Before the city of Florence, Alabama gained renown for its world famous Florence Wagon Works, the wagon company operated in the area of Atlanta, Georgia. One reason why the company moved to Florence was the infrastructure of industry within the Muscle Shoals region, with about sixty different plants and businesses located in the city of Florence. Dr. Alfred David Bellamy, a New York native and owner of the Atlanta Wagon Company, moved the company to Florence in 1889 when the new buildings for the new Florence Wagon Company were completed in 1888/1889. At the height of the Florence Wagon Works’ production the company manufactured enough wagons to be second in North America behind the Canadian wagon company Studebaker. In February of 1890, the Florence Wagon Works employed about seventy-five laborers. By October of 1890, the number of employees expanded to 125, then to 160 by 1897. There is a discrepancy in different sources as to how many people Florence Wagon Works employed at its apex, one source says 175 , whereas another says 250. Regardless of the exact numbers, Florence Wagon Works had a serious impact on employment in the Florence area. Production of the “Light Running” Florence Wagons increased yearly from 1889 into the early twentieth century, to the point where the factory would turn out twenty to twenty-five wagons per day, a very high number for a custom wagon in the pre-assembly line era. At their peak, Florence Wagon Works used an average of two million feet of hardwood per year to produce between ten to fifteen thousand “Light Running” Florence Wagons per year. The “Light Running” Florence Wagon was a casualty to its era. With the invention of the automobile, including the utilitarian pick-up truck, and the advancement in tractor machinery, the “Light Running” Florence Wagon began to meet its demise in the early twentieth century. The diminished necessity of horse-drawn transportation sent the wagon into decline. The greatest decline in business for the Florence Wagon Works was in the 1920s and 1930s when people were able to buy affordable gasoline powered vehicles in the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Florence Wagon Works tried to survive the declining demand for horse-drawn vehicles by turning to building lawn furniture in the 1930s. But the company could not survive and was sold in 1941 to a company from Chattanooga called Trenholm & Starr, Inc. who continued the Florence operation for a short period. Eventually, the new ownership moved all operations to Hickory, North Carolina in 1941, leaving open warehouses at the Florence Wagon Works that were used for the storage of cotton, and thus was the end of Florence Wagon Works in North Alabama. There was hope the deserted factory would be used in World War II for defense purposes, but that never materialized.
Matthew C. Fesmire, University of North Alabama
Text Sources: Florence/Lauderdale Public Library. Vertical History File. Local History & Genealogy. Freeman, Lee. “A Brief History of the Florence Wagon Factory.” Florence, Lauderdale County, AL. Florence Wagon Works 2-2. Florence/Lauderdale Public Library. Vertical History File. Local History & Genealogy. Freeman, Lee. “A Tribute to the Men and Women of the Florence Wagon Works.” Florence, Lauderdale County, AL. Florence Wagon Works 2-2. McDonald, William L. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2001. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collections. William B. McDonald Collection. “Florence Wagons.” c. 1938, Florence, AL.
Late Nineteenth Century-Early Twentieth Century
Between the 1950s and 1980s the success of Shoals recording studios, such as FAME Recording Studio and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, earned the Shoals region’s music industry national attention. Artists such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and Aretha Franklin recorded top charting hits at Shoals studios. During the twentieth-first century the Shoals music industry has continued to thrive. One reason for this is due to the success of Single Lock Records in Florence, whose name derives from the Wilson Dam, which at time of construction was the largest single lock dam in the world. Established in 2013 by John Paul White (The Civil Wars), Ben Tanner (Alabama Shakes and The Bear), and Will Trapp (a Shoals native and financial advisor), Single Lock Records is an indie label that focuses on local talent. Bands and musicians that have signed with Single Lock Records are The Bear, Belle Adair, St. Paul & The Broken Bones, Dylan LeBlanc, and Donnie Fritts. The record label uses Sun Drop Studios in Florence and hosts concerts at their small venue located at 116 East Mobile Street, Florence, Alabama.
Jesse Brock, University of North Alabama
Text: Greg Carmalier, Muscle Shoals: The Incredible True Story of a Small Town with a Big Sound, DVD, Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2014. Single Lock Records,” Alabama Chanin Journal, May 28, 2013, http://alabamachanin.com/journal/2013/05/single-lock-records/ (accessed May 1, 2015). Single Lock Records, “About Us,” Single Lock Records, http://www.singlelock.com/ (accessed May 1, 2015).
During the 1960s and 1970s the music industry in the Shoals earned national recognition through the success of FAME Recording Studio and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Musicians such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, and Percy Sledge have all recorded hit songs at a Shoals recording studio. However, neither studio was the first official studio nor the first recording company in the Shoals. In fact, the first recording company in the Shoals, Tune Records, operated out of the back room of a bus station in Florence, Alabama. James Joiner, whose dad started a Florence-based charter bus company in 1939, wanted to expose the rich musical talent in the Shoals. So, with Kelson Hurtson, Walter Stovall, and Marvin Wilson, Joiner formed Tune Records and Publishing Company during the 1950s. Tune Records was the “first full-fledged record company in Alabama.” Using local radio stations, such as WLAY, to record songs, the company’s first regional hit, “A Fallen Star,” came in 1957. Joiner wrote “A Fallen Star” after watching a shooting star across the night sky, and relied on Bobby Denton’s vocals to do bring the song to life. As a result of the song’s success, musicians across the north region of Alabama traveled to Florence in order to sing for Tune Records. One teenager who cut songs with Joiner’s company was Rick Hall, who would later become Alabama’s most successful music producer at FAME Recording Studios. Due to the inability to produce another regionally successful hit, Tune Records closed down by 1960.
Text: Greg Carmalier, Muscle Shoals: The Incredible True Story of a Small Town with a Big Sound, DVD, Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2014. Christopher S. Fuqua, Music Fell on Alabama (Huntsville: Honeysuckle Imprint, 1991), 8.
F.H. Foster Manufacturing served a multitude of roles in manufacturing in the Florence area. The F.H. Foster complex was built in between Sweetwater Creek and the Tennessee River along the Louisville and Nashville railroad tracks that ran through the heart of Sweetwater. The various structures located at the F.H. Foster Manufacturing Company included a building for the iron foundry, a building for a brass foundry, a building for wood tumbling, a Japan room, a working area, and an area for packing and machine works.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “F.H. Foster Manufacturing Company.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-31.
The State Normal School began in 1872 after Florence Wesleyan University closed and the building was deeded to the State. This university was the first normal school south of the Ohio River. The college consisted of a two year program to train teachers. A year after the school was opened female students were admitted, but non registered, making the State Normal School the first coeducational institution in the state. Tuition was only $11 a year. In 1887 the college's name was changed to State Normal College.
Claire Eagle, University of North Alabama
University of North Alabama, "Brief Look at University of North Alabama History." Florence, Alabama, 2005.
Florence Gas Light and Fuel Company/Florence Gas Works
This company was the leader in fuel production for the people of Florence. The old Florence Gas Light and Fuel Company/Florence Gas Works operated on Old Huntsville Road, west of the Florence Steam Laundry in Sweetwater. The main office of the company that ran the Florence Gas Works had its headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. Production at the facility began in 1903, a year after the company was established in east Florence in 1902. The gas plant produced about 75,000 cubic feet of gas that was used for lighting of street lamps and homes, heating within homes, and cooking as well. The people of Florence had to pay two dollars a thousand cubic feet for lighting in their homes and four dollars and fifty cents per thousand cubic feet for heating and cooking in 1903. The company also sold Welsbach incandescent light appliances and gas stoves for heating and cooking.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Florence Gas Light and Fuel Company/Florence Gas Works.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-02.
The shape-note notation was an American pedagogical tool designed to increase the music education of the average citizen who did not have the financial resources or time to learn the traditional round note notation. New Englanders William Smith and William Little patented the shape-note notation in 1796 and published The Easy Instructor, the first shape-note tunebook, in 1801. Smith and Little used four geometrical shapes to symbolize individual music notes on the staff instead of the traditional round note heads. Smith and Little’s use of syllables to designate and sing pitches is called solmization. The four-syllable solmization system in The Easy Instructor allotted a right sided triangle to indicate the note fa, an oval symbolized sol, a square was assigned for la, and a diamond represented mi. Smith and Little initially created the system as a response to the widespread musical illiteracy among America’s common folk. The effects of this music illiteracy were most evident in Protestant church services during the eighteenth century, when congregations practiced a singing technique called “lining out.” Lining out, also known as “call and response,” involved a minister singing the words of a song as he saw fit, and the congregation repeating the words and melody. While lining out enabled them to sing, it did not require participants to be literate in music and many believed that it produced poor quality music. For instance, in 1721, music reformer Thomas Walter characterized call and response music as “hideous and disorderly … beyond expression bad … miserably tortured, and twisted, and quavered … a horrid Medley of confused and disorderly Noise.” Not long after The Easy Instructor was published in 1801, other music composers acknowledged the shape-note notation’s pedagogical effectiveness in teaching music literacy. Many composers adopted the rudimental introduction and the system to notate songs. Over thirty-eight four shape-note tunebooks were composed between the years 1801 and 1855, many due to the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening spawned hundreds of new hymnals. Since camp revivals relied upon communal singing, shape-note tunebooks provided a means for the congregations to participate in hymn singing. Some religious denominations, such as the Primitive Baptists and the Churches of Christ, realized the effectiveness of shape-notes, and, as a result, adopted shape-note notation in worship hymnals for years following the Second Great Awakening. From 1801 to the 1830s, the shape-note system was taught in singing schools established in urban and rural communities in both the North and South. These singing schools, taught by individuals considered to be vocal masters taught the schools, usually lasted from one to two weeks and relied on shape-note tunebooks to teach attendees the fundamentals of music. After the completion of singing school, many pupils went on to establish communal monthly shape-note singing events, normally lasting a few hours during the afternoon. In addition to these monthly meetings, shape-note singers started to organize state wide conventions that met anywhere from two to three days and targeted a wider geographical area than monthly local singings. Overall, these singing schools, communal singings, and conventions during the nineteenth century spread knowledge of shape-notes in American culture. With the popularity of tunebooks and singing schools came new developments. Some shape-note composers believed that Smith and Little’s four-note system could be improved. One Pennsylvania composer, Jesse B. Aikin, believed all seven notes in the music scale should be taught with shape-notes. In 1846, Aikin’s tunebook The Christian Minstrel, continued to use Smith’s and Little’s geometrical shapes for the notes fa, sol, la, and mi; but he implemented new shapes for the notes do, re, and ti. Aikin “used an equiangular triangle for Doe, a wine glass for Ray, and a fan for See.” Three elements played a factor in why the South far more than the North, enthusiastically embraced, shape-notes during the nineteenth century. First, they were linked with the democracy of music itself. Second, during the Second Great Awakening the singing of hymns unified Southern people in revivals. Last, with the demand for tunebooks during the Awakening, tens of thousands of shape-note tunebooks in the South during the nineteenth century. From the end of the Civil War until the turn of the century, Southerners strove to redevelop their culture and identity. Shape-notes were vital elements in both religious and secular settings during this time period in the South. By the late nineteenth century, many Primitive Baptists, Free Will Baptists, and Churches of Christ in the South adopted shape-notes in worship hymnals. Few musical genres in America have escaped the influence of shape-notes, especially in the South. Many southern gospel, country, and bluegrass musicians learned how to read music and gained the ability to harmonize their voice after studying shape-note tunebooks and attending singing schools. The spread of shape-notes as a result of the southern gospel movement greatly influenced both country and bluegrass music. As children, members of the Carter Family, the Delmore Brothers, and the Louvin Brothers, all three considered key innovators of country music during the twentieth century, attended singing school where they sang music from shape-note singing schools. Also at singing schools, the families learned how vocally harmonize with one another, which helped their music become hit records. Also, Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music, developed his high pitched singing voice that is considered to be a distinctively bluegrass sound, while attending singing schools as a child in Kentucky. A twenty-first century country duo from the Shoals, the Secret Sisters, personally acknowledged that their vocal harmonies were deeply rooted in the Church of Christ worshiping services from shape-note hymnals. In all, the notation entered into American culture during the nineteenth century and continues to affect both religious and secular music. The shape-note notation is the root of American music and is the first American music innovation to influence Europe’s music culture.
Text: David Taddle. “Solmization, Scale, and Key in Nineteenth-Century Four-Shape Tunebooks: Theory and Practice.” American Music 1 (Spring, 1996). Joyce Irwin,.“The Theology of ‘Regular Singing.” The New England Quarterly 51, no. 2 (June, 1978). Irving Lowens and Allen P. Britton. “’The Easy Instructor’ (1798-1831): A History and Bibliography of the First Shape Note Tune Book.” Journal of Research in Music Education 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1953). The University of Mississippi Music Department, “The Old Way of Singing,” The University of Mississippi, http://home.olemiss.edu/~mudws/oldway.html (accessed on September 9, 2014). Richard Dalzell, “American Shape Notes: Background, Development, Practice and Present Status,” Ph.D. diss., University of Kansas, 1978. The Center for Church Music: Songs and Hymns, “Lowell Mason,” http://www.songsandhymns.org/people/detail/lowell-mason (accessed on November 22, 2014). Marian J. Hatchett. A Companion to the New Harp of Columbia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003. Nathan Hatch.The Democratization of American Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989. Neil V. Rosenberg. Bluegrass: A History. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985. The Secret Sisters, interviewed by Skip Matheny, Nashville, TN, 2012, http://www.americansongwriter.com/2012/09/drinks-with-the-secret-sisters/ (accessed February 3, 2015). George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and ‘Buckwheat Notes’. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Association, Inc., 1964 Images: George Pullen Jackson, White Spirituals in the Southern Uplands: The Story of the Fasola Folk, Their Songs, Singings, and ‘Buckwheat Notes’ (Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Association, Inc., 1964): 15. Douglas Harrison, Then Sings My Soul: The Culture of Southern Music (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012), 5.
Florence Ice and Coal Company/Central Ice Company
Two separate ice and coal companies merged to create the Florence Ice and Coal Company. The first company was Chapin Ice and Coal Company. The second company was H.J. Moore Coal Company. Chapin, before the merger, boasted that the company could produce up to 25 tons of ice per day. In 1902, the two companies merged to create the largest manufacturer of ice and provider of coal in Florence. The water used for the manufacturing of the ice at Florence Ice and Coal was pumped from a pure spring in the Sweetwater area, fortunately, multiple springs existed in Sweetwater. The company owned its own purification plant to help clean the water from the mineral free spring. In addition to the purification plant, the company owned over a dozen horses to transport the heavy loads of ice to the people of Florence daily. How the workers of Florence Ice and Coal knew to replenish their customers with a fresh block of ice was a placard system instituted by the company and a set of four cards given to customers. The customers would have the option of 25, 50, 75, and 100 pound blocks of ice to be delivered to their ice boxes daily by the route runners of Florence Ice and Coal. The placards had to be upright to have any ice delivered to their home on a daily basis. After twenty-six years, Florence Ice and Coal Company became Central Ice Company, eliminating coal from their services.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. McDonald, William Lindsey. "Sweetwater: The Story of East Florence." Florence: Florence Historical Board, 1989. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Florence Ice and Coal Company/Central Ice Company.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-31.
The Episcopalian movement in America began in the late 1700’s and spread into northwest Alabama during the 1800s. The oldest Episcopalian parish in the area is Trinity Episcopal Church in Florence, Alabama. In the 1820s the early congregation met at school houses, hotels, and private homes. It was not until the arrival of South Carolina Reverend Thomas Cook in the Shoals did a plan for constructing a church building emerge. Cook helped raise nearly fifteen thousand dollars for the construction of a building. As a result, the first church structure was completed in 1838. This edifice was located on a lot donated by local resident James Jackson, and sat on the corner of College and Cedar Streets in Florence. Seven years later in 1845, the first Bishop of Alabama, Reverend Hamner Cobbs, concentrated Trinity Episcopal Church. Trinity Episcopal Church closed during the Civil War. In fact, all Episcopal churches in the state of Alabama closed during the war by Federal authorities because the ministers were ordered to omit prayer for the President Abraham Lincoln. Nearly thirty years after reopening its doors to the public, in 1893 a fire caused for the church to burn down. One of the few items salvaged was the church’s bell, which is in the present day church’s belfry. Following the fire, Florence resident Mrs. William Hardin gave the congregation a lot of land on the corner of Pine and Tuscaloosa Street downtown Florence. On this land, a new brick structure was completed in 1894. Five years later, Bishop Richard Wilmer consecrated the new church building on June 12, 1898. The brick structure is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Lauderdale County. The building consist of a carved wood altar, chancel furnishings, and beautiful stained glass windows. Some of the renovations include the Parish House’s construction in 1929 and the additions of an education building and a Mullen Hall in 1967.
Text: Oscar D. Lewis, “Trinity Episcopal is One of City’s First,” in folder McDonald Collection: Church Information Collection-Vol. 8: Other Denominations-Episcopal, Churches 8.2,” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. Jill Knight Garrett, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 145-146.
National Register of Historic Places; Education; Church of Christ
Theophilus Brown Larimore constructed the two story frame house in 1870 to serve as a home and school. The house is significant for its association with religion, education, and social history. Larimore served as headmaster and Church of Christ minister until 1887. Larimore then closed the school and focused on his ministry in the area. The house passed to his son Virgil Larimore until it was acquired in 1946 and returned to its use as a religious school. Originally called Lauderdale County Bible School the name was changed to Mars Hill Bible School under which name the school has continued to flourish. The house/school is a simple frame two story hipped roof structure sited on a full brick raised basement. A one story porch extends the full width of the house and serves as a veranda from the second floor accessed by a central door leading from the upstairs hall. Of note are the simple wooden sash interpretation of Gothic Revival styling on the first floor windows. The current porch configuration differs from the description and photos taken for the 1974 National Register nomination. Due to the exterior changes and age of the National Register nomination it is suggested that the nomination be updated. All information for this Omeka entry was obtained from the nomination and an exterior survey of the property.
Missy Brown, University of North Alabama
Floyd, W. Warner. National Register Nomination. “Larimore House (Mars Hill Bible School)”. ((#74000416) (11/21/74).
The Philadelphia Furnace was located on Sweetwater Creek to the south of present day Veterans Drive. Originally owned by the father of the Sweetwater boom, Judge William Basil Wood, the furnace was known as the W.B. Wood Furnace in 1889. The W.B. Wood Furnace was one of the first industries in the Sweetwater area, but it was incomplete. John W. Norton of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was hired as its manager. While Norton was manager, he oversaw the completion of the W.B. Wood Furnace in 1891 and the furnace was renamed in honor of his home city of Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Furnace could produce 45,000 tons of iron a year. By 1892, the Philadelphia Furnace fell into financial trouble because of the economic depression of 1892 and was subsequently sold to the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company a few years later in 1899. The Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company owned the Philadelphia Furnace from 1899 to 1926 when in 1926 the furnace was blown out. In 1901, the Sloss-Sheffield Company resumed operation after the company upgraded and remodeled the furnace that was ten years old. Under the direction of the Sloss-Sheffield Company, the Philadelphia furnace employed 175 men in 1906 and could produce up to two hundred tons of iron a day. At the peak of production for the furnace, it produced about 70,000 tons of iron a year. Unfortunately, production stopped in 1926. The workers for the Philadelphia furnace lived in a company-owned village along what is now Veterans Drive and what was and is Aetna Street. The Sloss-Sheffield Company provided a two-story brick commissary for food, dry goods, and other necessities for the families of the Philadelphia furnace workers. When in operation, the furnace was a remarkable sight. The furnace had the highest smokestack in all of Sweetwater. The furnace operated around the clock with three shifts per day. When the night shift would clock in, they would be the men who began the process of dumping the molten red slag along the railroad tracks by the furnace. Stories abounded over the sight of the molten red slag being dumped. A story of an immigrant Irish worker to east Florence, Pat McClutchin, described him being awoken from sleep around midnight to the glow of the molten red slag. He was staying at the Kiddy Hotel at the time in Sweetwater and was heard moaning by the other guests in the hotel. According to the story told about McClutchin, he thought he had died and gone to the gates of Hell. McClutchin's fear was not true, but the slag was always that hot.
M.C. Fesmire, University of North Alabama
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. UNA Archives & Special Collection. McDonald Collection. Factories and Mills. Box 25, Volume 3, Factories and Mills File 3.1. Florence, Alabama. William Lindsey McDonald, “Untitled Manuscript." McDonald, William Lindsey. "Sweetwater: The Story of East Florence." Florence: Florence Historical Board, 1989. Sheridan, Richard C. “Industrial Growth in the Shoals Area 1818-1933,” Journal of Muscle Shoals History, vol. 7 (1979). Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Philadelphia Furnace.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-29.
The University of North Alabama traces its roots all the way back to LaGrange College and its charter in 1830. The college moved to Florence in 1855 and renamed Florence Wesleyan University. The college closed during 1861-1869 due to the Civil War. When it reopened, it failed due to lack of funds. The school and land was then deeded to the state of Alabama to be used as a normal college. The State Normal School opened in 1872. This college was the first normal school south of the Ohio River and the first co-educational institution in the state. In 1887 the name of the school was changed to State Normal College. In 1913 the school name was changed back to State Normal School. In 1957 the name was changed to Florence State College and in 1968 it became know at Florence State University. Finally, in 1974 the college became known as the University of North Alabama. The school now offers more than 90 majors and consists of more than 20 buildings. Currently there are over 7,000 students attending the university.
University of North Alabama, "Brief Look at University of North Alabama History." Florence, Alabama, 2005. University of North Alabama, "About," https://www.una.edu/about/ (accessed May 3, 2015).
The First Presbyterian Church of Florence is the oldest continually operating congregation in Florence, Alabama. Early Presbyterian settlers of Florence bought land lot 84 from the Cypress Land Company in 1818 for a total of $1,600 and built a wooden structure that acted as the church. During the early years of existence, prominent members of the Florence community claimed to be members of the church. For instance, Ferdinand Sannoner (the town’s land surveyor) and John Coffee (War of 1812 Veteran and a founder of Florence) both financed the construction and were members of the church. In 1824 the congregation replaced the wooden structure with a brick building. This new building consisted of a gallery for slaves and designated pews for children. Also during the early years in Florence, the First Presbyterian Church housed other denominational worships due to the structure being the only church building in town. William Mitchell served as the church’s pastor from 1851 to 1872. One of the most interesting stories of Florence history derives from Mitchell’s actions in First Presbyterian Church during the Civil War. Union troops occupied Florence on numerous occasion during the war, which was the case on July 27, 1862. On this summer day, Rev. Mitchell entered the pulpit and faced a congregation filled with Florence citizens and Union troops. Before his sermon Mitchell prayed for the well-being of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, and the success of the Confederate army. After Mitchell’s prayer Col. John Harlan arrested Mitchell and sent the reverend to the Union prison camp in Alton, Illinois, for six months. Mitchell later returned to Florence and continued preaching at First Presbyterian Church. Despite the Civil War and Reconstruction, the First Presbyterian Church never moved from its original location. However, since the 1890s there have been numerous renovations and expansions. The most recent being in 1971 when a three story classroom, an office, and a fellowship hall were added to the church. Today, in addition to proving worship services, the church houses wedding venues and many Florence community organizations use the building as a meeting place.
Text: Carolyn Barske. Images of America: Florence (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014), 96. Jill Knight Garrett, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 145. Bill McDonald, “Mitchell Best Known for Prayer,” Times Daily, January 4, 2001, in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Iformation Collection-Vol. 8: Other Denominations-Presbyterian, Churches 8.4,” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. First Presbyterian Church, “Our History,” http://www.fpcflorence.org/our-history.html (accessed May 1, 2015).
William McDonald Richardson owned the Richardson Lumber Company. Richardson had served as the first manager of the Acme Lumber Company. The Richardson Lumber Company was located on Sweetwater Creek on Huntsville Road between Sweetwater Avenue and Minnehaha Street. Richardson built his lumberyard on the old site of the Florence Planning Mill and Manufacturing Company. After some time, Richardson moved his lumber company to downtown Florence on to East Tennessee Street. Richardson had gained valuable experience at Acme Lumber Company as manager before opening up his own lumberyard. He had the unfortunate privilege of being the Acme Lumber manager when the Spanish influenza broke out in Florence in 1918. He had to oversee round the clock shifts to produce the large number of coffins necessary to bury the deceased during the influenza outbreak. The coffins were primarily for the construction workers at Wilson Dam in 1918 and the workers at the Colbert County nitrate plants as well.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." photos by L.D. Staggs, Jr. Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Richardson Lumber Company.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-06.
Edward A. O’Neal was born on September 20, 1818, in Madison County, Alabama. His parents were Edward and Rebecca Wheat O’Neal. O’Neal graduated from La Grange College and worked as a lawyer in Florence. He served as a solicitor of the Fourth Judicial District. He was married to Olivia Moore O’Neal. They made their home in Florence, Alabama. They had several children. A son, Emmet O’Neal, would become Governor of Alabama in 1911. O’Neal supported secession and raised a company from Lauderdale County: the 9th Alabama Regiment. O’Neal joined the Confederate army at the beginning of the Civil War with the rank of Captain. He was steadily promoted from captain to colonel. He served in the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee as a colonel in the 26th Alabama. Later he served under General Joseph Johnston and General John Bell Hood. Before the war’s end, O’Neal had obtained the rank of brigadier general. He and his men were engaged in battle at Yorktown, the Battle of Seven Pines, the Seven Days’ Battle, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Franklin, and Nashville, among others. After the war, O’Neal continued to practice law. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention in 1875. While at the convention he helped to pass Section 9, Article 13, a measure that sanctioned the reform of the state education system. O’Neal was elected the twenty-seventh governor of Alabama in 1882 and again in 1884. He passed away on November 7, 1890. His remains are interred in the Florence Cemetery.
Kayla Scott, University of North Alabama
William Lindsey McDonald, A Walk Through The Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama. (Bluewater Publications, 2003), 50-52. Robert S. Steen, History of Foster House- Courtview- Rogers Hall and Early City of Florence . Florence: University of North Alabama, No Date, 66-67. Image of Edward A. O'Neal courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives Images of Edward A. O'Neal Home and Historic Sign, Kayla Scott
Wood Avenue Church of Christ is one of the oldest Churches of Christ in Lauderdale County. The Church of Christ denomination emerged out of the American Restoration Movement, a movement to reestablish America’s Christianity on the teachings of the New Testament and lasted from 1801 to 1906. Restoration followers were known as Stoneites and Campbellites, named after the two prominent leaders of the movement, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell. Congregations set up by followers of Campbell called themselves Disciples of Christ, while those established by Stoneites were called Churches of Christ. The beliefs of the Restoration Movement made their way into the Shoals during the 1820s and 1830s through efforts of Restoration ministers, who ultimately shaped the religious culture in the region. The first two Restoration ministers to enter the Shoals were Ephraim D. Moore and James Evans Matthews. However, the Restoration Movement in the Shoals did not take place without opposition. Baptists and Presbyterians entered the Shoals during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and did not approve of the activists’ efforts. For example, in 1830 the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association printed a resolution that defined the Restoration Movement as a “divine operation of the Holy Spirit either disavowed or so obscurely avowed, as to amount to disavowal. We see experimental religion ridiculed and reprobated.” In addition to the vocal opposition from various denominations, in his article “History of the Church of Christ in Northwest Alabama, 1866-1880,” Shoals region historian Wayne Kilpatrick argued that the Civil War ultimately hindered the Restoration Movement in the Shoals region. Kilpatrick claimed that many churches in the Shoals, including Restoration congregations, experienced a drop in membership during the war, which Kilpatrick defined as the “silent years” of the Restoration Movement. Nevertheless, following the end of the war, Churches of Christ started to organize. One of the earliest Churches of Christ in Lauderdale County, Popular Street Church of Christ, organized in 1886 and T. B. Larimore (the founder of Mars Hill Bible School) was a congregant. For the first four years, the congregation met in personal homes until a building was built in 1890 on Popular Street in Florence. The church was at this location eighty years, until on March 1, 1970, when the church relocated to the current location on Wood Avenue. After the relocation, the congregation decided to change the name of the church from Popular Street Church of Christ to Wood Avenue Church of Christ. The Gothic designed brick structure that acts as the current church today was designed and built by local master mason, the Putman brothers.
Text: Wayne Kilpatrick, “History of the Church of Christ in Northwest Alabama, 1823-1861,” Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. XI (Tennessee Valley Historical Society, 1986): 36. Wayne Kilpatrick, “ History of the Church of Christ in Lauderdale County, 1866-1880,” The Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. XI (Tennessee Valley Historical Society, 1986): 67-85.
National Register of Historic Places; Gothic Revival; Architecture; Education; Civil War
Nashville architect Adolphus Heiman designed the Gothic Revival building and Zebulon Pike Morrison, a native of Virginia, who migrated to Lauderdale County constructed the building. Wesleyan Hall was reportedly his finest work. The three story masonry building was built in 1855 as the new home of Methodist church affiliated LaGrange College. When the school, under the leadership of Dr. R.H. Rivers, moved to Florence the name was changed to Wesleyan University. The college operated under the Methodist Conferences of Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi until the Civil War. Mass enlistment forced the school to close and the grounds were periodically used by troops. After the war the Methodists found they did not have enough funds to reopen. The building was offered to the state and the building became the State Normal School in 1872. The Alabama State Normal School was the first state supported teachers school in the south and a legislative Act in 1873 included the education of women, another first for the region. The building is now part of the University of North Alabama. The 1974 NR nomination lists the significance of Wesleyan Hall in terms of architecture, as one of the few surviving Gothic Revival buildings in the area, and in terms of education for its role in the education of Alabama’s teachers. All information and pictures for this Omeka entry were found in the National Register nomination.
Floyd, W. Warner. National Register Nomination. “Wesleyan Hall” (#74000417) (6/20/74).
The Foundry/Florence Stove and Manufacturing Company
The Foundry/Florence Stove and Manufacturing Company played an important role in the history of the Sweetwater area of Florence, and as of today, the remnants of their factory still operates under a partnership of former employees as the Martin Stove and Range Company/Martin Industries, Inc. As of today, the factory is located on East Tennessee Street. When first established, the Foundry was located on Commerce Street in Sweetwater. The Foundry became the Florence Stove and Manufacturing Company when Henry H. Theole moved his company to Commerce Street in 1888 from Evansville, Indiana. An important businessman in Florence, Thomas Jefferson Phillips partnered with Theole. Phillips owned many entrepreneurial ventures in the Sweetwater area of Florence. When the Florence Stove Company commenced manufacturing, the factory produced stoves, heaters, wash pots, skillets, “sad” irons for ironing, and “dog” irons for fireplaces in a 150,000 square foot warehouse facility. Theole specialized in machine and jobbing work for repairing brass and iron molding and pattern work. Theole would hire local former slaves who became well-known locally for casting. The artisan former slave Pompeii worked at the company and cast sets of dog irons which can be seen at the W.C. Handy Museum in Florence. Workers who worked at the Florence Stove Company lived in a group of red frame houses owned by the company due south of the foundry on “Theole Row”. Theole also employed convicts at the Florence Stove Company as operators and common workers in the foundry. In 1918, the Florence Stove and Manufacturing Company was failing financially and two brothers, Charles and William Martin, Sr., partnered and purchased the company. The two brothers renamed the failing company Martin Stove and Range Company and within two financial quarters, the enterprise turned profits. During the 1970s, the Martin Stove and Range Company was reorganized into Martin Industries, Inc. And by 1987, Martin Industries, Inc., sold the families interest to a partnership of employees at the Florence facility who currently run the company on East Tennessee Street today. As of the late 1980s, the payroll was 1.5 million dollars with annual sells being five million dollars for more than 10,000 tons of gray iron casting.
Text Sources: “Martin Industries, Inc. - Company Profile, Information, Business Description, History, Background Information on Martin Industries, Inc.” last modified 2015. Martin Industries, Inc. Forum. http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/45/Martin-Industries-Inc.html. McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." photos by L.D. Staggs, Jr. Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “The Foundry/Florence Stove and Manufacturing Company.” Florence, Alabama, Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-31.
Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Along with thirty-five members, Reverend Felix Johnson organized Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian in Rogersville, Alabama, on September 18, 1839. During its history the church’s congregation has had to deal with two historical events—the Civil War and the Great Depression. During the Civil War, in April of 1861, some members broke off and established a new church in Center Star, Alabama. The members that continued to attend Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian rebuilt their church and relocated just north of Huntsville Road. In the 1930s the church had to relocate a second time due to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s construction of Wheeler Dam. One of President Roosevelt’s New Deal alphabetic organization, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) provided electricity to rural Southern regions. However, in order to provide electricity, TVA constructed dams, which caused many people to lose their property. The Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian congregation was a victim of this. The congregation decided to sue TVA and according to church minutes records dating February 8, 1937, the congregation won the court case. The minutes reveal that the “suit was decided in our favour and have collected $1350.” The congregation used this money to build the current structure.
Text: The Elgin Book Committee, History of Elgin Crossroads & Nearby (Walden, Tennessee: Waldenhouse, 2003), 294-295. Image: The Elgin Book Committee, History of Elgin Crossroads & Nearby (Walden, Tennessee: Waldenhouse, 2003), 294-295.
First United Methodist Church is one of Florence’s oldest congregations. The congregation’s first meeting took place in a log home on September 8, 1822, and consisted of eight people. The log home was the property of the congregation’s first minister, Reverend John Cox, and was located on West Tuscaloosa Street. Also, worship services were conducted in Florence resident Thomas Farmer’s home. Some of the early charter members of the church were Reverend Cox, his wife Frances, their three children (Thomas, James, and Mary), John Kerr, newspaper editor Dr. Shadrack Nye, and Joseph Paddleford. In 1823 a Methodist circuit rider named Nathaniel R. Jarret was appointed the minister of the congregation. However, it was not until 1826 when the congregation had the funds to build a church building. The first church building, a 24 x 30 foot structure, was built on the intersecting corner of West Tombigbee and Locust Streets. After the congregation required land located on the corner of East Tuscaloosa and North Seminary Streets from the Cypress Land Company in 1827, the congregation placed the church building on logs and rolled it to the new site, where the current church stands today. The first addition to the building came in 1834, when a sanctuary that could hold five hundred people was added. This made the church the largest meeting place in Florence. According to records, there were forty-six total congregation members in 1834. Out of those forty-six, three were colored. The next major renovation to the church took place in the early 1900s. Around 1905, a new brick structure was built on the site, however this burned in a fire in 1920. Two years later the members of the church had erected a new building on top of the ashes. The sanctuary was not completed until 1924, and during those four years the congregation conducted worship services at the old Coffee High School. During the Great Depression the church experienced hardships due to its mortgage. The congregation could not afford to pay the mortgage for the church during the times of financial constraints and the building was on the brink of closing down and being sold off. However, local Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropists Louis Rosenbaum negotiated with the National Bank of New York for a loan and wrote a personal check, which together managed to stop the selling of the church. The church kept its doors open during the Depression years and continues to be a meeting place of worship in Florence. Today, the brick structure includes a seven million dollar expansion that provides ministry to all ages and acts as a children’s nursery.
Text: “The First United Methodist Church, Florence, Alabama-A Brief History,” in Bill McDonald Collection, Box 36, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. Jill Knight Garrett, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 142. Carolyn Barske, Images of America: Florence (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014), 100.
Sweetwater Mill has a relationship to the Sweetwater area because it is an old part of the Cherry Cotton Mill plant. The J.T. Flagg Knitting Company purchased the mill after the conclusion of World War II because the company was looking to expand because of the success the company had providing clothing for troops. During the 1960s, J.T. Flagg sold his knitting company to Genesco Textile Manufacturers out of Nashville, Tennessee, thereby transferring possession of Sweetwater Mill to Genesco. As the 1970s progressed, the textile operations of J.T. Flagg were moved from east Florence to the Florence Industrial Park before being closed down by the end of the 1970s. Sadly, the Sweetwater Mill, the last facility used from the Cherry Cotton Mill, closed about fifty years ago.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Sweetwater Mill.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-61.
Coffee High School opened in 1916, becoming the first public high school in Florence. The building cost $96,000, a very large amount for the early 1900's. The school was named Coffee High School after Mrs. A.D. Coffee, the daughter-in-law of General Coffee, donated the land the school was built on. The first graduating class consisted of 11 students. Coffee High School was moved from its original building in 1951 to new buildings on Hermitage. The school then was merged with Bradshaw high school in 2004 to form Florence High School.
Elizabeth Womack McDonald. History of the Florence City schools, 1820-1967, 1900. UNA Library Catalog, EBSCOhost (accessed April 29, 2015).
Prior to 1898 the Catholic population in Florence, Alabama, traveled to Tuscumbia’s Our Sacred Heart. The pastor of Our Sacred Heart, Father Bassen, characterized Florence as a mission of the Catholic Church. As a result, St. Joseph Catholic Church was established in 1898 in Florence. Before the congregation had the funds to build a structure, they conducted mass in the home of Joe Beckman. During the 1880s, Mrs. Lena Peters donated property on Laughton Heights for the congregation to build a little framed church, which was erected in 1889 and also served as a school. The church’s construction was done by St. Florian resident Mr. Stumpe. The first pastor of Saint Joseph Catholic Church was Reverend Gamblert Brunner (an original member of Sain Bernard Abby in Cullman,Alabama), who served at St. Josephs from 1889 to 1907. During his time as pastor, Brunner constructed a rectory that served as the pastor’s home until the 1970s. Bishop Edward Allen dedicated the church on June 8, 1902. Throughout its history, the church has had numerous pastors and renovations. Three during the 1930s were Rev. Henry Watson, Father Alfred Trottman, and Father Anselm Spitzer. During the years of World War II, Father Isidore Fussnecker made efforts to reach out to the black population in the area. In the late 1950s Father Paul Koehler became the pastor of the church. Koehler implemented renovations to the church. For instance, he added additional wings to the school, a Parish hall, and a modern convent. The greatest renovations happened during the 1970s. The old church, considered too small, was demolished and a new church erected in 1974. The new church building is made of brick and consists of a tower, a statue of Saint Joseph the Worker, and a huge cross. Today, the church is one of the chief religious and educational centers for Catholics in northwest Alabama.
Text: Rose Gibbons Lovett, excerpt from Catholic Church in the Deep South (The Diocese, 1980), in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information-Vol. 7: Other Denomination-Catholic, Churches 7.2,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. “A Brief History of St. Joseph’s Parish Florence, Alabama,” in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information-Vol. 7: Other Denomination-Catholic, Churches 7.2,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama.
The son of Edward A. O’Neal, Emmet O’Neal was the thirty-sixth governor of Alabama and a resident of Lauderdale County. He served as governor from 1911-1915. Emmet O’Neal was born on September 6, 1853, in Florence, Alabama. After graduating from Florence Wesleyan University and the University of Alabama, Emmet joined his father in practicing law. Emmet O’Neal married Elizabeth Kirkman in 1881. Courtview, the mansion originally built for George Washington Foster, became the O’Neal’s home in 1900. He was elected governor in 1911, serving two terms in this position. He passed away in 1930 and is buried in Florence Cemetery.
William Lindsey McDonald, A Walk Through The Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama. (Bluewater Publications, 2003), 50-53. Debra Glass and Larry Fisher, eds. Remembering Florence: A Pictorial History Volume 1. 2011, 105. Image of Emmet A. O'Neal courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives Image of Courtview/Rogers Hall courtesy of Kayla Scott
Another lumber company located in the downtown Florence area, W.E. Temple Company and Planning Mills was a fixture in Florence at the beginning of the twentieth century. W.E. Temple was well known for his architectural ability because he constructed the 1901 Lauderdale County Courthouse and the 1903 Florence First United Methodist Church, which met an unfortunate demise in a fire in 1920, and the Florence Post Office in 1912-1913. Shortly after completing the federal building, the Temples left for Hopewell, Virginia to make a new home. Temple’s Planning Mill was originally located alongside Sweetwater Creek on Huntsville Road between Sweetwater Avenue and Minnehaha Street.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." photos by L.D. Staggs, Jr. Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “W.E. Temple Company and Planning Mills.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-15.
Established in 1872, St. Michael’s Catholic Church was the first Catholic Church in Lauderdale County. The church was organized in St. Florian, Alabama, a community founded by German Catholic settlers. A prominent Catholic minister in the southwest region of Tennessee, Reverend J. House, bought over two thousand acres of land in north Alabama. It was on this land that St. Florian was founded and the Catholic Church was erected. Consisting of a large frame, the first church was completed in 1872 on the south side of Military Road and was pastored by the German priest Father Michael Merz until 1876. Merz’ sister, Annie, attended St. Michael’s Catholic Church and became the first teacher at the church’s sponsored school. Due to the town’s cultural background, the school regularly taught classes in German. In 1878 the congregation relocated the church across the Military road, at which is still the current location. Due to growth in attendance the congregation needed a larger church, so the construction process to erect a new church structure began in 1914. From 1914 to 1918, parishioners voluntarily contributed to the erection of the new church. Stones from Shoals Creek were carried to the construction site and a local Shoals stone mason, Casper Haeger, laid the foundation. Also, members of the congregation cut down trees in wooded areas and took them to the local sawmill owned by Ed Rasch. Today, one of the most astonishing sights at the church is the nineteen stained glass windows--twelve large and seven small. These windows, made in Munich, Germany, were purchased in 1924 as a memorial for the early settlers of St. Florian.
Text: Jill Garrett, “First Catholic Church in County,” in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information-Vol. 7: Other Denomination-Catholic, Churches 7.2,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. “Church Started in 1872,” in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information-Vol. 7: Other Denomination-Catholic, Churches 7.2,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama.
National Register of Historic Places; University of North Alabama; Governor Emmett O'Neil; Civil War; Architecture
Courtview was built as the two story brick townhouse of successful planter and businessman George Washington Foster. The 1854-55 Greek Revival house faces the Tennessee River (southwest) down the length of Court Street in Florence. According to the NR nomination Foster had to get a special act of the Alabama State Legislature to block the street. The NR nomination lists multiple areas of significance for this prominent house. It is significant for architecture, of particular note and in keeping with the buildings Greek Revival style are the 4 full height fluted Ionic columns, the broad entablature and low hipped roof along with the symmetry of both the house and the landscape. The house is also significant for its ties to political and military history. The grounds were used by both Federal and Confederate troops during the Civil War and the house itself briefly served as headquarters for General Sherman’s officers. After the war and the death of owner George Washington Foster the house was inherited by his daughter Sarah Independence Foster and her husband Capt. Sterling Payne McDonald. In 1900 the house was sold to Emmett O’Neil who was elected governor in 1910. Thomas Rogers obtained the house in 1922 and extensively restored the property. The Rogers family sold the house in 1948 to Florence State Teachers College which later became the University of North Alabama. The house continues to be an important part of the University. The property was documented by the Works Progress Administration in 1935 and is part of the Historic American Building Survey that can be found in the Library of Congress. The property was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The nomination could use additional research.
Floyd, W. Warner. National Register Nomination. “Courtview : Rogers Hall”(#74000415) (6/13/74).
The Mars Hill Church of Christ, established in 1871, is one of twenty-nine Churches of Christ in Florence. The Church of Christ denomination emerged out of the American Restoration Movement, a movement to reestablish America’s Christianity on the teachings of the New Testament, which lasted from 1801 to 1906. Restoration followers were known as Stoneites and Campbellites, named after the two prominent leaders of the movement, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell. Congregations set up by followers of Campbell called themselves Disciples of Christ, while those established by Stoneites were called Churches of Christ. The beliefs of the Restoration Movement made their way into the Shoals during the 1820s and 1830s through efforts of Restoration ministers, who ultimately shaped the religious culture in the region. The first two Restoration ministers to enter the Shoals were Ephraim D. Moore and James Evans Matthews. Moore, born in North Carolina in 1782, converted after he read and heard about Alexander Campbell’s teachings. Moore settled near Florence, Alabama, in 1823 and established the first Restoration church in the Shoals, known as the Republican Congregation. However, three years after its founding the congregation still had only ten members. In 1826, James Matthews, a Kentucky Christian minister, moved to Florence and helped Moore spread the movement. In the fall of 1827, Moore wrote to Barton Stone of the success he and Matthews had in growing converts in the Shoals region. Recounting a week-long camp which resulted in forty Shoals’ residents professing their faith in Christ, Moore reassured Stone that “the good work is moving on in almost every direction.” However, the Restoration Movement in the Shoals did not take place without opposition. Baptists and Presbyterians entered the Shoals during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and did not approve of the activists’ efforts. For example, in 1830 the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association printed a resolution that defined the Restoration Movement as a “divine operation of the Holy Spirit either disavowed or so obscurely avowed, as to amount to disavowal. We see experimental religion ridiculed and reprobated.” The resolution criticized the efforts of Stone and Campbell’s disciples as “effort(s) by man to pull down the old order of faith and practice taught by our Lord and His apostles, and establish on their ruins a new order.” After converting to a Restoration church, William Henry Wharton of Tuscumbia was “discarded…opposed, calumniated, misrepresented, abused, denied entrance into houses consecrated to the worship of the only living and true God” because of his support for Reformation ideology. In addition to the vocal opposition from various denominations, in his article “History of the Church of Christ in Northwest Alabama, 1866-1880,” Shoals historian Wayne Kilpatrick argued that the Civil War ultimately hindered the Restoration Movement in the Shoals region. Kilpatrick claimed that many churches in the Shoals, including Restoration congregations, experienced a drop in membership during the war, which Kilpatrick defined as the “silent years” of the Restoration Movement. Nevertheless, the silent years in the Shoals ended with the arrival of Theophilus Brown Larimore in 1868. T. B. Larimore was born on July 10, 1843, in Jefferson County, Tennessee, where he grew up fatherless and in poverty. Despite these challenges, Larimore enrolled in Mossey Creek Baptist College (present day Carson Newman University), a theological institution, at the age of sixteen. During his time at in college he did not experience a spiritual conversion. As a result of his lack of personal experience with religion while in college, when the war began Larimore enlisted in the Confederate army and served as a scout in the Company B of the 5th Tennessee Cavalry. After serving in the war, Larimore became a member of a Restoration church in 1864, and thereafter, the church became the center of his life. Shortly after becoming a member of a Restoration church, he taught theology at Franklin College in Nashville, Tennessee, for two years, and accepted a position as a teacher at Mountain Home Academy, a Restoration institution located in Lawrence County, Alabama, in 1868. Larimore’s early efforts to expand the Restoration Movement in the northwest region of Alabama, however, did not succeed. For example, as Larimore remembered, the congregation at Hopewell Church located in Lauderdale County, “let me try to preach once, and were so well pleased with that ‘sarmint’ that they let me off—suddenly!” Also in 1868, Larimore married Julia Esther Gresham, who had inherited twenty-nine acres in Lauderdale County from her family. On this land, Larimore established Mars Hill Church of Christ. Larimore and others purchased land for a new building and in 1904 a new structure was built. The congregation continued to worship in this building until the current building was completed in 1969. In addition to Larimore, some prominent ministers of Mars Hill Church of Christ were Paul Simon, Robert Walker, and Kenneth Davis.
Text: Wayne Kilpatrick, “History of the Church of Christ in Northwest Alabama, 1823-1861,” The Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. xi (1986), 32-34. Barton Stone, The Christian Messenger Vol.2, no. 1, 16-17. Kilpatrick, “History of the Church of Christ in Northwest Alabama, 1823-1861,” 36. Wayne Kilpatrick, “ History of the Church of Christ in Lauderdale County, 1866-1880,” The Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. xi (1986), 67-85. Lee Freeman, “A Brief Study of the Life of Elder Theophilus Brown Larimore “, in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information Collection: Other Denomination-Church of Christ,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. Frank Richey, “T. B. Larimore—The Preacher,” The Alabama Restoration Journal Vol. 4, no. 2 (April, 2010), 3. Bill McDonald, “Story of Mars Hill’s first lady,” Time Daily, October 12, 2003, in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information Collection: Other Denomination-Church of Christ,” Box 37, Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. Mars Hill Church of Christ, “A Brief History,” Mars Hill Church of Christ, http://marshillcc.org/a-breif-history.html (accessed May 1, 2015).
The Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company is another company that the Ashcraft family of Florence either owned or had a stake in. In 1897, a year before he founded the Florence Cotton Oil Company, Lee Ashcraft founded and incorporated the Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company. At the time of incorporation, the Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company had an initial capital stock of fifty thousand dollars, before increasing to one hundred thousand by 1903. The Fertilizer Company was well known for making custom-made guano fertilizers for customers if the fertilizers were needed for a special purpose. Some of the various guano fertilizers they produced were named King Cotton Grower, Three Link, Ashcraft Special, Cotton Seed Meal and Bone, Tiger Cotton Grower, Tiger Guano, Tiger Potash Guano, and Blood and Bone. The factory’s location was on Cherry Street in Sweetwater. On the first day of operation, Lee Ashcraft and an unnamed helper produced eleven bags of fertilizer together. From 1897 to 1904, Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company under Ashcraft produced nineteen different fertilizers at 15,000 tons annually. Lee Ashcraft owned the Fertilizer Company until 1909 when the International Mineral Corporation (IMC) bought the company from Ashcraft. The Fertilizer Company became the oldest running fertilizer plant for IMC in the country into the early 2000s. As of today, it is still in operation under the name of Agrium, Inc. in the same area of Sweetwater right next to Veterans Drive and the Patton Island Bridge. The original factory for the Fertilizer Company stretches back to before the Civil War when the facility the fertilizer plant occupied was a flouring mill for Florence. Unbelievably, the three-story building that existed in 1897 when Lee Ashcraft began the business was not burned to the ground by Union forces in during the Civil War. So the original Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company factory building could trace its industrial genealogy back to before the Civil War.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." photos by L.D. Staggs, Jr. Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. “Florence As She Is." The Florence Times. 1903. McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “The Tennessee Valley Fertilizer Company.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-39.
The Center Star Methodist Church congregation is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Throughout its history the congregation has moved over five times. Its origins began in 1818, when the Methodist Richland Circuit of Giles County, Tennessee, extended across the Tennessee line into Lauderdale County, Alabama. One resident who lived in Lauderdale County at the time, Reverend Wesley Smith, wrote in a letter: “About the year 1819, my family moved from Tennessee to Lauderdale County, Alabama, and settled on Blue Water Creek. We had not been there long until the ‘circuit-rider’ found his cabin and soon made it a preaching place. I well remember the old cabin with dirt floor and two split-long benches that were used to seat the little congregation of backwoods worshipers.” Two early preachers were G. D. Taylor and J. Boucher. In 1823 the name of this congregation became Driskell Chapel Methodist Church, named after its Reverend Ambrose F. Driskell. Also during 1823, the congregation met in the old Trousdale home in Center Star, Alabama. The congregation kept the name, Driskell Chapel Methodist Church until 1893. During 1893 the congregation relocated approximately one mile east, where the church sits today. When it moved, the church changed its name to Center Star Methodist.
Text: “Center Star Methodist Church,” Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. X (1983): 147. Jill Knight Garrett, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 144
National Register of Historic Places Usonian Architecture Jewish History Museum
National Register property – Rosenbaum House The Rosenbaum house was built for Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum in 1940 from a late 1930s Usonian design by Frank Lloyd Wright, the only house designed by Wright in the state of Alabama. Usonian houses were designed as an affordable home for the everyday man. The design for the Usonian house was much smaller than most of Wright’s residential plans and were able to be altered for different settings. In keeping with Wright’s ideals the house is strongly horizontal with deliberate blank walls facing the street and large open windows towards the private family spaces to the rear of the house. Frank Lloyd Wright designed a large addition for the growing Rosenbaum family in 1948. This was the only addition Wright designed for a Usonian house. The house was restored by the Talisen Foundation in 1966. The house remained in the Rosenbaum family until 1999 when it became a city of Florence museum. This property is well known and well documented and is a significant part of Florence’s architectural heritage. The 1978 NR nomination is quite brief and could benefit from additional documentation and research. All information and photographs for this Omeka entry are from the National Register nomination. Rosembaum, Stanley ; Mildred Rosenbaum; and Ellen Mertins. National Register Nomination, “Rosenbaum House” (#78000492) (12/18/78).
National Register Nomination (#78000492)
Robert Miller Patton was one of five Lauderdale County residents to serve as governor of Alabama. Patton was born in Virginia in 1809. He and his parents came to Alabama in 1818 and he took up residence in Florence in 1829. In 1832, he became a member of the Alabama State Legislature and served several terms between that time and the onset of the Civil War. He married Jane Locke Brahan the same year, and they made their home at Sweetwater. He and his wife had eight children, two of which died in the Civil War. One of these, William Anderson Patton, was killed at the Battle of Shiloh. Robert Patton became the first president of the Florence Synodical Female College in 1855. In 1865, Patton became Alabama’s twentieth governor. Federal authorities removed him from office in July 1867 by military order because his actions in office did not suit the stringent federal authorities. Following his term in office, Patton worked to establish railroads in the South and served on the University of Alabama’s Board of Trustees. Patton passed away in 1885.
William Lindsey McDonald, A Walk Through The Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama. (Bluewater Publications, 2003), 48-49. Jill K. Garret, History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 1964, 217. Image courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives
The Florence Times was the predecessor of the current newspaper for Lauderdale County, The Times-Daily. The Florence Times began in the nineteenth century by the O’Neal family. The O’Neal family of Florence produced multiple governors of Alabama and were pillars of the Florence community in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Florence Times did not become the predominant newspaper in Lauderdale County until the twentieth century. In 1927, a man from Gadsden, Alabama named J.L. Meeks, Sr., after he sold his newspaper in Gadsden purchased The Florence Times from the O’Neal family. A story exists about J.L. Meeks that he had the same kind of open top car as a famous madam in Florence. Little did Meeks know that when he drove down the street that the reason why people would wave and grin at him was not to welcome him to Florence, but to make fun of his lack of knowledge about the preeminent madam in Florence and her car. In addition to owning The Florence Times, Meeks also owned the Tri-Cities Daily based out of Colbert County. In the 1940s, Meeks passed away and the ownership of the papers went to his son, J.L. Meeks, Jr. In the early 1960s, Meeks, Jr., sold The Florence Times to Worrell Newspapers, Inc. About twenty years later in 1982, The New York Times purchased The Florence Times from Worrell Newspapers, Inc. And the publisher at the time, Guy Hankins, changed the name of the paper to the Times-Daily, the newspaper Lauderdale County knows today. The Florence Times was on Court Street for many years during the early to mid-twentieth century before moving to West Tennessee Street where it stands today.
Text Sources: Wade, Gerald compiler. "Facts, Folks, Residents and Rascals: A Tourist Guide & Visitors’ Handbook to the Shoals Area." Florence, Ala.: Cypress Creek Publishing, 1990. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Florence Times.” Florence, Alabama. Box 12: Florence Industry, 12-51.
On May 22, 1852, the Liberty Baptist Church congregation organized the oldest existing Baptist congregation in Lauderdale County. In fact, it was the only Baptist church erected in the county until the First Baptist Church of Florence was built over thirty years later in 1888. According to church records, during its first few years the church’s membership was approximately fifty people. These members constructed a white wooden sanctuary in which the congregation held service until the 1890s. The original wooden building had two doors—one for the men and one for the women. Also, the seating in the sanctuary was segregated by sexes. In the same year as its charter (1852), the congregation became a part of the Indian Creek Association and started Baptist missions in the surrounding area. During the beginning of the Civil War the church had a total of one hundred and twenty-eight members. However, due to the war, services were discontinued from 1863 to 1865. Shortly following the war, the first Sunday School was organized in 1877. The present day church building was constructed in 1892 when the congregation built a brick structure to take the place of the original wooden building.
Text: Lorene Frederick, “Church History Actually History of Community: Liberty Baptist Pastor Compiles Interesting Record of Both Church and The District,” Florence Times, April 22, 1960, located in in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information Collection-Vol. 7: Other Denominations-Baptist, Churches 7.1” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama
National Register of Historic Places; Native American History; Early Settlement; Transportation; National Parkway
The 1976 NR nomination documents a 400 foot unpaved section of the original Natchez Trace not covered by the Natchez Trace Parkway. The original Natchez Trace was a network of trails established by Native Americans that stretched roughly from what is now Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi. The trails whenever possible avoided creek and swamp crossings and followed watershed divides. The trails shifted with weather conditions and as population centers changed. The trails appeared on French and British maps in the 1730s and 1770s and were labeled with names such as the Chickasaw Trace and the “Path to the Choctaw Nation”. White trade was documented along the trace as early as 1785. When the Mississippi Territory was formed in 1798 settlers called for improvements to the trace which was authorized by President Jefferson in 1801. Between 1800 and 1830 the Trace was used as a post road and numerous inns and stops were established along the route. Andrew Jackson and his troops traveled the Trace in 1812 to protect New Orleans from a threatened British invasion. In 1938 the National Park Service established the Natchez Trace Parkway extending 444 miles from Nashville to Natchez bypassing this small section of one of the original trails. The Park Service interprets the Trace for its significance to Native American history, European settlement, transportation, commerce, military history and local flora and fauna. The National Register nomination for this small section of the Trace, less than one acre, was written in 1976 and like most nominations from that time period could be improved by additional research. All information and photos for this Omeka entry were taken from the nomination.
Cox, William E. National Register Nomination. “Old Natchez Trace (no. 310-2A)” (#76000156) (11/7/76).
Established during the 1830s, the Canaan United Methodist Church is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Land for the church’s building and cemetery were given by an early settler in the county named Edmond Noel. Established for the rural planters on the bend of the Tennessee River, a tall framed building was constructed. Prior to the Civil War, slaves attended serves with their masters and sat in a designated gallery. The church itself played a role during the Civil War. During the war, soldiers under Union general James Wilson camped nearby and in 1865 Union troops bunked in the church. There was a skirmish between Union and Confederate troops at nearby Gravelly Springs Cemetery, and also a small skirmish took place on the grounds of the church. As a result, bullet holes once peppered the congregation’s pews. However, renovations in the 1970s remodeled the slave gallery and replaced the pews.
Text: William Lindsey McDonald, “Methodist Building in the Area,” in folder “McDonald Collection: The Church Register (Canaan)(Methodist Episcopal), Churches 10.1,” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. “Canaan Methodist Church,”Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals Vol. X, 1983: 91-92. Image: “Canaan Methodist Church,”Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal of Muscle Shoals Vol. X, 1983: 91-92.
Justice John McKinley Federal Building and United States Post Office
The federal building is located at the corner of Seminary and Tombigbee and its address is 210 North Seminary Street, Florence, Alabama. The building is currently named in honor of Alabama’s first Supreme Court Justice, John McKinley. The United States Post Office and Federal Court House was erected from 1912 to 1913 at a cost between $120,000 and $130,000 dollars. The structure was built on property owned by the Florence Female Synodical College and bought by the government for around ten thousand dollars. The architect of the federal building was John Robie Kennedy, Jr., a native of Lauderdale County, with the supervising architect being a local contractor, James Knox Taylor, also of Lauderdale County. The architecture of the structure is a mix of Neo-Classical styles and includes elements of Greek Revival with the Ionic columns and Italianate with the cornices, red Spanish clay hipped roof, and white limestone facade. On the inside, the floors are Cherokee, Georgia marble in twelve-inch squares, the stairs are Alabama marble, and the rails are made of oak with wrought iron balusters. Two additions have been added over the years, one in 1946 and another in 1965, both for the purpose of the post office. Even with the additions, the building is still on the National Register of Historic Places because of the original architecture of the building.
Text Sources: UNA Archives & Special Collection. McDonald Collection. Florence, Buildings, U.S. Post Office and Court House. Florence, Alabama. Florence Times, exceprt. UNA Archives & Special Collection. McDonald Collection. Writings, Articles, WLM: Writings 10.24. Florence, Alabama. McDonald, William Lindsey. “The United States Post Office and Courthouse at Florence." Gamble, Robert S. “Historic Muscle Shoals Buildings and Sites: Muscle Shoals Architecture.” editor McDonald, Mary Jane. Journal of Muscle Shoals History, vol. X (1983). Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Florence Federal Building." Florence, Alabama. Box 8: Post Office, 8-1.
Methodist settlers first entered the northwest region of Alabama during the early 1800s during the Second Great Awakening. The lot of land that Tabernacle Methodist Church sits on was used for religious camp meetings during the Second Great Awakening. The church itself was not erected until the 1830s. An exact of construction date is unknown. The building’s original design was that of a simple log structure. One of the first ministers at Tabernacle Methodist Church was Reverend Henry Hill, who passed away in 1850. The church burned down twice prior to 1869. After the second fire, the congregation built the church building that still stands today. Prominent citizens of Lauderdale County, such as Henry A. Killen, helped furnish and finance the church. Also, in 1874 George Kennedy, who owned the property that the church was located on, gave the congregation legal title to the land. The church building today does not host weekly worship services. Instead, it is used for funerals and memorial services for those buried in the Tabernacle Cemetery.
Text: Jill Knight Garret, A History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 140. Tennessee Valley Historical Society, “Tabernacle Methodist Church,” Journal of Muscle Shoals History Vol. X (1983), 146.
Early Baptists settlers in Waterloo, Alabama, met in a two-story log meeting house. This building was erected in 1845. The structure was 40 x 60 feet. During the week, children in the Waterloo community attended school in the church’s main floor, while the upper floor acted as a fraternal lodge. However, the church building was destroyed during the Civil War. Under the command of General James Harrison Wilson, the Union Cavalry dismantled the Baptists church. One Waterloo citizen, John W. Till, recalled that he “saw a part of the soldiers of a Michigan Regiment tearing down the church” and they used the materials from the church and “built out of them their quarters.” As a result of the destruction of the church, during the 1870s and 1880s the church’s congregation had to hold services in various homes in the Waterloo community. In 1904, the congregation’s minister, Reverend W. J. Webb, testified that the church building was completely destroyed and probably worth only one thousand dollars. As a result, the Trustees of the Church decided to sue the United States for a total of one thousand dollars for the account of damages by the Union forces. The court rewarded the congregation with six hundred and fifteen dollars. Today, the congregation continues to thrive.
Text: William Lindsey McDonald, “The Waterloo Baptist Church and The Missionary,” located in in folder “McDonald Collection: Church Information Collection-Vol. 7: Other Denominations-Baptist, Churches 7.1” Bill McDonald Collection, Archives/Special Collections, Collier Library, University of North Alabama, Florence, Alabama. Tennessee Valley Historical Society, Journal Of Muscle Shoals Vol. X (1983), 86.
National Register of Historic Places Social History Architecture
National Register property – Forks of Cypress Forks of Cypress plantation house is now a ruin. A fire resulting from lightning destroyed the home in 1966. However, the 23 remaining standing brick columns are still significant for what they can tell us about architecture and more importantly about the social history of the affluent planter lifestyle, in particular that of the owner, planter, and politician James Jackson. The basic core of the house was a two story frame double pile plan much like others of its time period except for the central hall. The central hall at Forks of Cypress was divided into an entrance hall and a rear stair hall. The porch, however, is a different story and is now is all that remains to tell that story. The peristyle porch with 24 two story columns stretched completely around the house. This is the first documented house in Alabama to be so constructed before the war and one of the earliest nationwide outside the lower Mississippi valley. In the lower Mississippi valley peristyle porches were designed as living spaces with the columns supporting second story galleries that ringed the house and provided access to the rooms that opened on to the galleries. The peristyle porch at Forks of Cypress was designed to impress. Though the porch did provide sheltered gathering space and shade from the Alabama sun, the monumental nature of the brick columns with Ionic capitals that matched those on the new State Capitol building were a statement to the wealth and status of the inhabitants of the house. The architect of the house is reported to be William Nichols, State Architect of Alabama and designer of the new Capitol. James Jackson, native of Ireland, was an early investor in the Cypress Creek Land Company that founded Florence. He along with others including John Coffee made up a local elite in the Lauderdale County area. Jackson was a member of the Alabama House of Representatives and the Senate during the 1820s and 30s. He was also a successful businessman and plantation owner raising thoroughbred race horses. He was rumored to be the richest man in the county upon his death. The 1997 NR nomination for Forks of Cypress is extensive and provides a wealth of information about the house, James Jackson, and the history of Lauderdale County. The nomination also includes drawings from the 1935 WPA Historic American Building Survey inventory of the house (#AL-375). Farris, Johnathan A. National Register Nomination, “Forks of Cypress” (#97001166) (10/10/97).
National Register nomination (#97001166)
Hill Auto Company, located on the southwest side of the traffic circle at Royal Avenue and Huntsville Road, is believed to be the second filling and service station built in Florence. The owner of the service station, Fred Hill, also ran the Hill Cab Company from the service station for the people of Florence. Also known as Hill’s Woco Pep Station, the station faced competition from two other automobile services right in that traffic circle area: the Oil Well service station and the Doc Phillips auto repair shop. The Hill family originated in Germany and Fred Hill’s father, Augustus Henry Hill immigrated to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century, when Augustus was a young boy. Augustus Hill is said to be the first plumber ever in the city of Florence. During the Great Depression, the Hill family, especially Augustus, had financial problems because the city of Florence could not pay money owed to the elder Hill. As a result, he lost a row of property and turned to barbering as a means of a new income. According to the Hill family, Augustus and Rube Martin, who owned a grocery store next door, are believed to be the first white barbers in Florence. Fred Hill owned and operated the Hill Auto Company, the Hill Cab Company, and was an automobile dealer for Oakland Motor Car Company. Without a doubt, the Hill family was an important part of the automobile servicer business in Florence at Sweetwater.
Text Sources: McDonald, William Lindsey. "Remembering Sweetwater: The Mansions, The Mills, The People." photos by L.D. Staggs, Jr. Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2002. McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Hill Auto Company.” Florence, Alabama. Box 13: Downtown Business, 13-41.
T.S. Stribling graduated from State Normal College in 1903. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Due to his significance to UNA and the literary world he earned UNA the first Literary Landmark in the state in 2006.
T.S. Stribling Literary Landmark file, University of North Alabama Archives and Special Collections,
William Lindsey McDonald, Florence Historian
Florence, Alabama’s first official City Historian was William Lindsey McDonald, a man who did much to research, preserve, and promote local history. Born in 1927, Mr. McDonald served in the U.S. Army for thirty-eight years before retiring with the rank of Army Reserve Colonel. McDonald was both a World War II and Korean War veteran. His army reserve career included sixteen years as a staff member at the Pentagon. McDonald served thirty-eight years with the Tennessee Valley National Fertilizer Development Center. In addition, McDonald spent thirty-eight years as a Methodist preacher in Colbert and Lauderdale Counties. Mr. McDonald graduated from Florence State Teacher’s College in 1952. He was also a graduate of the Military Police School, the Army’s Command and General Staff College, the Army Finance School, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. His education also included seminary training. McDonald served as Chairman of the Florence Historical Board from 1968 to 1989. He was designated the City Historian in 1989. He had a historical column in the Times Daily for many years, and was a frequent contributor to the Tennessee Valley Historical Quarterly journal. During his lifetime, McDonald wrote over fourteen books on Muscle Shoals area history. McDonald passed away in 2009.
William Lindsey McDonald, A Walk Through The Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama. (Bluewater Publications, 2003), ii. Image Courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives Jill K. Garret, History of Lauderdale County, Alabama, 1964, 214.
The Hotel Negley was one of the more modern hotels built in the early twentieth century in downtown Florence. The Hotel Negley was constructed on the empty lot of the former Jefferson Hotel in 1925 after the Jefferson Hotel caught fire in the early 1920s. The Negley Hotel was located at the corners of Pine, Tennessee, and South Court Street. The owner of the hotel was Charles Negley, and he wished to construct a hotel that would encourage future in the city. The Negley, when built in 1925, had the most modern amenities for travelers to the city of Florence. With an investment of over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the hotel, the construction of the modern hotel took six months to complete, beginning in 1924. When the Hotel Negley was opened, it had fifty rooms with private baths and special Simonds steel furniture for the guests to use; in addition, plumbing was in every room and all rooms had both hot and cold water. Also, the Hotel Negley had a café and dining room for the guests to order and eat their food while staying there. The construction of the hotel was bided out to all local construction companies to return the investment of the hotel back to the community and its blue-collar workers. Craw Construction Company and Wiley Plumbing Company were the primary builders and Negley purchased the furniture from Young Furniture Company.
Text Sources: Barske, Carolyn. "Images of America: Florence." Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014. Hamm, Jane Johnson. "Florence Wagons 1889-2002 History & More." Florence, Ala.: Privately Published, 2002. Florence/Lauderdale Public Library. Vertical History File. Florence, Lauderdale County, Historic Buildings, Hotel Negley. “Hotel Negley, New, Modern, Opens For Business May 1st.” The Florence Times. April 24, 1925, Florence, Lauderdale County, Alabama. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Hotel Negley.” Florence, Alabama. Box 13: Downtown Business, 13-37.
Sweetwater Plantation (Governor Robert M. Patton House)
National Register of Historic Places ; Political History; Architecture
The 1976 National Register nomination of the Robert M. Patton house states that the property is significant in terms of architecture as a classic example of a North Alabama Georgian plantation house, and for political history as the home of the first elected governor of Alabama after the Civil War. The house also known as Sweetwater Plantation originally sat on 4,000 acres with elaborate landscaped grounds surrounding the house. The two story brick house is the common double pile plan, four rooms divided by a wide central hall on each floor. Small room alterations have been made including a kitchen, side entrance, and second floor bathrooms. The exterior massing is a symmetrical rectangle with simple Georgian detailing seen most clearly in the low hipped roof, one story porch detailing, and ornamental delicate sidelights and transom surrounding the double front doors. The owner Robert M. Patton inherited the partially built house from his father-in-law and completed the house in 1835. Patton served in the Alabama legislature almost continuously from 1837 until the Civil War. He represented Lauderdale County at the State Conference and the Charleston Convention in 1860, which passed the secession ordinance that started the war. In 1865 he served in the State Constitutional Convention and became governor in 1866 until he was replaced by the Reconstruction government in 1867. Patton was then involved with the railroads and various colleges and universities throughout the South. The house remained in the family at the time of the NR nomination in 1976. The nomination needs to be updated. All information and photos for this Omeka entry are from the NA nomination.
Floyd, W. Warner, National Register Nomination. “Sweetwater Plantation (Governor Robert Patton House)”, (#76000335) (6/17/76).
The Hotel Reeder was a staple of downtown Florence during the early twentieth century. The location of the Hotel Reeder was on Tennessee Street, and the hotel was so large that it covered an entire block. The three-story brick building had a European-style café for the guests. The Hotel Reeder was so large that it tended to dwarf some of the smaller structures located close to the building. The Hotel Reeder had 97 total rooms for guests in the main building, with 27 adjoining rooms in an annex. The Hotel Reeder originally had the “new building,” which served as the hotel, whereas the "old building" served as a livery where mules would be penned, bought, and sold on the upper floor of the older building. When the livery industry became an obsolete trade the mule pen closed, and the old building became a boarding house and a scrap iron business. Eventually the boarding house and the scrap iron business closed and the building was absorbed by the Hotel Reeder. The building was a part of the hotel until its closure in 1967. During the 1920s through the 1940s the Hotel Reeder was the prestigious hotel in Florence, housing the headquarters of the Democrats in Florence. Many congressional representatives and dignitaries stayed as guests at the hotel. Probably the most famous of these dignitaries were the staff of President Franklin Roosevelt when he came to visit Florence and Wilson Dam in the early 1930s. Other famous visitors included the singers, actors, and actresses of the musicals, plays, and operas that visited the Princess Theatre in downtown Florence- since the Hotel Reeder was across the street from the entertainment venue. Even fox hunting conventions were held at the Hotel Reeder, and the participants would stay at the hotel, wake up very early, and travel to Rogersville to release the hounds and hunt foxes. On in to the 1940s the Hotel Reeder would have many soldiers and their families as guests of the hotel because of the Courtland Air Base in the area during World War II. Unfortunately, after World War II, the Hotel Reeder became less and less popular until the doors of the hotel closed in 1967.
Text Sources: Hamm, Jane Johnson. "Florence Wagons 1889-2002 History & More." Florence, Ala.: Privately Published, 2002. Barske, Carolyn. "Images of America: Florence." Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014. Florence/Lauderdale Public Library. Vertical History File. Florence, Lauderdale County, Historic Buildings, Reeder Hotel. “End Of An Area: Reeder Hotel Closing.” The Florence Times. October 11, 1967. Florence, Lauderdale County, Alabama, File 2-3. McDonald, William Lindsey. "A Walk Through the Past: People and Places of Florence and Lauderdale County, Alabama." Killen, Ala., Bluewater Publications, 2003. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Hotel Reeder.” Florence, Alabama, Box 13: Downtown Businesses, 13-22.
Early Twentieth Century-Mid Twentieth Century
The statue of a Confederate Soldier stands in front of the Lauderdale County Courthouse on Court Street. It was placed in its current location in 1902 when the new courthouse was finished.
George Lindsey was born on December 17, 1928 in Fairfield, Alabama, and grew up in Jasper, Alabama. Lindsey became interested in acting after watching a play when he was fourteen. He later became interested in football and the sport gave him a way to fund his education. Lindsey briefly attended Walker Junior College in Jasper, Alabama and Kemper Military School in Boonville, Missouri, before attending Florence State Teachers College (now the University of North Alabama) on a football scholarship. Lindsey majored in biological science and physical education. He received his degree in 1952. Following his graduation from UNA, George joined the Air Force. He was based in Orlando, Florida, and worked as a recreational director while spending his spare time working in theater. Lindsey next worked at Hazel Green High School in Alabama. After a year of teaching, George decided to move to New York to pursue further education in acting. Lindsey’s first career breaks came with theater and his part in two plays: All American and Wonderful Town. After the plays ended he managed to land small roles on shows such as The Rifleman. Lindsey was most famous for a part of Goober that he landed on the Andy Griffith Show. He later played Goober on Mayberry R.F.D. and Hee Haw as well. UNA awarded Lindsey an honorary doctor of humane letters degree in 1992. Lindsey was instrumental in founding the George Lindsey/UNA Television and Film Festival in 1998. Lindsey attended the festival for several years before his death on May 6, 2012. He is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Jasper, Alabama.
“George Lindsey-Biography” https://www.una.edu/library/collections/george-lindsey---biography.html Cindy Watts, The Tennessean, “George Lindsey, aka Goober Pyle, dies at 83.” http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/people/obit/story/2012-05-06/goober-pyle-george-lindsey-obit/54787304/1 Images courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives
Frank Lloyd Wright Rosenbaum House ; Florence, AL; Lauderdale County, AL; Museums
The Rosenbaum House was built in 1939-1940 with a price tag of approximately $14,000. The Rosenbaum House is located in Florence and serves as the only example of Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in Alabama. Stanley and Mildred Rosenbaum were the owners of the house until 1999. Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Rosenbaum House using the Usonian architectural style. The house was designed to blend with and rise from the landscape, and features carports, flat roofs, overhanging eaves and a concrete floor. The home is constructed from cypress, glass, and brick. Wright designed a 1,540 square feet floor plan. Storage space was a key component, and every inch of the house was meant to be used to the fullest extent. The kitchen is a tiny workspace that allows for standing room only. There were numerous problems with the home’s construction. The chimneys were not ventilated properly. The flat roofs did not drain, so water leaked in. Despite these problems, an addition was added in 1946-1948, with Wright designing the plans. The addition added an additional 1,084 square feet, adding two wings to the house and enlarging the kitchen. A second carport was also added at this time. The Rosenbaum House was purchased by the city of Florence in 1999 for the sum of $75,000. Termite and water damage had caused extensive structural problems over the years, requiring between $600,000 and $700,000 of renovations. The house now serves as a museum and is open for tours each week Tuesday through Sunday.
www.florenceal.org Ben Berntson, “Rosenbaum House Museum,” Encyclopedia of Alabama. http://www.encyclopdiaofalabama.org/article/h-2397#sthash.Ja3m6yMb.dpuf Image courtesy of UNA Collier Library Archives
The Jefferson Hotel was a massive building for turn of the twentieth century Florence. At three-stories it was a towering downtown business. The Jefferson Hotel opened up for business in 1902 just a short distance away from the Lauderdale County Courthouse. Before the Jefferson Hotel occupied the three-story building, the City of Florence used the building as its city hall for a short period of time. The Jefferson Hotel was located at Court Street and Tennessee Street in downtown Florence. The Jefferson Hotel met a need for Florence in 1902 because the city did not have a large hotel on the scale of the Jefferson at the end of the nineteenth century. The patrons of the Jefferson stayed at a hotel that had furniture of antique oak finish with metal beds that had perfection mattresses and downy pillows for the customers to sleep on at night. In all, the furnishings for the fifty room hotel cost over eleven thousand dollars. The Jefferson Hotel lasted until the early 1920s before the building was destroyed by fire. The modern Hotel Negley was built on the site.
Text Sources: Hamm, Jane Johnson. "Florence Wagons 1889-2002 History & More." Florence, Ala.: Privately Published, 2002. Barske, Carolyn. "Images of America: Florence." Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2014. “Florence As She Is." The Florence Times. 1903. Picture Source: UNA Archives & Special Collection. William L. McDonald Collection. “Jefferson Hotel.” Florence, Alabama, Box 13: Downtown Business, 13-9.