Ludowici, Ga.

Not all vanishing Americana is cause for nostalgia. Consider the speed trap, that once ubiquitous feature of Crossroads, U.S.A., now largely and mercifully extinct, the victim of interstate highways and perhaps even some slight evolution in civic if not human nature. One malignant exception to progress, however, is the southeastern Georgia town of Ludowici. Named after an immigrant German roofing-tile manufacturer who built a factory there at the turn of the century, it is one of the last remaining speed traps in the country. TIME Correspondent Joseph Kane drove slowly into Ludowici and sent back this report.

TWO large roadside billboards just inside the county lines north and south of town guard the approach to Ludowici. Placed there by Governor Lester Maddox two weeks ago, they warn approaching motorists of "speed traps" and "clip joints" in large black letters on a white background. State Trooper Thomas Randall sits in his blue Chevrolet guarding the southernmost sign against Ludowici's irate citizens. Occasionally Randall puts aside his Playboy and climbs out to chat with a tourist, such as H.E. Phillips from Beaufort, S.C. "I've heard about this place in the state of Washington," says Phillips, snapping a picture of Randall and the sign.

The town of Ludowici is 56 miles south of Savannah, deep in the heart of Georgia clay country. The county seat of Long County, it boasts a population of 1,600 and all three of the county's newspapers. Once a quiet train stop, it is now a depressing roadscape of shabby gas stations, diners, motels and half-filled grocery stores. It is also one of the best-known little nowheres in the country. Sitting astride the junction of federal highways 301, 25 and 82, Ludowici commands the traditional north-south highway to Florida; 1,000,000 motorists drive through town each year. During the '50s it became known as the site of a treacherous stop light that trapped motorists by changing from green to red without warning, after which the travelers were ticketed by a waiting policeman. Since 1960 when the light was replaced, Ludowici's speed traps have bilked motorists of a rumored $100,000 annually. Says Governor Maddox: "The place is lousy, rotten, corrupt, nasty and no good."

It may not be quite as bad as all that, but Ludowici has nevertheless defied the efforts of three Governors, including Maddox, to shut down the speed traps. For years some of the local gas stations also conducted a profitable con game. When an unsuspecting motorist stopped to have his oil checked, the attendant would disable the car by tinkering with the generator or pouring water in the crankcase oil, then suggest that the customer move his crippled vehicle to a nearby garage for repair. Fittingly enough, the repair shop was called "Billy Swindel's."

The man behind the speed trap, and behind everything else in Ludowici, is the county's colorful political boss, Ralph Dawson, 68, a back-country lawyer who has been running Long County since 1932. Always in a brown felt hat and soiled black suit, Dawson heads a political machine that has never lost an election at the county or city level, and he has not taken lightly Maddox's efforts to shut off his speed-trap revenue. Last year Dawson was tossed out of the Governor's office and called a rascal. To which Dawson replied, "You don't own this office. You are a political accident." Laughs Dawson: "It made Maddox madder than 40 hells."

The encounter strengthened the Governor's resolve to put up the warning billboards. Keeping them there will be another matter, troopers or no. Two weeks ago, buckshot was fired into the kitchen of the Rev. Raymond Cook, a leader of the city's small antispeed-trap, anti-Dawson clique. Maddox hinted that he would declare martial law, but backed off when he learned from state investigators that there was at least a possibility that the crusading Cook may have fired the shots himself to bring the law down on Dawson.

Angered by all these goings on, Maddox says that "if it weren't for the good people there, I'd run the highway right around Ludowici." That, in fact, is what is going to happen. By 1974, Interstate Highway 95 will bypass Long County from Savannah to Brunswick, and the residents of Ludowici will likely be out of pocket for good.

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