Browse Items (42 total)

  • Tags: Tuscumbia Alabama

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In 1815, Michael Dickson and a group of white settlers sailed in a keel-boat down the Tennessee River and up Spring creek, settling where Spring Park is now. Dickson purchased this land from the Indian chief Tashka-Ambi for two pole axes and five…

Horseback trail riding, auction and headliner concerts mark this two-day event. Event is held annually on the 3rd Friday and Saturday in July. This event is a fundraiser for St. Jude. Donations are welcome. $35 donation to ride. $15 donation, if you…

One of Alabama’s most distinguished mansions is opulently decorated for Christmas when “the Old South” is recreated with period music, dancing and refreshments. This is an opportunity to see festivities and decorations of the historical past.…

The First Baptist Church of Tuscumbia was originally formed by a small group of African American worshipers. The church was established in 1866 shortly after the Civil War under the guidance of Elder W.E. Northcross. The church members did not have…

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During Indian Removal, Tuscumbia’s Landing served as the point of disembarkation for the water route used to move Native Americans west of the Mississippi. The train to Tuscumbia brought the Cherokee Nation to Spring Park, where they were held…

The Tuscumbia-Courtland & Decatur railroad was established by a group of investors led by Benjamin Sherrod in 1841. Originally a two-train car, the railroad was established to allow ships to bypass the shoals of the Tennessee River. In 1843, the…

The battle of Ococoposa was fought between the United States and Native American tribes in the Shoals. The battle took place in June of 1787. Local Native American tribes had been conducting raids on settlements for a period of seven years. In…

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Mount Carmel Baptist Church was conceived of and organized in 1929. The original incarnation of the church consisted of a group of men meeting in the home of Mingo White, Sr. The group eventually planned to rent a store for use as a church. The…

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Dr. A.W. Davis and his wife had a home built called Shady Dell in 1920. The home is located across from where his former office stood. Dr. Davis was the first black physician in northwest Alabama. He arrived in Tuscumbia in 1903. He practiced…

The Thompson and Son Funeral home was originally built in 1912 for a doctor and his family. The Thompson family along with Tim Ricks converted the house into a funeral home. Ricks left the business in 1922. The house was then renamed Thompson’s…

St. Paul African Methodist Church was established in the early 1840s. A group of African Americans from a congregation called First Methodist left to form what is now known as the St. Paul African American Methodist Church. The original name of the…

The church is located near Lagrange College and the home of Abraham Ricks. The church no longer holds regular services. A former slave, Parson George Ricks, established the church. After gaining his freedom, Parson Ricks took work as a cotton picker.…

Ococoposa, also known as Cold Water, was the site of a French trading post and was the home of Chickasaws and the Cherokees. The Chickasaw’s lived at the top of a hill near the Ocacapoosa spring. The Cherokees lived in the western portion of the…

Oka Kapassa festival is a festival held every year to remember the Native American presence in Tuscumbia. The festival is allows visitors to learn about Native American culture both past and present during. The festival is free to the public on both…

This popular festival pays tribute to America’s “First Lady of Courage” with four days of activities: parade, fine art & craft show, art exhibits, Keller Kids, staged musical entertainment, history programs and tours, two performances of “The…

The African Heritage Festival provides an opportunity to explore African culture – art, fashion, craft, music, dance, food. It is held annually on the 1st Saturday in June. Admission is free. The event is held at the Willie Green Center at 609 S.…

The Muscle Shoals Street Rod Festival is held every year in Spring Park, Tuscumbia, Alabama. It is a show of over 200 gleaming street rods and classics dating from 1972 and older. The festival is held on the 1st Sat. in June. Admission is free.

Lesley Temple CME church is a Methodist church first formed in 1880 under Pastor Lesley. The church was first located at a site called Gin Hill on what used to be Highway 43. The church was rebuilt in 1927. Because building paper which was placed on…

In December of 1938 the small school of Melrose, at the foot of Colbert Mountain, burned.  Interim classes were held at Colbert Heights Baptist Church while the new school located at the present site of Colbert Heights High School was built.  The…

In December of 1938 the small school of Melrose at the foot of Colbert Mountain burned.  Interim classes were held at Colbert Heights Baptist Church until construction was complete at the present site of Colbert Heights High School. The name was…

New Bethel Elementary is part of the Colbert County School System. New Bethel was built on its present site in 1915. The original structure was a two room wood constructed building. The original building burned in February, 1924. A new building was…

The current Deshler High School was opened in 1950 on the site of the antebellum Winston plantation located across the Commons from the Deshler Stadium. In 1954, Tuscumbia added a cafeteria, auditorium, and Junior High building. In 1966, work began…

Deshler High School was built in 1924 on the location of the former Deshler Female Institute. The school lasted until 1950 when the city opened the present Deshler High School on the site of the antebellum Winston plantation located across the…

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The Deshler Female Institute was named in memory of Brigadier General James Deshler. The land and building, previously a home, was donated on December 6, 1871 by James Deshler’s father, Major David Deshler. David wanted to donate the land and home…

The Tuscumbia Female Academy was also known as the Tuscumbia Female Seminary. It was established around 1825-26, as a means of education for women. The Academy was destroyed by arson between 2 and 3 a.m. on the morning of September 13, 1868. It was…

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Cane Creek is a privately owned nature preserve cooperating with the Nature Conservancy of Alabama. This is a 9.1 mile out and back hiking trail near Tuscumbia. The main feature of the trail is the waterfall. The trail has a moderate hiking rating…

Former members of the Church of Christ in the Ricks community originally founded the High Street Church of Christ. The congregation first met in the home of one of its members to worship. The congregation continued to grow and moved to the Art…

This church was located close to what is now downtown Tuscumbia. The original buildings were cotton gins sheds. It has been said that these cotton gin sheds were used as a church as far back as the year 1870. The church served as a place of worship…

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Trenholm High School, which is located on Trenholm Memorial Drive, was the last African-American High School in Tuscumbia, Alabama before desegregation.

The school, which opened in 1870 and closed in 1969, was subsequently torn down.

A movement…

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Locust Hill, a historic home located in Tuscumbia, Alabama on the corner of Seventh and Cave streets, was built in 1823 by Col. William Winters. The large 14 room mansion stretches across nearly three-fourths of a city block and features striking…

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Colbert County was established in 1867, fourteen years before the courthouse was built. Commissioners met at a local hotel called The Horn House while the probate judge’s office was located on the second floor of a brick building on Main Street in…

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Tuscumbia's Oakwood Cemetery was mapped and designated as a burial ground in General John Coffee's 1817 survey "Plan of a Town at Coldwater Spring," and the cemetery's oldest burial dates from 1821. Hundreds of military veterans are buried in…

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Tuscumbia merchant Clark T. Barton began building what would become the William Winston House around 1835. Several years later, in 1840, planter Winston purchased the still-unfinished house and oversaw its completion. The house remained in the…

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The Tuscumbia Historic District encompasses a substantial portion of the city's 1817 street plan, including Spring Park, the North Commons, and the entirety of the Colbert County Courthouse Square Historic District, which is itself listed on the…

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One of the oldest surviving domestic structures in Tuscumbia, the John Daniel Rather House, or Locust Hill, was built in 1823 for planter William Hooe and his wife, Catherine Winter. It was occupied briefly during the Civil War by Union troops under…

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The Oaks, also known as the Abraham Ricks Plantation, is actually two houses in one: a one-and-a-half story log building connected to a two-story late-Georgian plantation home by a one-story dining room. The log structure, which predates its Georgian…

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Situated on the corner of North Main Street and Second Street in Tuscumbia, the Felix Grundy Norman House is one of the few single-story Greek-revival-style cottages remaining in a city where such structures were once commonplace. The house was…

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Johnson's Woods in Tuscumbia is one of the earliest surviving examples of Classical Revival-style architecture in the Tennessee Valley, and is among "the best preserved collections of mid-nineteenth-century agricultural architecture" in the state of…

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The 22 buildings which comprise Tuscumbia's Colbert County Courthouse Square Historic District reflect a broad range of architectural styles, including Victorian, Gothic, and Greek Revival. The most distinctive architectural example is the courthouse…

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A one-and-a-half-story "Southern Viriginian" frame cottage located at 300 West North Commons in Tuscumbia, Ivy Green is significant for being the birthplace and childhood home of Helen Keller. It was during her infancy at Ivy Green that illness…

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The John and Archibald Christian House in Tuscumbia was built during the 1830s as a residence for two brothers from Virgina, who, like many natives of the Piedmont region during the mid-19th-century, relocated to North Alabama. It is particularly…

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A rare Southern example of architectural "Jeffersonian Classicism," the Belmont plantation house was completed in 1835 as a residence for Isaac Winston, a successful and wealthy planter who would, in his sixties, volunteer for service in the…
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