Today we announce the closing of Gardendale’s Historic Museum located at 704 Main Street, Gardendale.

Operating for more than five years and never asking for or receiving donations, we believe all our visitors were amazed at the events and proof displayed for their review.

(Editor’s note: The following are topics that the author discussed at the museum.)

The museum began with a warning before Sept. 11, 2001 of such an event. It displayed what the warning was based on. It displayed how the Islamic radicals have been at war with us for some 40 years.

Although the stock market was setting new highs daily, there was a warning of greed, followed by a stock market crash.

Fortunes and pensions were lost by hundreds of thousands; CEO’s went to prison; our country’s energy policy was exposed; and six years later our recommendations are now beginning to be recommended.

Experiences with Medal of Honor winner David McCampell of Bessemer; Lucky Luciano in Naples, Italy; the Bonillo family of Guantanamo City, Cuba; graduates of Fairfield High School and Dora High School later the bosses of International Revenue Service of America under President Ronald Reagan; the team of Wernher Von Braun in Huntsville, the cover up of their Nazi connections and how more than 10,000 of their slave laborers died; prisoners that had been rounded up by the S.S.; how President Kennedy sent the army into Birmingham in secret in 1963; How JFK illegally used IRS criminal investigators for a political witch hunt against Gov. George Wallace; disclosed that OPEC cannot be sued in an American court; the pilot from Tarrant that flew Kennedy into Dallas and his body back to the capital; the CIA pilot that was reported to his family as lost at sea and two years later it was learned that he crash-landed into Cuba. Castro kept his body on ice for 18 years before allowing it to be returned to his family in Tarrant.

Another Tarrant CIA agent received an award for another operation years later.

An AC-130 was shot down over Russia. The last 11 bodies of the crew of 17 were not returned until 40 years later. Then the U-2 pilot from the base was presented to the world’s news media by Premier Kruschev of Russia as a spy and was tried before the world in Moscow.

We have taken great pride in showing our museum to guests over the years. We hope it has been both entertaining and educational.

The Book Basket has served this community now for more than 21 years. We look forward to many more years of service to our friends and customers.

Billy R. Fortner

134 Minor Road

Gardendale