Hill's Corner

 I had a dream come true yesterday and it may be the key to progress in identifying every Tuscaloosa building on artist Henry Wellge's 1887 panoramic map distributed by Tuscaloosa Coal, Iron and Land Company. The identification of two buildings on the southeast corner of University Boulevard and Queen City Avenue may have produced a paradigm shift which will push the identification effort forward. I began posting images of the 1887 panoramic map on Facebook simply to try to get more information from Facebook participants. That has happened from the very beginning and I've done my best to collect and share all the information about each building I receive but what happened yesterday was different. All the information I'd previously received from Facebook members pertained to buildings I had already identified. Yesterday, for the first time, David Veal identified a completely unknown demolished building.  David was a member of the YOU MIGHT BE FROM TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA IF YOU KNOW Facebook group. David believed that during the 20th Century his family members occupied the same buildings depicted on that corner in 1887. I believe he is correct. That corner of Queen City and University across from the U Club was known to Tuscaloosa folks as HILL'S CORNER. After the 230 feet along University and 98+ feet on Queen City  was sold in 1910, the buildings were occupied by J.D. Henderson of Henderson Lumber Company. In 1927 Henderson turned the house on the corner over rent free to First Baptist and they ran an early version of the Baptist Student Union out of it. The rectangular building behind the corner house was a Christian Church. In researching this, I discovered that prior to giving Tuscaloosa's streets numbers and assigning address numbers to each house, many city block corners had proper names such as "Dr. Williamson's Corner" and "The Davis-Leach Corner."

October 23, 1908 Tuscaloosa News