This article attempts to list the oldest extant buildings in the state of Alabama in the United States. Some dates are approximate and based upon dendochronology, architectural studies, and historical records. The area that is now Alabama was originally inhabited by Native Americans. The settlement of Mobile began in 1702 as the first capital of the colony of French Louisiana, and the region was colonized and traded between French, British, Spanish, and American forces during the 1700s. No documented buildings remain standing in the state from this period, though Fort Toulouse has been accurately reconstructed. There is one remaining example nearby, the 1757 french colonial LaPointe-Krebs House in Pascagoula, Mississippi. The oldest existing structures within the state reflect a wave of American settlement into the Tennessee River valley, including the establishment of Huntsville in 1805.
To be listed here a site must:
Building | Image | Location | First built | Type | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mississippian Mounds, e.g. Moundville | Throughout state | 800–1600 | Earthen mounds | Though no original Native American buildings remain above ground, a number of constructed platform mounds have been preserved including the 58 ft tall Mound B at the Moundville Site. | |
Joel Eddins House | Huntsville | 1808 | House | The oldest documented building in the state. This European American influenced log cabin was moved from Ardmore, Alabama to its current location at Burritt on the Mountain museum in 2007. [1] [2] | |
Jude-Crutcher House | Huntsville | 1812 | House | Second oldest building and oldest surviving log dogtrot style house in the state. The breezeway has been enclosed and the exterior is now covered in clapboard. [3] [4] 2132 Winchester Rd NW, Huntsville AL, 35810 | |
Poplar Grove (LeRoy Pope House) | Huntsville | 1813 | House | The third oldest building in the state, and the oldest masonry building in the state. Constructed by LeRoy Pope, the "Father of Huntsville", and visited by General Andrew Jackson on his return from the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. [5] The original federal style facade has seen the later addition of a Greek Revival portico. | |
Urquhart House | Huntsville | 1813 | House | Tied with Poplar Grove as third oldest building in the state. Vacant. [6] 199 Routt Rd, Toney, Alabama, 35773 | |
Perkins-Winston House | Huntsville | 1815 | House | Early Huntsville home. [7] | |
William Reed House | Birmingham | 1816 | House | Early homestead. [8] [9] 888 Twin Lake Dr NE Birmingham, AL 35215, United States | |
Hill of Howth | Boligee | 1816 | House | Early homestead. [10] | |
Rev Thomas Newton House | Ashville | 1817 | House | Early homestead. [11] [12] Barton Lane, Asheville AL 35953, United States | |
Lucas Tavern (Old Alabama Town) | Montgomery | 1818 | Tavern/Inn | Oldest surviving tavern in the state and the oldest building in the city of Montgomery. It is famous for hosting the Marquis de Lafayette during his 1825 trip through Alabama. Now stands at Old Alabama Town. [13] | |
John Looney House | Ashville | 1818 | House | The oldest two story dogtrot house in the state. [14] | |
Cedarwood | Moundville | 1818 | House | Possibly the earliest surviving plantation in the black belt region of Alabama. Restored and relocated to The University of West Alabama in Livingston . [15] [16] | |
Hickman Cabin (Joseph Wheeler Plantation) | Wheeler | 1818 | House | A log dogtrot home. [17] | |
Erskine House | Huntsville | 1818 | House | Early Huntsville home. [18] 517 Franklin St SE, Huntsville, AL 35801, United States | |
Phelps-Jones House | Huntsville | 1818 | House | Early Huntsville home. [19] | |
The Molett House | Orrville | 1819 | House | The oldest house in Alabama owned and occupied by the family that built it. It is also documented in the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), 1934. | |
Sadler House | McCalla | 1819 | House | This home may have originally consisted of an circa 1819 log pen that was later expanded upon. [20] | |
Weeden House | Huntsville | 1819 | House | Early Huntsville home. [21] | |
McGuire-Strickland House | Tuscaloosa | 1820 | House | The oldest building in the city of Tuscaloosa. [22] | |
Goode–Hall House | Town Creek | 1824 | House | This Tennessee Valley plantation house is one of the deep South's outstanding expressions of Jeffersonian Palladian architecture. [23] | |
G&J Sutherland Store | Tuscumbia | 1824 | Store | Possibly the state's oldest surviving commercial building. The white building in the picture, its exterior details have been changed with time. [24] | |
Masonic Lodge #3 | Perdue Hill | 1824 | Courthouse/Masonic Lodge | Former courthouse and Masonic lodge originally built in Claiborne, one of early Alabama's largest settlements. Visited and reportedly dedicated by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825 during his tour of the United States. Moved to its present location in Perdue Hill in 1884. [25] [26] | |
Indian Springs Baptist Church | McWilliams | 1825 | Church | Possibly the state's oldest surviving religious building. [27] [28] Indian Springs Road, Beatrice, AL 36425, United States | |
Old Rock Jail | Rockford | 1825 | Jail | The state's oldest jail. [29] | |
Lassiter House | Autaugaville | 1825 | House | One of the state's earliest examples of the I-house form. [30] | |
Vincent-Doan House | Mobile | 1827 | House | The state's oldest surviving example of French colonial influenced architecture and the oldest building in the city of Mobile. [31] | |
John McMahon House | Courtland | 1828 | House | Architecturally significant example of an early Alabama Federal-style structure that reflects the carryover of Atlantic Seaboard architectural forms introduced by Virginia settlers. [32] | |
Bride's Hill | Wheeler | 1828 | House | Oldest surviving example of a Tidewater-type cottage in Alabama. Vacant. | |
Dancy-Polk House | Decatur | 1829 | House | Oldest building in the city of Decatur. [33] | |
Collins-Marston House | Mobile | 1832 | House | Possibly the state's oldest surviving example of a creole cottage style house. [34] | |
Old State Bank | Decatur | 1833 | Bank | The first state bank and oldest bank building in the state. [30] | |
Barton Academy | Mobile | 1836 | School | The first public school in the state of Alabama. [35] | |
Somerville Courthouse | Somerville | 1837 | Courthouse | The oldest surviving masonry courthouse in the state. [36] The structure bears much resemblance to the first Alabama state house, once located in Cahawba. | |
Arlington Antebellum Home & Gardens | Birmingham | 1845 | House | The oldest building in the city of Birmingham. [37] | |
Langdon Hall | Auburn | 1846 | Church | The oldest building in the city of Auburn. [38] | |
Old Shelby County Courthouse | Columbiana | 1854 | Courthouse | Original courthouse for the county of Shelby County, replaced by a larger marble courthouse in 1908. The structure still stands and is currently the Shelby County Museum and Archives. [39] | |
Bryce Hospital | Tuscaloosa | 1861 | Mental Health Institution | Alabama's first and oldest state mental health facility. | |
Rickwood Field | Birmingham | 1910 | Baseball park | The oldest surviving professional baseball park in the United States. [30] |
Issac Bett House, Burnt Corn Alabama [40]
The existing house once located at 308 Conti Street (now moved) in Mobile may contain portions of a 1796 structure. [41]
Sandy Hill Plantation
The Oaks
Shelby Hotel
Huntsville is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is the county seat of Madison County with portions extending into Limestone County and Morgan County. It is located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama.
Cahaba, also spelled Cahawba, was the first permanent state capital of Alabama from 1820 to 1825. It was the county seat of Dallas County, Alabama until 1866. Located at the confluence of the Alabama and Cahaba rivers, the town endured regular seasonal flooding.
Ellicott's Stone, also known as the Ellicott Stone, is a boundary marker in northern Mobile County, Alabama. It was placed on April 10, 1799, by a joint U.S.-Spanish survey party headed by Andrew Ellicott. It was designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1968 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on April 11, 1973.
Noble Hall, also known as the Frazer-Brown-Pearson Home, is a historic Greek Revival style plantation house in Auburn, Alabama. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 24, 1972.
The Mount Vernon Arsenal is a former United States Army munitions depot (arsenal), was used as a prison for captured Native Americans, and was served as a psychiatric hospital. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Mount Vernon, Alabama. The site is home to the now closed Searcy Hospital. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 26, 1988, as the Mount Vernon Arsenal-Searcy Hospital Complex.
Dallas Mill was a manufacturer of cotton sheeting in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. The first of four major textile mills in Huntsville, the mill operated from 1891 until 1949, before it was converted for use as a warehouse in 1955 and burned in 1991. The village, constructed to house workers and their families, was incorporated into the city in 1955. The mill and its mill village are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
This is a list of media in the Mobile, Alabama metropolitan area.
Glenville is an unincorporated community in Russell County, Alabama, United States which used to be in Barbour County. During the Civil War, Company "H" of the 15th Regiment Alabama Infantry was raised from Barbour and Dale counties and called the "Glenville Guards". The Glennville Historic District, containing the antebellum core of the community, is a historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Henry C. Dudley (1813–1894), known also as Henry Dudley, was an English-born North American architect, known for his Gothic Revival churches. He was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects and designed a large number of churches, among them Saint Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Syracuse, New York, built in 1884, and Trinity Church, completed in 1858.
The Bragg–Mitchell Mansion, also known as the Bragg–Mitchell House, is a historic house museum in Mobile, Alabama. It was built in 1855 by Judge John Bragg and is one of the most photographed buildings in the city as well as one of the more popular tourist attractions. The house has been attributed to John's brother, a local Alabama architect, Alexander J. Bragg.
Thornhill is a historic plantation near Forkland, Alabama. The Greek Revival main house was built in 1833 by James Innes Thornton. The house was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 10, 1984.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the U.S. state of Alabama:
Antebellum architecture is the neoclassical architectural style characteristic of the 19th-century Southern United States, especially the Deep South, from after the birth of the United States with the American Revolution, to the start of the American Civil War. Antebellum architecture is especially characterized by Georgian, Neo-classical, and Greek Revival style homes and mansions. These plantation houses were built in the southern American states during roughly the thirty years before the American Civil War; approximately between the 1830s to 1860s.
This is a list of the 26 multiple property submissions on the National Register of Historic Places in Alabama. They contain more than 288 individual listings of the more than 1,200 on the National Register in the state.
Greenwood, also known as the Green–Woodruff House, is a historic Antebellum plantation house in Alexandria, Alabama, U.S.. It was once part of the Greenwood Plantation, which had been worked by enslaved people. Some six generations of the Green–Woodruff family owned the house.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link){{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)