Warner Brothers pays a visit...

Several posts ago, I promised to tell you about the day that Warner Brothers discovered Bay City. It's a pretty incredible story, incredible defined as unbelievable. Bay City is an unincorporated spot on a county road overlooking the Ohio River. Bay City is located in a county of 4,000 people with one four way stop and no traffic lights and everyone wants to keep it that way. A great deal of our county is the Shawnee National Forest so the scenic beauty is quite remarkable and our claim to fame is the "Deer Capital of Illinois." So of all the places in the world to make a movie, Bay City seemed to be at the very bottom of any list. And then one Sunday afternoon a bus pulled into the Bay City General Store parking lot. The store was not open at the time and was owned by a lovely couple, The Butlers. All of these people piled out the bus with clipboards, cameras and swarmed the place. We owned the cabin next door, our weekend getaway. Now if you look up curious in the dictionary, you will see a picture of my husband. I should point out that on this particular day he was digging in a sewer line for our cabin so he was mud from head to toe, when normally he would be wearing a suit and tie. Off he went to introduce himself and to inquire as to what they were doing in Bay City. At this point, they already outnumbered us so we needed to know if they were friend or foe. We're going to make a movie here, the person in charge said. It's called U.S. Marshals and it stars Tommy Lee Jones, Wesley Snipes and Robert Downey, Jr. Having heard many a tall tale in his life my husband thought this one moved right to the top of the list. A movie in Bay City - sure! Well as they say, the rest is history...............the airplane crash scene from U.S. Marshals was filmed at Bay City in the summer of 1997 and the make believe Roy Willie's Barbecue Restaurant was created. And the Hollywood created barbecue restaurant sold these T-shirts and Tommy Lee bought one in the movie. And we have created them again and they are for sale in the Bay City General Store.
This story would not be complete if I did not tell you the ending to the story of the day Warner Brothers discovered Bay City............while all these official Hollywood people are taking their notes and photos, our chocolate lab, Hannah, got on their bus and ate all their snacks!!!!!!!!!!!
There are more tales to tell about the movie but I'll save those for another day.