Sunday, January 19, 2025

 ON CREATING AN EXHILARATING NEW VISION OF ORIGINAL TUSKALOOSA


When Bev invited me to speak to y'all, I told him my subject would be the story of Tuscaloosa's original street grid. I plan on showing you today how that matrix of thoroughfares which was imposed upon this landscape 203 years ago beacons you to get out of your Lay-Z-boy, to walk outside and to use your own two legs, along with your historical imagination, to make a geographically and psychologically meaningful connection to this land with your feet. Take a journey through time. Follow your bliss. Awaken your wonder.

 As Matt Clinton https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/130427549/matthew_william_clinton

 once noted, we have history at our doorstep. 

If you live in the original city, your own front door is your gateway to the past. Experience the timeless treasure that is Tuscaloosa. It's not a timelessness like seeing the vast exposed rocks of some deep canyon but two hundred years of human activity along organized routes of commerce are inviting you to take everything you have learned about Druid City history and reimagine it as you walk the sacred ground of Tuscaloosa's sidewalks. Mapping this old town with your feet should find you approaching each corner, each tree, each brick wall, each flower bed, each alleyway, each hedge row, each stairway, each mailbox and asking yourself the same questions, "What's this?"

 "What happened here?" 

Allow the white columns, iron fences, bay windows, gables, porches and other architectural details you encounter to lure you forward as you ask yourself, "Who?" or "What?" or "Where?" or "When?" or "Why?"
Solvitur ambulada "It is solved by walking."
Enjoy the freedom and pleasure of bipedalism. It's our birthright.
Adopt a peripatetic way of life as you turn your back on this vehicular-based culture
by simply putting one foot in front of the other.
Use your intuition. Become attuned to that gut feeling of knowing without knowing. 
Link yourself to the lives of the others who have occupied the land around River Hill for the past millennia. 

Your feet can transport you to the sights, sounds and smells of daily life from the lost civilizations of two centuries which have occupied the same public property that all of Tuscaloosa citizens have owned and have been able to enjoy 24 hours a day/7 days a week for the past two centuries. Imagine the world before 1821 and the generations of tribes of people over the past 12,000 years who lived here yet left no written language but found fellowship on top of River Hill where Greensboro Avenue crosses University.  Challenge yourself to learn more about the place you call home and to make each walk a learning crusade as you reimagine Tuscaloosa's streets. 

I left my hometown of Dothan in '68 and came here to go to the University.

 

There aren't many places in Alabama as far away from Tuscaloosa as Dothan so I was 18 years old before I ever had the opportunity to set foot here. I had no familial connections up here but I'd heard about Tuscaloosa all my life. When I was a little boy growing up, folks used to tell me all the time, "Bob, if you keep actin' that way, they gonna send you to Tuscaloosa." so I guess the home folks were right. Not only did I fit in with Tuscaloosa but I guess I was the man for the job, too, because I ended up working at both Bryce and Partlow. 

Old Tuscaloosa, one of the few places where the nuts chase the squirrels.

But I tell ya what, of all the kinds of T-town screwballs, the strangest group is the University professors but I give 'em credit. That archeological bunch that excavated the Embassy Suites block back in 2013 found a treasure of Druid City history when they dug up that dirt.



 and the 255 pages of their report contain one revelation after another. Little did I know back in '74 as I rocked out in Jumpin' Johnny's to the Gate Band or Locust Fork that the 130 year old building housing Jumpin' Johnny's had once been a Confederate prison for Union soldiers and East Tennessee Union sympathizers superintended by the infamous Henry Wirz of Andersonville.








November 27, 1974


OCTOBER 10, 1969


from the November 14, 1964 TUSCALOOSA NEWS)

 






 It's easy to joke about the notorious eccentricities of Tuscaloosa's professors but they certainly have enhanced my life in town. I became friends with Dr. James Doster   https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/tuscaloosa-al/james-doster-6892760 mainly because I knew a little about one of his old girlfriends from Dothan. Dr. Doster, like many other scholars of Tuscaloosa history, was a walking treasure trove of Druid City history. Dr. Doster knew three people who witnessed the Yankees burn down the University and sat down and questioned two of them about their experiences. They were Thomas Clinton, Matt Clinton's father https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/106790861/thomas-patrick-clinton   ; Mrs. E. A. (Jennie) Garland Smith  https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/68714231/jane_henry_meredith_smith

and Dr. E.A. Smith. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/68714171/eugene-allen-smith

Dr. Doster sat down and questioned Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Smith. He never had the chance to talk to Dr. Smith about the Civil War in Tuscaloosa.

For myself, the stories I heard from Dr. Doster inside his Guild's Woods living room gave me a living, loving link to Tuscaloosa's traditions.

Tuscaloosa's my kind of place: a drinkin' town with a football problem!

About 20 years ago, the Tuscaloosa News had a promotion where they asked their readers to write the paper and tell them why you loved T-town. 


 "I 💗 T-town" bumper stickers that were part of the promotion.


I sent in an entry and it was the last one of all the ones they published and I liked that.


 It went like this:

Standing on an old street corner laid out in 1821 

Shaded by Druid oaks all around.

That's why I love T-town.

Sitting on a sandy bank

With my feet in the river

While the sun goes down.

That's why I love T-town


Now that I've entered retirement, the "Why I love T-town" composition I wrote over 20 years ago summarizes my idea of a "perfect day." 

 Spending my day walking the old streets of T-town and, as the sun goes down, heading to the river to feed the fish. That's my idea of a perfect day and I've taken that love of the Druid City and applied it to my daily hikes so that each journey out my front door becomes my own historical scavenger hunt as I scour the town in search of clues to whatever purpose I choose to apply myself on any particular day.


Not only do I love Tuscaloosa but I also love all of Alabama's 67 counties. I remember almost fifty years ago cruising the narrow streets of French-speaking Quebec City, Quebec and seeing a "63" Alabama tag on the car in front of me. It really warmed my heart to see someone from home. One of my favorite activities on my walks is the identification of Alabama car tags. Tuscaloosa with its students from all over the state makes it ideal for identifying every tag from a "1" to a "67". 

This link will help you in your quest to learn more about Alabama's HEART OF DIXIE car tags.  BAMA MAMMOTHS


 I thank the Good Lord for allowing me to live this long and even though my old body's givin' out on me and the Lord's about to call me home, I still hope I'm granted a few more days and nights to walk T-town's streets and to explore its river banks and swamps. 


Some of the best lessons learned from walking often come while wandering through Greenwood Cemetery where the warning on a 38 year old woman's 1829 tombstone captures one's attention:

Stranger, attend as you pass by

As you are now so once was I

As I am now so you must be

Prepare! For you must follow me

The joys above or pain below

Then ever stand prepared to go.



I've been pretty serious about learning as much as I could about Tuscaloosa's streets and buildings since the Seventies when I found Matt Clinton's books along with the publication of a little book printed in 1978 called PAST HORIZONS . Seeing as how next year the United States will be celebrating our semiquincentennial or 250th anniversary, it'd be a good idea to put out a new edition of PAST HORIZONS along with the republication of Matt's stuff. https://america250.org/

I'd like to point out that we here in Alabama have an opportunity to kick off the American semiquincentennial early. On Sunday, April 6, a program commemorating the 200th anniversary of LaFayette's 1825 visit to Alabama will be held at the Perdue Hill Masonic Lodge #3 near Claiborne.  https://www.facebook.com/events/1959809031148943/?_rdr

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perdue_Hill_Masonic_Lodge

 









This link is based upon both of Matt Clinton's books Newtown: The Story of Tuscaloosa's Bygone Rival - What's Cool at HooleWhat's Cool at Hoole

I'll never forget getting out my notebook and making an 1820s page and an 1830s page and an 1840s page and so forth and going through PAST HORIZONS and listing the buildings as to their construction date.  https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2023/06/post-will-be-dedicated-to-collecting.html

That's when I figured out how to read Tuscaloosa addresses. I found as I walked down the street, the number of the avenue you crossed as you headed west or the number of  the street you crossed as you headed south along an avenue determined the first house numbers for each address on the next block. I also found that the even numbered addresses were always on the north side of a street or on the west side of an avenue.

Almost 25 years ago I saw how I could sell a half-page of advertising in Old Tuscaloosa Magazine by drawing a downtown street map locating Tuscaloosa's antebellum houses. 

 That was the beginning of my historic Tuscaloosa scavenger hunts.

 57 years of calling Tuscaloosa home have shown me that for myself, the path to peace of mind leads outside my front door to the sidewalk in search of the ghosts of old Tuscaloosa.  I know they are waiting to impart their wisdom to me on every corner of this old town.




Even though Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary defines a pessimist as "a well informed optimist", I do consider myself an optimist and the very first part of the OPTIMIST'S CREED says something like "I promise myself that I will be SO STRONG that NOT A DAMN THANG is gonna disturb my peace of mind TODAY!" 

Now, there's nine or ten more parts of the OPTIMIST'S CREED but that first one is enough to challenge me but..

How do I quiet my mind to be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind?

 By roaming, sauntering, meandering, patrolling, roving, tramping and just walking along the sidewalks of old Tuscaloosa. 







For me "old Tuscaloosa" is the 1821 subdivision of the south fraction of Section 22 from Township 23 South, Range 10 West. The section's north to south boundaries on the south side of the Warrior River are present-day Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard (formerly 32nd Avenue and before that West Margin Street) on the west and on the east, Queen City Avenue.

The one mile long east to west south section line runs along 15th Street from MLK, Jr. to Queen City.


This piece of land covers less than the 660 acres contained in a square mile because it's only a fraction of township section.


 The northern part of the section lies north of the river with its northwest corner monumented near where the present-day Northport levee approaches the M & O trestle. 

The oldest Tuscaloosa street map I have found is on the 1835 John LaTourrette map of the State of Alabama and West Florida.






  In late 1887, the name of East Margin Street was changed to Queen City Street and the name of South Margin Street was changed to Crescent City Avenue. The city made this change to promote the recently improved railroad connection between Cincinnati and New Orleans which was called the Queen & Crescent Route.

Most of the street names on the 1887 map were changed to numbers in 1901 by order of the U.S. Post Office so the city could get free mail delivery but our numbered streets had English names from 1822 until 1901. The only major change I found during that time was that 21st Avenue was named ADAMS STREET on the 1835 LaTourrette map and it's called COLLEGE STREET on Wellge's 1887 map.

 1. MLK, Jr. Blvd. - WEST MARGIN STREET
2. 31st Ave.- BEAVER STREET
3. 30th Ave.- DEER STREET
4. 29th Ave.- BROWN STREET
5. 28th Ave.- JACKSON STREET
6. 27th Ave.- FRANKLIN STREET
7. Lurleen B. Wallace, S.- JEFFERSON STREET
8. Lurleen B. Wallace, N.- WASHINGTON STREET
9. Greensboro Ave.- MARKET STREET
10. 23rd Ave.- MONROE STREET
11. 22nd Ave.- MADISON STREET
12. 21st Ave.- COLLEGE STREET
13. 20th Ave.- YORK STREET
14. 19th Ave.- BEAR STREET
15. Queen City Ave.- EAST MARGIN STREET (later, QUEEN CITY STREET)
16. 3rd St.- SPRING STREET
17. 4th St.- PINE STREET
18. University Boulevard- BROAD STREET
19. 6th St.- COTTON STREET
20. 7th St.- UNION STREET
21. 8th St.- PIKE STREET
22. 9th St.- LAUDERDALE STREET
23. Bryant Dr.- LAWRENCE STREET
24. 11th St.- OAK STREET
25. 12th St.- WALNUT STREET
26. 13th St.-  LOCUST STREET
27. 14th St.- CHESTNUT STREET
28. 15th St.- SOUTH MARGIN STREET (later, CRESCENT CITY AVENUE)

 That "old street corner laid out in 1821" in my "I love T-town" poem would be part of Tuscaloosa's original street grid, virtually unchanged for 203 years, which was carved out of a wilderness by the order of President James Monroe five years after the Indians lost their title to the property in 1816. This land had been reserved from public sale because Uncle Sam wanted it subdivided into a town which would stand on the south bank of the Black Warrior River on the spot where navigation on the river ended and a series of rapids prevented further navigation north from the Gulf.  As soon as the Indians relinquished their claims to this land, the international press declared Tuscaloosa to be the gateway to a new avenue of commerce with the Caribbean via the port of Mobile as Huntsville merchants were already loading their wagons at the foot of River Hill with Cuban rum, coffee, sugar and oranges from Mobile.

Broad Street, two survey chains or 132 feet wide, was the main street in old Tuscaloosa. It is now called University Boulevard and was laid off parallel to the river from the southwest to the northeast along the crest of the hill that rises up from the river's south bank. About midway along the path of this main street and perpendicular to it was Market Street, also two survey chains or 132 feet wide and presently called Greensboro Avenue. it runs south from the river wharf at the base of the old bridge and up the river hill to the southern margin of the Old Town. All the other streets in Old Town ran parallel to either Broad or Market Streets and are a survey chain and half long or 99 feet wide.

Old Tuscaloosa consists of about one hundred two acre city blocks. 


With the exception of some irregular blocks at Old Town's boundaries, each block is approximately 330 feet long and 264 feet wide and contains about two acres of land. Each of these similar rectangles of real estate was originally divided into 4 identical half acre lots. Ironically, all the measurements needed by the United States government surveyors to map Tuscaloosa's city plan 200 years ago on their recently acquired Indian land were established and standardized over 500 years ago in England by old King Henry VIII. The incredible symmetry of Tuscaloosa's 1821 town plan comes from the standard units of measurement established due to Henry VIII's need in 1534 to sell all the land he'd seized from the Roman Catholic Church in England. The Catholics owned one fourth of the cultivated land in England and King Henry VIII needed to sell it off quickly to get money to pay his debts and to fund his wars so he chopped the land up into little squares he called acres so folks would know how much land they were buying. 

From the moment the right-of-ways of Tuscaloosa's streets were opened to traffic in the 1820s, they were given names like Adams, Madison, Monroe, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, all of whom were men who commented upon the evil of slavery. Tuscaloosa even has a Union Street but over one hundred fifty years ago, all those street names couldn't stop some of Tuscaloosa's citizens from working to split the nation's churches, the nation's political parties, and finally it's government. According to Thomas Clinton, in 1850, fifteen months before the publication of UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, "the mustard seed of secession" was first successfully planted into the consciousness of the State of Alabama at a Tuscaloosa political caucus held inside the walls of the Indian Queen Hotel which once stood on the corner of University Boulevard and Lurleen North.

Like I said earlier, Tuscaloosa doesn't have the same timelessness as the Grand Canyon or Zion National Park but, nevertheless, the old town of Tuscaloosa has a timelessness. Within the two centuries that this tract of land has been occupied, very little has interfered with the rights of property, the plan of the town or the rights of the inhabitants to use the public streets. It was as if those surveyors in 1821 knew that history was going to be produced in this town. When you cross the 99 feet of pavement of a T-Town Street, you walk across a space that was cleared by enslaved people two hundred years ago, maintained by enslaved people for decades and traveled upon by the descendants of those same enslaved people on the same day that you are crossing the street. The best book I've found on the subject of slavery in Alabama is entitled SLAVERY AND IT'S RESULT by Alfred H. Benners. According to Benners, there was no "question of slavery" in the lives of the sons of slave holders. The absolute necessity of the institution of slavery was not only taken for granted but it had divine endorsement.  White Tuscaloosa parents taught their children that the institution was ordained by God, and not only that, but to even question the subject was to advocate the violation a divine decree and therefore a sin. Here's a quote from Benners' book:

"The psychology of the masters and mistresses concerning their slaves was composite (meaning 'complex'): in part, somewhat akin to that of an owner of fine stock, and somewhat that of a guardian of one of weaker mentality, but always there was one will- that of the owner. In the main they were kind aristocrats and benevolent despots. Most of them were educated and well read, they handed down from father to son the fixed belief that the sons of Ham were made by their Creator to be the slaves of the sons of Japheth, and that all attempts to abolish slavery were assaults upon a divine decree."

 For two centuries, if you ever wanted to see some results of slavery, all you had to do was to take a walk down the city streets of Old Town Tuscaloosa. 






link to Tuscaloosa Sanborn Fire Insurance maps:  The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor















J.H. Fitts & Co. checks Reclaim Alabama

https://bamamammoths.blogspot.com/2024/05/blog-post_21.html

JAMES ROBERT MAXWELL Reclaim Alabama

HORNET ROW https://reclaimalabama.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post_9.

MENTAL  PHOTOGRAPHS BAMA MAMMOTHS

MAVERICK  The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor




The finding of the corner-stone on the old Peterson corner is an important thing, whether it was placed there by the government or old Samuel Maverick. It was undoubtedly placed at the corner of the lot and shows where the corner ought to be..




A visitor from Cleveland, Ohio in 1884 accurately described Tuscaloosa's founding:  

"The site for this contemplated city was exceedingly well chosen and the fathers are entitled to credit perhaps I should say the father for our Uncle Samuel selected the locality and engineered the city reserving from private entry or public sale upon the usual terms a goodly tract of land which was sold off only in town lots to people who were sagacious and farseeing and desired a pleasant and salubrious locality in which to drink their mint julips and entertain their friends while their faithful retainers toiled in the cotton fields far down the fertile valley below the town. They were good people as the world went then, those planters of the olden time, albeit they differed from us of the North as to some essentials of a Christian life and they are good people today such of them as are left and very creditable representatives of the great American nation and I think they were never so bitter at heart toward their brethren of the North as were some others in less favored localities who had really less to lose by the upsetting of old usages and the liberation of the slaves.

"The town was regularly laid out by competent engineers who had an eye to the picturesque and magnificent and the streets were plotted with reference to the requirements of a to be renowned seat of government. Since land was of no great consequence in those days it was allowed that 132 feet was none too wide for the streets and now that the sidewalks are bordered with rows of mighty water oaks from two to three feet in diameter with a central row down the middle of each principal street it does not appear that the fathers of the city miscalculated matters nor were otherwise than level-headed folks."

 

 New York DAILY GRAPHIC, May 29, 1874

...Tuskaloosa, the ancient capital and present literary centre of the State, and formerly one of the most beautiful cities in tho country. The once princely dwellings enshrined among the magnificent forest trees now show too plainly that the wealth that once made them so attractive does not now exist. The hospitality of the people is nevertheless unbounded, and the entire party unanimously declared that they never had experienced better treatment.

The Pleasures of Hope: Part 1

At summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering bills below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky ?
Why do those clifts of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near ?—
'T is distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain in its azure hue.
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been,
And every form, that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.









Frederick Richard “Ted” Maxwell Jr. (1889-1988) - Find a Grave Memorial






























































































































posted by robertoreg at 9:35 AM

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