Along Highway 411 a few miles east of Centre, untold passerby often do a double-take as they top the hill approaching Cave Spring, Ga. On the left, in a gravelly clearing stands a large canine — not a real one, but a two-dimensional, three-foot high, red steel dog.

Those who know the story of the red dog chuckle, smile, or shake their head at the harmless image. But the “red dog” that once stood on that sandy ground had a far more potent reputation.

Around 1992 a long-standing beer joint atop that very hill burned down. Though the establishment possessed various names over the decades, perhaps its most famous moniker was the Red Dog Saloon. Known in part for their icy cold beer, drive-thru service, and walk-in cooler, the building wasn't rebuilt after the fire, and some of the locals breathed a sigh of relief.

The nearby town of Cave Spring, after all, has a history of alcoholic restraint. The origins of the town itself stem from a Baptist school, and reportedly the village was known as Temperance Town before being incorporated with the name Cave Spring.

Even today, local eating establishments evoke a degree of controversy with the issuance of their beverage licenses. One can presume more than a few feathers from this Bible Belt town have been ruffled, tolerating a bar with a raucous reputation sitting just outside the city limits.

Teresa Sides, who worked near the Red Dog in the early 1980s, remembers the crowded interior of the bar.

“It was very small with a pool table, a bar, a little bathroom, and a juke box,” she says. “It was often standing room only. It was kind of a wild place.”

John Lindsey, who owned the Red Dog in the early 1960s, said a lot of his clientele came from the Alabama side of the state line.

“A lot of my customers were from over around Centre,” Lindsey says. “They were a rough bunch.”

Lindsey said he once heard that the place was called “Hammer Hill” because the person who once owned it had to run off a band of rowdies with a hammer.

“Honestly, I never did go back to that place after it was sold,” he says. “I was glad to get rid of it.”

Two or three years ago, nearly a decade after the ashes from the old saloon had been cleared, a mysterious sign appeared at the site. It read, “A New Red Dog Coming Soon.”

With that homemade sign, rampant speculation engulfed the area.

“That was the talk of the town that the saloon was coming back,” says Cave Spring City Billing Clerk Jessie Carver. “A lot of our citizens do not want another Red Dog.”

The person holding the answers to all the hoopla surrounding the sign turned out to be a man named Charles Howell. Howell purchased the land in the late 1990s and then built and posted the mysterious sign.

“People in town took that sign and ran with it,” he says slyly. “They thought a new bar was coming. I even had people asking me for a job.”

Howell later admitted that the new “red dog,” which was not a resurrection of the old beer joint, but a three-foot cement dog statue, painted red from head to tail. Howell was pleased with his tongue-in-cheek tribute.

“When I cleared up the lot, I thought I'd put up a little monument,” he says. “The dog is amusing and sentimental to a lot of people.”

After vandals decimated the concrete statue, Howell replaced it with the steel red dog. Even though the statue represented a controversial establishment, Howell feels that most citizens were sad to see the dog fall prey to punks.

“People got real mad when it was torn down,” he says. “They had pride in it.”

Some claim the Red Dog Saloon's reputation wasn't as notorious as advertised. John Lindsey insists that he doesn't remember ever having to call the police in the six years he owned the place.

“Its reputation is overrated, told mostly by people who had never been there,” says Robbie Hodges, who used to get free food at the Red Dog for bringing along a guitarist. “Oh, it had a reputation. But I never even saw a fight there.”

Despite debate over the Red Dog's reputation, Teresa Sides holds what may be a common sentiment.

“The town of Cave Spring tolerated the Red Dog Saloon as long as it stayed up on that hill and kept everything that went with it away from town.”