Tuscumbia Historic District | |
Location | Roughly bounded by N. & E. Commons, Eight St. and Spring Rd., Hooks, W. 5th & S. Milton including Steel Bridge, Tuscumbia, Alabama |
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Coordinates | 34°43′59″N87°41′57″W / 34.73306°N 87.69917°W |
Area | 232 acres (94 ha) |
NRHP reference No. | 85001158 [1] |
Added to NRHP | May 23, 1985 |
The Tuscumbia Historic District is a historic district in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. The district contains 461 contributing properties and covers about 232 acres (94 ha) of the town's original area. The first white settlers in Tuscumbia built a village next to Big Spring, at the site of what is today Spring Park. Many settlers, many from Virginia and Maryland, began to emigrate to The Shoals in the 1820s and 1830s. The oldest houses in the district are Tidewater-type cottages, a style native to the Middle Atlantic. Also built during the town's early period are some of the oldest commercial buildings in Alabama, including the Morgan-Donilan Building (built 1825) and a seven-building block known as Commercial Row (built in the mid-1830s). The town's economy declined in the 1840s, when many farmers left seeking more fertile soil, through the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Recovery came in the 1880s and 1890s, driven by industrial development in neighboring Sheffield. The majority of commercial buildings date from the 1880s through the 1930s, while residential buildings of the period display styles such as Queen Anne, Folk Victorian, Bungalow, and Tudor Revival. Other notable buildings in the district include the Colbert County Courthouse, built in 1909; St. John's Episcopal Church, built in 1852 as one of the earliest Carpenter Gothic churches in Alabama; and Deshler Stadium, a Works Projects Administration project completed in 1941. [2]
The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985. [1]
Colbert County is a county located in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census the county's population was 57,227. The county seat is Tuscumbia. The largest city is Muscle Shoals.
Tuscumbia is a city in, and the county seat of Colbert County, Alabama, United States. The population was 9,054 at the 2020 census, and was estimated to be 9,169 in 2023. The city is part of The Shoals metropolitan area.
Courtland is a town in Lawrence County, Alabama, United States, and is included in the Decatur Metropolitan Area, as well as the Huntsville-Decatur Combined Statistical Area. The population was 609 at the 2010 census, down from 769 in 2000.
Ivy Green is a historic house museum at 300 West North Commons in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. Built in 1820, it was the birthplace and childhood home of Helen Keller (1880–1968), who became well known after overcoming deaf-blind conditions to communicate; she became an author and public speaker. Designated as a National Historic Landmark, it is now operated as a museum honoring and interpreting Keller's life.
Belle Mont is a historic Jeffersonian-style plantation house near Tuscumbia in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 23, 1982, due to its architectural significance.
The Southington Center Historic District is a National Register of Historic Places district covering a major portion of the center of Southington, Connecticut. The area includes a considerable number of resources, many of which are buildings, commercial, governmental, religious and residential, but the list also includes monuments, and the town green. The district was added to the National Register in 1989.
104–128 South Side Square is a block of historic commercial buildings in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. The block, known as "Commercial Row" in the late 1800s, consists of fifteen two- and three-story buildings constructed between 1835 and 1912. 108, built in 1835 as a store for the Bell Factory textile mill, and 110, built in 1840, are the oldest buildings on the block but both have been extensively modified. 106, 112, 114, and 116 were all built in the 1880s in Italianate style; 118 was also built at this time but damaged by fire in 1901 and rebuilt without many of its original details. 128, built in 1896, is a transitional style between Italianate and the more restrained, 20th century Commercial Brick style. 104, 120, 122, and 124–126 were all built between 1903 and 1912 in the later commercial style. 122 was extensively renovated in 1965 with a modern façade. 124 and 126 have housed the Harrison Brothers hardware store since they were built in 1902; the store opened in another building on the square in 1897, and has been operated by the Historic Huntsville Foundation since 1984. At the time of the nomination, 100 had its original Italianate features covered or removed; it has since been restored, including a balcony wrapping around the façade and halfway down the Madison Street side of the building. The buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The Courtland Historic District is a historic district in Courtland, Alabama. Courtland was founded in 1818 and incorporated the following year. Its location was chosen to be close to the Tennessee River to facilitate transportation, but also close to cotton plantations to the south. The town's founders envisioned becoming the county seat of the newly formed Lawrence County, but the title instead went to Moulton. Many of the earliest structures in Courtland were built of logs, and were later replaced with frame and brick buildings. Development plateaued by 1830, but received a slight bump from the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad beginning in 1834. The oldest houses in the district date from this era, including the 1828 Federal-style John McMahon House and several I-houses.
The Florence Downtown Historic District is a historic district in Florence, Alabama. Florence was founded in 1818 by the Cypress Land Company, who counted among its trustees Creek War General John Coffee, future Governor of Alabama Thomas Bibb, early Huntsville settler LeRoy Pope, and future United States Senator and Supreme Court Justice John McKinley. The company hired Italian surveyor Ferdinand Sannoner, who divided the land into over 400 lots and named the town after Florence, Italy. The first Lauderdale County Courthouse was completed in 1822, and the oldest extant building in the district, the Gothic Revival First Presbyterian Church, was completed two years later. Most of the early buildings were destroyed by a fire in 1866. Development resumed in earnest in the 1880s as Florence's industrial economy developed with the addition of several cotton mills, and the Florence Wagon Works, among others. Other booms occurred in the 1920s with the construction of Wilson Dam, the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s, and during World War II as metals and chemical plants were drawn to the area.
The John and Archibald Christian House is a historic residence near Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. The house was built in the 1830s by brothers John and Archibald Christian, who were among a group of settlers from the Piedmont region of Virginia who came to Tuscumbia in the 1820s and 1830s. The family had left the house by the 1860s, and in the late 19th century, it was the home of Governor Robert B. Lindsay. In the 1900s, the house was the center of a dairy farm, before it and the surrounding 50 acres were acquired by the Tennessee Valley Country Club in 1923. The country club uses the house as a social meeting area and caretaker's quarters.
The Colbert County Courthouse Square Historic District is a historic district in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. It contains 22 buildings and residences centered on the Colbert County Courthouse.
Johnson's Woods is a historic plantation house in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. The house was built in 1837 on land purchased by George W. Carroll in 1828. A settler from Maryland, Carroll became the county's wealthiest planter by 1850. Between 1855 and 1860, he moved to Arkansas, selling his plantation to William Mhoon. Upon Mhoon's death in 1869, the plantation passed to William A. Johnson, a former Tennessee River steamboat operator and Confederate Army soldier. In addition to farming, Johnson also revived his steamboat business, traded cotton in Memphis, and opened a mercantile business in Tuscumbia. After his death in 1891 and his wife's in 1905, the land passed to his son, John W. Johnson.
The Oaks is a historic residence near Tuscumbia in Colbert County, Alabama, United States. Ricks came to North Alabama from Halifax, North Carolina, in the early 1820s. He acquired a large plantation which he sold in 1826 and purchased nearby land, which was worked by the forced labour of enslaved people who he had brought with him. A log house had been built on the new property circa 1818, and Ricks built a new, larger house connected to it which was completed in 1832. The house remained in the family until 1966, and is still in use as a private residence.
The John Daniel Rather House is a historic residence in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. The house was built in 1823 by William H. and Catherine Winter, who came to The Shoals from Prince William County, Virginia. It was taken over by the Union Army during the Civil War and used as the headquarters of General Florence M. Cornyn. After the war, the house was purchased by John Taylor Rather, an early North Alabama settler who was deputy sheriff of Madison County, and a longtime member of the Alabama House of Representatives and later the Alabama Senate. His son, John Daniel Rather, also served in both houses of the state legislature, and was President of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad.
The Tuscumbia Landing Site is a historic port site in Sheffield, Alabama, United States. The landing was established in 1824 at the mouth of Spring Creek on the Tennessee River. As large craft could not navigate Spring Creek to reach Tuscumbia, the landing was built to transfer goods to and from the town. The New Orleans and Tuscumbia Steamboat Company was created in 1825, and connected The Shoals with towns on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. Wagons were used to haul goods between the landing and the town until a horse-drawn railroad, the first railroad west of the Appalachian Mountains, was built from 1831 to 1832. The line was later extended to Decatur in 1834, bypassing the treacherous shoals on the Tennessee River, and was renamed the Tuscumbia, Courtland and Decatur Railroad. The landing was also a stop for many Muscogee and Cherokee along the Trail of Tears.
The William Winston House is a historic residence in Tuscumbia, Alabama, United States. Construction was begun in the early 1800s by merchant Clark T. Barton and finished in 1824 by planter William Winston. Winston's son, John A. Winston, was Governor of Alabama from 1854 until 1857; Winston's daughter married another Governor, Robert B. Lindsay. The house remained in the family until 1948, when it was sold to the city, which constructed a new campus for Deshler High School around the house.
The Main Street Commercial District is a historic district in Dothan, Alabama. The district covers 18 acres and portions of 6 blocks in Dothan's historic commercial district. At the time of the nomination, it contained 68 contributing properties, however many have been demolished in the intervening years.
The Weston Village Historic District encompasses the town center and principal village of Weston, Vermont. Centered on Farrar Park, which serves as the town green, it includes a diversity of architectural styles from the late 18th century to about 1935, and includes residential, civic, commercial, industrial and religious buildings. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
The East Commerce Street Historic District is a historic district in Greenville, Alabama, United States. The district contains Greenville's oldest commercial buildings, as well as the Butler County Courthouse. The first courthouse on the site was built in 1822; the current, fourth, courthouse was completed in 1903. The commercial buildings date from the 1880s through 1928 and are primarily vernacular brick structures. A fire in 1927 destroyed many buildings along Commerce Street. A National Guard Armory was built south of the courthouse, on Conecuh Street, by the Works Progress Administration in 1936.