Wednesday, April 30, 2025

 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.

Step into History with Tuscaloosa’s New Downtown Walking Tours This April - Visit Tuscaloosa




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 a 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.  

The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor
Early Tuscaloosa History

The Maverick Family in Tuscaloosa The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor



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.





Reclaim Alabama  PAST HORIZONS houses on the 1887 Tuskaloosa panoramic map


 1887 Tuskaloosa panoramic map   Reclaim Alabama



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 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 half acre 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?" 









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.

Not everyone was impressed with the numbering system. Dr. Wyman expressed his frustration "Monroe Street is called Twenty Third Avenue by the Mayor and Aldermen and the other Ave-noodles of the town: but the graybeards in despite of all the present day Ave-noodles, will continue to call it Monroe Street, till they die, -On the west side of Monroe Street, as I was saying, between Broad and Cotton Street, just across the way from Rob Rodes's coal and lumber yard, there stands a long row of one story wooden offices, whose rusty sides, sway-backed mouldering roofs, and crumbling chimneys show signs of extreme old age, This is the famous Hornets' Row. "

 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.- ADAMS STREET OR 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)

 

Past Horizons on the panoramic map Reclaim Alabama



History of the Tuscaloosa YMCA based upon Marie Ball's Tuscaloosa News article. YMCA Building, 2014 Broad Street, Circa 1908 · Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum

The Tuskaloosa Independent Monitor

from the August 15, 1920 TUSCALOOSA NEWS 

If a case of bubonic plague should break out in Tuscaloosa the first place that would have to be looked after would be the big gully alongside of the Y. M. C. A., where the city garbage is dumped.

..Guy Shater, who Is in charge of the government machine shop down at Lock 10, came by The News office Saturday afternoon and asked the writer to go with him down to the big gully and watch the rats. Walking down 22nd avenue about -halt way to the L. & N. he stopped and suggested that we both stand perfectly still for a few minutes. It was not two minutes till the rats commenced to come out and they soon were all over the dump pile, where the last load of city garbage had been unloaded, making the dirt and trash fly, in an effort to get the scraps that had been carried there in the dump carts.

Small boys amuse themselves by standing on the upper rim of the dump pile and throwing rocks at the rodents as they come out for food. From all appearances there are thousands of the rats in the brush, under the trash that has been heaped over it, and many are going there to watch them. Mr. Shafer says he saw an old hen and eight to ten chickens scratching on the trash pile and the rats and little biddies were mingling together, neither seemingly afraid of the other.



FROM THE 1910 SANBORN FIRE INSURANCE MAP





On December 15, 1912 an article in the TUSCALOOSA NEWS stated that

"The university of Alabama, for the first time in its history, will enter intercollegiate basketball as regularly as football and baseball are exploited by the athletes at the institution. This is the decision of Coach Graves, who was tempted to thus extend the athletic activities at the university by virtue of the goodly number of basketball players now at the college."

Thus BAMA's first intercollegiate basketball game was played inside the Tuscaloosa YMCA gymnasium on January 16, 1913.


BESSEMBER DEFEATS ALA BOTH TEAMS PLAY GOOD GAME. 

THE FINAL SCORE WAS 26 TO 20.

 In one of the most thrilling basketball struggles ever witnessed in Tuscaloosa, the five of the Bessemer Athletic Club defeated the husky bunch of the University of Alabama at the Y. M: C. A.gymnasium by the score of twenty-six to twenty, From start to finish the game was full of sensational features, and was punctuated time and again by lightning like plays and strategic moves. The Alabama boys showed great improvement over their former team work, but the boys from the city of smoke and soot displayed more calmness during the crucial moments, and thus were able to put it over the collegians. The contest brought forth two Alabama stars of scintillating brilliance in "Pep" Wells and Gritfith Harsh, both of whom displayed a large amount of that quality known in the phraseology of the sporting world as "class." Wells was as invincible as a streak of lightning to the Bessemerites and brought forth cheers from the spectators several times by his brilliant tactics, while Harsh, though not displaying anything of a sensational nature put up as good a game as could be desired. For the visitors Bailey, Donaldson and Johnson were the particular bright lights, and it was due to their calm headwork that they came out on the long end of the score. In the first half Alabama put it over the Bessemerites as far as teamwork was concerned and succeeded in piling up fifteen points to their fourteen.

In the early part of the last half the visitors played with renewed vigor, and in the first few minutes made four goals, completely playing the locals off their feet. However, after realizing their predicament, the Alabama boys played more consistently and began to do something on the scoring end again. During the last minutes the locals were having the better of the Bessemer boys and would have undoubtedly piled up more points had not the referee's whistle interrupted their efforts. After the game the manager of the Bessemer club praised in the highest terms the local boys, and stated that without doubt they could easily defeat the Auburn aggregation. The line-up was as follows: Alabama-Wells, Hagan and Steiner Forwards; Harsh, Center; Love and McCargo, Guards.

Bessemer--Bailey, Johnson and Donaldson, Forwards; Clay, Center; Baumgardner and Fickett, Guards. Referee, Jones; Time-keeper, Sewell; Umpire, Clay..



 BIG GULLY BY Y.M.C.A. GRADUALLY FILLING IN 

As tin cans, broken bottles and trash of -all kinds, and during the past few days, dirt from the excavations for the Little building are being dumped into the big gully on Broad Street, by the Y. M.C. A., the road on the western side is constantly growing wider and the margin of the gully Is constantly getting closer to the Y. M. C. A. building.

In time, it is hoped, the gully will be completely filled in. The city has, from time to time, expended an aggregate of something like $40,000 in filling In and checking the gully, which could have been prevented at no appreciable cost with a little foresight years ago. It was pointed out today that the  first organized effort to combat the ravages of this gully, which then threatened the business section of regard in the city, was a Iittle over 25 years ago, when the citizens subscribed, something like $18,000 for the work that was placed under the direction of Col. Hardaway, who recently built the $3,000,00 lock and dam at Squaw Shoals.


Author Maurice Thomas in 1900:


When tired of the carriage and my driver's free babble, I took leave of both and continued my pleasant explorations on foot. Is it not a stranger's privilege to enjoy what strikes his vision with the sweet shock of the pure and the beautiful in a strange place? Tuscaloosa is a town of beautiful women. Wherever I walked I met them, and could not keep off the wonder of their striking forms or faces. Why is it that this gift of beauty in abundance falls to one town and not to another. some places all of the women seem plain; you see scarcely any memorable countenances, scarcely any forms strongly attractive, while in others a pair of glorious eyes, a figure fit for a sculptor's model and a face of uncommon sweetness and graciousness can scarcely be avoided anywhere.

Author Maurice Thomas in 1900:

Tuscaloosa women are certainly southern in their style. They bear the unmistakable impress of southern breeding, and they are beautiful A stranger with alert eyes In his head and a love of feminine gentleness, sweetness and symmetry of the colonial type in his heart can see and feel this while walking in the streets of the staid and picturesque old town. Before the days of railroads, electricity and all the crush and rush of our recently invented hurly burly in commerce, Tuskaloosa must nave been a place worth making a long journey to see. The old regime had here its highest flower of success. Slavery gave its best and its worst to the strange, semimed aeval civilization.

Money, leisure and social loveliness were unlimited. and so was vice. Both influences have left their indelible marks. The horse- the mule-traders and the negro-traders used to come here in swarms; for this was their paradise during the palmiest days of cotton aud slavery. They bought and sold, they, gambled, they brawled, they (fought with knives and pistols.

And yet from the first and on till now Tuskaloosa has been a center of noble culture, unlimited hospitality and beautiful social and domestic life. The best survives. Slaver. is gone: The drinking, gambling and fighting in their worst forms are but traditions. What is left in old Tuskaloosa is something might-| ily fascinating, the ontcome of most romantic and picturesque ex perience...

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