Sweet Home Alabama: Then and Now – 12 Years Later

Pigeon Creek Courthouse/Sheriff’s Department (Real name: Taliaferro Courthouse)
In this scene Melanie is calling her parents from the Pigeon Creek Sheriff’s Department in hopes that they will bail her out of jail. The prisoner in the background being escorted inside the building by the two sheriff deputies is actually a member of the film crew – not an actor. He had a walk-on part in the movie so he’s not even wearing a costume in this scene. Those are his actual working clothes he wears while working the other side of the camera. What the audience didn’t see in the movie is the part when the prisoner breaks free from the deputies and runs down the hall past Melanie saying “Hey, Mel!” It was cut from the film since the editors felt it was much funnier when she banged the handset against the payphone’s base unit.

This scene was shot inside the Tallaferro County Courthouse in Crawfordville and for the record, the sheriff’s department isn’t located inside this building.

The historic courthouse was built in 1901-1902 and sits in one of the poorest counties in Georgia. In 1980, the courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Today, the interior of the building is in disrepair. We had a chance to tour the courthouse while we were in town and it was in pretty bad shape. I’ve seen quite a few historic courthouses during my filming location tours and this was by far the worst courthouse that I’ve come across yet. Hopefully renovations are around the corner.

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