dogs and horses. The horticulture department assisted with the new pecan orchard, and the faculty of wildlife management shared their extensive research on quail food, predators, and reproduction of birds. Particularly helpful was Professor Allen M. Pearson’s studies of quail food and the dangerous predators to quail, from fire ants to hawks to opossum. Support for quail also came from the Alabama Legislature, which had created the Alabama Department of Game and Fish in 1907 and in 1932 authorized the department to begin propagation of quail and other game birds. The 1950s and ’60s were the Golden Age of Union Springs Field Trials. The town commissioned a bird dog monument and adopted the slogan “Field Trial Capital of the World.” The man who did so much to bring national attention to the trials, Lewis Maytag, died in his Colorado Springs home in 1967. The ownership of Sedgefields passed to his two sons, who hunted and maintained the land for another ten years. In 1977, a Florida family acquired the plantation. They added commercial agriculture to the land, and although hunting continued, it was not the primary mission of the plantation. Some of the prestigious field trials, such as the National Shooting Dog Championship, went on to be held in other states.
After 20 years, Sedgefields was sold twice. Eventually it was divided into parcels, which were mostly purchased by Georgia businessmen. The parcel known as Sedgefields—commonly identified by its nickname of Big Lake—came back on the market in 2008 and was purchased by Auburn University trustee Raymond Harbert and his wife, Kathryn. Harbert is chairman and CEO of Birmingham’s Harbert Management Corporation, an investment management firm, and Auburn University’s College of Business bears his name. Harbert, a 1982 Auburn alumnus, recently committed $40 million to support the college. The restoration of the land began slowly with repairing roads, improving drainage, updating the lodge, installing new fencing, and eventually building a new barn and dog kennel. The land was carefully developed to improve the quality of habitat for quail, plenty of quail food was planted, and the numerous predators to the little birds were eliminated as much as possible. Although quail received the most attention, dove and deer were also carefully managed and hunted. Initially, the Harberts did not envision bringing back the old Sedgefields Plantation with its field trial lands, which had been divided and included in several of the parcels sold off earlier.
But as the months passed, the Harberts learned more about the history of the land and became intrigued by the commitment of the field trial participants. They were impressed by their love for and dedication to their dogs. They also came to appreciate the egalitarian nature of the field trials, where urban businessmen drank beer and swapped stories with dog trainers and horsemen from rural areas across the nation. They soon appreciated how important the trials were to the Union Springs community and how difficult it was for field trial officials to obtain permissions from six landowners to run the trials over the acres that had hosted various field trials for maybe a century. Gradually, perhaps at first not even having 205 a master plan but responding to opportunity, Raymond Harbert began selectively purchasing the old field trial lands that joined his Sedgefields property. And with time, the acres of the 1930s-era Lewis Maytag Sedgefields Plantation lay behind the brown-stained wooden fences of the modern Sedgefields once more. The crowning glory of the Union Springs area, the National Shooting Dog Championships, returned to Sedgefields in 2011.