I appreciate Borden's invitation for me to come speak to you today about some of the tools I use to enhance my walks around T-town.
Historic walking tours of Alabama's towns got a real boost this month of April 2025. Here in Tuscaloosa, Will Hawkins of Historic Tuscaloosa led our first downtown walking tours on each of this past month's four Saturday mornings.
Tuscaloosa was not alone. Due to the effort of our State of Alabama Department of Tourism,for the first time, 30 other Alabama towns put on historic walking tours of their communities every Saturday morning during this past month of April 2025. April Walking Tours
For me "old Tuscaloosa" is the 1821 subdivision of the south fraction of Section 22 from Township 23 South, Range 10 West. The boundaries for this section south of the Warrior River became the original city limits of our town.
Our 204 year old fractional section's north to south boundaries south of the 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.
A section of a township's land is one square mile and contains 640 acres. The original city was only a part of single section so it is less than 640 acres and the downtown city blocks where most of the town's history has taken place cover only about 20 acres of private property. We're talking about an intimate setting for two centuries of human activity.
As soon as the Indians relinquished their claims to this land at St. Stephens in 1816, 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 and hauling it all to the Tennessee Valley on what would become the Huntsville Road.
New Channel of Commerce.
From the Huntsville Republican.
We take great pleasure in laying the following communication before the publick; it is on a subject of the greatest importance to the community. The produce of all the upper and middle country, instead of passing along the meandering channels of the Tennessee and Ohio rivers into the Mississippi, will hereafter be transported to the nearest navigable waters on the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers, and thence to the Mobile. If from Huntsville to the falls of the Black Warrior be only 120 miles over a winding road and can be travelled by loaded wagons in eight days, and if from the Mobile a cargo can be brought to the falls in 20 days, while the country is yet unimproved and scarcely settled, how much shorter will the distance, and how much sooner will the trip be performed when the roads, will be straightened and improved, and the navigation of these rivers opened and the obstructions removed.
The merchant, instead of shipping his goods from New York and Philadelphia to Charleston and Savannah, and from thence transporting them by land to Ross's on the Tennessee river, a route experimentally known to be fraught with delay, hazard and loss; will hereafter ship directly to the Mobile, or to some designated port on the Tombigbee or Alabama, from whence there is an excellent keel boat navigation to the falls of the Black Warrior. From Cuba to Mobile is said to be about 3 days sail; from Mobile to the falls of the Black Warrior is 15 or. 20. days travel, and from the falls to Huntsville only eight days over an excellent road; so that in 25 or 30 days a cargo might be brought from the' Havanna to Huntsville.
Tuscaloosa's original street grid, virtually unchanged for 204 years, 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.
"publish this my Proclamatión, that a public sale shall be held on the fifth Monday in October next, at the Land Office at Tuscaloosa, in the state of Alabama, for the disposal at public auction of Lots numbered one to five hundred and eleven, inclusive, situated in the District of Tuscaloosa, and forming the town of Tuscaloosa, lying on the river of the same name, and laid off in compliance with the requisitions of act aforesaid. No lots to be sold for a less price than at the rate of six dollars per acre. The sale to commence with the lowest number, and to proceed in regular numerical order, until all the lots shall have been offered. Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 23d day of August, A.D. 1821. JAMES MONROE. By the President: JOSIAH MEIGS, 39-6 Commissioner of the • Gen'l. Land Office."
This fractional township section 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.
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 were laid off in a grid pattern parallel to either Broad or Market Streets and are a survey chain and half or 99 feet wide. This grid created about 100 almost identical rectangular two acre city blocks. With the exception of the 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.
By act of congress passed May 26, 1824, the title to the streets and also certain lots set apart for public use and known as Court Square, the Market Square, the Jail lot, the spring, the church, the burial ground, the river margin, the pond and the common, were vested In the city of Tuskaloosa.
from the July 9, 1909 BIRMINGHAM NEWS
The story of each of Tuscaloosa's city blocks begins with the four numbers for each of these half acre lots from the original 1821 survey.
To give you an idea of how much information is available, for Lots 111, 112, 113 and 114 of Block 15, the Embassy Suites block on the northwest corner of Greensboro and University Boulevard, Dr. Robert Mellown devotes about thirty pages of the archaeological report of Block 15 to document how the original 1821 boundaries of those four lots have remained the basis for determining all our later property lines up to the present day.
Anyone interested in Tuscaloosa history will want to read the 255 page archaeological report which discusses the results of the 2013 archaeological investigation of these 4 half-acre city lots. The 35 page bibliography will be appreciated by anyone interested in Tuscaloosa's story. Dr. Mellown cites 18 deed books in the Tuscaloosa Probate Office in addition to important newspaper articles and Bureau of Land Management papers. Works by Tuscaloosa writers like Marie Ball, Matt Clinton, Thomas Clinton, J.H. Fitts, J.R. Maxwell, Ben Green, Robert Mellown, Beasey Hendrix, William Stanley Hoole, Ward Hubbs, George Little, Thomas Maxwell, A.B. McEachin, A.B. Moore and William R. Smith are also cited.
All of this is brought home to you every time you look up from your downtown stroll, day or night and see Embassy Suites looming in the distance.
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. 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?"
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home