Johnson's Woods

Johnson's Woods

Colbert County, Alabama; Tuscumbia, Alabama; Johnson's Woods; Architecture; National Register of Historic Places; Historic American Buildings Survey

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 Alabama. It was commissioned by one of Colbert County's earliest and most successful large-scale planters, Maryland-born George W. Carroll, and constructed between 1835 and 1837. Two decades later, Carroll relocated to Arkansas and sold the plantation to William Mahoon. Upon Mahoon's death in 1869, the estate passed to Colonel William A. Johnson, who had operated a steamboat along the Tennessee River before enlisting in the Confederate army and serving as an aide to General Nathan Bedford Forrest.

In addition to the main house, the 160-acre plantation complex includes eight outbuildings, all of which survive and contribute to the property's historic significance: a smokehouse, a plantation office, a cotton shed, a barn, a corn crib, a carriage house, a commissary, and an animal shelter.

Johnson's Woods was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

Brian Corrigan, University of North Alabama

National Register of Historic Places, Johnson's Woods, Tuscumbia, Colbert County, Alabama, National Register #88000511.

Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS AL-322, http://loc.gov/pictures/item/al0086 (accessed November 9, 2015).

Alabama Cultural Resource Survey

November 9, 2015

text, image