Pretty much as soon as I finished the final episode of S-Town, I wanted to go straight to the airport and fly down to Woodstock, Alabama to see the hedge maze that was so extensively discussed on the podcast. But can you visit the maze from S-Town? I'm sure we all want to, especially after seeing the photos of the hedge maze's decline since John B. McLemore's tragic death in 2015. When you compare them with the photos of the maze's early days, it feels like time is running out to see the unique site the way that McLemore intended when he and Tyler Goodson started putting it together so long ago.
As much as I understand the feeling of wanting to experience something for yourself that's been described in such detail on a heart-wrenching podcast, we can't. It would be interesting to soak up McLemore's everyday environment and try to peek into his one-of-a-kind and troubled brain, but slow your roll S-Town fans. Even though internet sleuths have hunted down the coordinates of the maze and pinpointed its location, it's ultimately located on private property and therefore not legally accessible to visitors. I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you.
As you might recall from S-Town's final chapter, the land that John B. McLemore lived and died on was purchased after his suicide by Kendall Burt, the patriarch of the family that owns Woodstock's K3 Lumber. (He's also the father of Kabrum Burt, about whom the podcast was started in the first place.) Kendall Burt shared in Chapter VII that, while he admired the maze, he was unlikely to be able to invest the time, energy, and resources into its upkeep.
That's also something that McLemore predicted on an earlier episode, saying:
At my death, this place out here only has one destination — it’s to be paved over with a Walmart or scrapped off. That’s why we don’t have mazes in S**ttown.
That hasn't happened yet, but it's the direction things are going, since McLemore didn't provide any longterm solutions for the maze's care after his death. You know, like... letting strangers visit and charging them admission, for example.
I guess there's still a possibility that someone could go to the trouble of setting up a system like that, so a visit to the maze isn't completely ruled out. But, as of right now, the site is located on private property, and you'd be breaking the law if you went and poked around — no matter how innocent your intentions.
