in 1998. Due to lack of funding, they are now sitting in a warehouse in Atlanta, or at least were as of a few years ago. Those papers and artifacts — a treasure trove equivalent to three tractor-trailer truckloads of material — apparently have never been catalogued for researchers and historians.

For years, there was also a large volume of uncatalogued papers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham library — papers that had been originally donated to the Alabama State Department of Archives and History, but later reclaimed by Gov. Wallace and placed under the control of the Wallace Foundation.

When writing his excellent 1994 biography of Wallace, Stephen Lesher said that he was given access to “thousands of campaign papers, boxes, and artifacts that were piled willy-nilly, uncatalogued, on a balcony in the library…” I’m not sure if those papers are still at UAB or are part of the voluminous material still sitting in the warehouse in Atlanta.

By the way, I started reading “Shots Fired” this past weekend and really enjoyed “Gemma’s Dilemma” — your beautifully-written and insightful introduction, as well as Pat Buchanan’s moving foreword to the book.

I’m just now making my way through your subject’s selected writings and speeches and particularly enjoyed his delightfully contrarian view of Abraham Lincoln as a typical “small-town politico” whose highly-touted prominence as a lawyer in an underdeveloped frontier state like Illinois in the 1850s was akin to describing him as “an admiral in the Swiss navy.”

At first blush, I have to admit that I enjoy Sam’s off-angle way of looking at things.

There was a plan to house George Wallace’s political papers – including his/his wife’s campaign memoribilia – in a special museum but the fund raising didn’t go anywhere for some reason. I think the state backed down from an initial offer of seed money or a building or something – for financial not political reasons. I also believe I read somewhere that all the materials are sitting in a wharehouse … not a safe place for paper.

Darcy – I plan to interview Wallace III at some point too … is it a race to get there first or shall we go together?

How two former governors could run for Governor and score less than 6%, is beyond me.

Patterson lost for chief justice in 1970, 66% to 34%, to Howell Heflin, the future US senator. Rush Limbaugh used to do a great impression of Heflin.

Patterson also ran unsuccessfully for chief justice of the state Supreme Court in 1970, and Folsom ran a number of other losing campaigns.

James Martin, who had nearly defeated longtime Democratic U. S. senator Lister Hill in 1962, was the ‘66 Republican nominee for governor. He foolishly gave up the U. S. House seat to which he had been elected in 1964, as he lost badly to Mrs. Wallace.

Thanks for the update on the younger Wallace. I hope to interview him for one of my later volumes.