July, 1820: A land  office was established in Tuscaloosa (clipping from the July 1, 1820 NEW BERN SENTINEL)

from the December 19, 1820 Nashville Clarion and Tennessee State Gazette

JUNE, 1821:

In a letter to his wife dated "Tuscaloosa, 2nd June, 1821," William Ely (1767-1847), land agent for the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb,  bragged that, "The population now may be from 6 to 800 souls, not one of whom, except a few to whom I sold land since I came here, have any title to the land they live on."

Ely sold the section west of Tuscaloosa to a group of investors and they were selling lots in Newtown ten  months before Tuscaloosa property went up for sale.

"As dates on steroids, anniversaries permit us toOn consider the local and the global at the same time. Historians often choose major anniversaries as ways of reassessing and mobilizing interest in the past. As Pierre Nora observed, national anniversaries are sites of memory; they have served as a key indication of how modern nations recognize their histories. Some historians use anniversaries to highlight studies of a particular event, while others study the anniversaries themselves, analyzing them as a window into the popular commemoration of history."

THE FIRST SENTENCE FROM THE APPLICATION FOR THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES DESIGNATION FOR DOWNTOWN TUSCALOOSA READS: "The Downtown Tuscaloosa Historic District is located in the north central section of the city near the Black Warrior River and was a part of the original U.S. Government survey of 1821. It is bounded on the north by the railroad and a natural ravine. The district is laid out in a typical high density grid iron pattern at the intersection of two of the broadest streets in the city, Greensboro Ave. and University Blvd., each of which measures 132 feet in width. Although this section of the city has historic ties with the early 19th century, none of the buildings from that period are still standing, and the majority of the structures date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. "

Imagine this headline in newspapers on Friday, October 29, 2021:

PAUL W. BRYANT DRIVE 200 YEARS OLD TODAY!

Every street and town lot in the original city of Tuscaloosa turns 200 years old this week.

On Friday, October 29, 2021, Tuscaloosa will experience an anniversary that has never had a popular commemoration in all of the town's history. Friday will be the 200th anniversary of an American citizen being allowed to own a piece of T-town dirt. On Monday, October 29, 1821, private land ownership in the original city of Tuscaloosa began. When the sun comes up this Friday, every street and town lot in Tuscaloosa will experience it's 200th birthday.

There are no buildings standing in Tuscaloosa which witnessed this event and all we have to show for it are our present-day streets, the boundaries of our town lots and the graves of the men and women who occupied them two centuries ago.

Tuscaloosa's first settlers arrived in 1816 but the land of the town was not legally ready to be sold until the fall of 1821. By 1821, probably as many as 600 souls lived in log cabins and shacks constructed by driving logs into the ground and nailing vertical planks on the outside of them. These structures were randomly scattered along the crest of River Hill from present-day 28th Avenue down to about 23rd Avenue. For the first five years of its life as a town, Tuscaloosa's citizens were all squatters. The section of land they lived upon had been reserved from public sale by an act of Congress passed the same day that the Alabama Territory was established on March 3, 1817. It took over 4 years for President James Monroe to order the survey of Section 22 of Township 21 South, Range 10 West.

From the May 12, 1899 TUSCALOOSA WEEKLY TIMES: "At last, in the spring of 1821, after long and impatient waiting by the citizens, the town of Tuscaloosa was laid off and the lots sold at public sale. The earliest deed of a lot that I find on record is dated October 31, 1821. William Toxey sells to Cincinattus Lacy, 'the east half of lot 109 in the town of Tuscaloosa, which adjoins Lot 108, as by reference to a plan of said town will now presently appear.' " ~ Dr W. S. Wyman

How appropriate that the first town lot that was sold at auction on October 29 and subdivided two days later would be the only one which was unaltered by the town plan of Tuscaloosa. In fact, the entire street grid of the town is based upon the angle of the western half of LOT 109, the northeast corner of present-day Greensboro Avenue (Market Street) and University Boulevard (Main or Broad Street), the present-day location of the old 1st National Bank building.

In 1817, Fractional Section 22 was reserved from public sale by an act that passed Congress on the same day another act of Congress created the ALABAMA TERRITORY. (from the May 12, 1899 TUSCALOOSA WEEKLY TIMES)

from the October 16, 1821 MISSISSIPPI FREE TRADER (Natchez)