What was once a deteriorating firetruck bay is now a pocket park, complete with a Larry Strickland mural, designed to be a place to enjoy the outdoors in Florala.

“This roof was caved in, and the floor was in bad shape and holding water,” outgoing Mayor Robert Williamson said at yesterday’s dedication. “It is symbolic of this council’s progress that it took something that was rundown and of no use and made a nice space from it.”

Strickland said he wanted a firetruck as the central theme of the mural because the space once housed firetrucks.

“I also wanted kind of an Old South feel to it,” he said.

“I painted the firetruck and those children just jumped up there on it,” he joked. “They kind of capture the youth of it all.”

Strickland began his work in the summer, but soon hit the pause button because the heat was too much. A large part of painting a mural, he said, is completing a small version of the design with which to work.

Williamson commended Strickland, city employees who contributed to the work, and the generosity of the John and Grace Estep Foundation.