Thursday, August 20, 2020



 I have identified 6 demolished buildings in this image. #1 is in the left corner, Prince House #1(University Masonic Club) located where the Shell station now stands on the Strip; #2 is to right of it in the middle of the next block parallel to Huntsville Road, Prince House #2 which was located on 7th Street about half-way down the block west of 15th Avenue; #3 is the large red brick structure at the top right of the image, Verner High School. It was located just east of the intersection of 16th Avenue and Bryant Drive; #4 is Alonzo Hill's Female College near the middle of the image labeled "8" and to the right of the name "East Margin". It was located near the southeast corner of the intersection of Queen City and University; #5 is next door to the girl's college on the corner of Broad(University Boulevard) and East Margin Street (Queen City Boulevard) are the buildings associated with Hill's Corner which included a residence and a Christian Church. #6 is the Buck House, present-day 1818 University Boulevard, on the northeast corner of Broad Street (University Boulevard) and Bear Street(19th Avenue) . A dependency for this house still stands at the intersection of 19th Avenue and University Blvd. I have also identified 14 buildings in this image that are still standing.The 14 buildings still standing in 2019 which are pictured on this 1887 image include #1. Ormond Little House (c. 1835) 325 Queen City. It can be seen as the brick building midway along the left border of the image just to the left of the street name "East Margin". #2 University Club (c. 1834) 421 Queen City is to the right of it. #3. Jones House (c. 1833), 1804 4th Street, on this image is across East Margin from Ormand Little and it was a two-story structure in 1887. #4. Buck Carriage House (c. 1854) 1818 University Boulevard is behind the Buck House in this image that once stood on the northeast corner of "Bear St." (19th Ave.) and "Broad" (Univ. Blvd.) #5. Guild-Verner House (c. 1822) is the red brick building across "Bear St." from the Buck House in this image. #6. Owen-Free House (c. 1826) 1817 3rd Street is a part of a complex of buildings on the right side of the square in this image occupied by #3~Jones House. #7. Moody-Warner House (1822) 1925 8th Street is toward the upper right corner of this image one block above the title "Union Street" (7th St.). #8. Jemison-Brandon-Waugh (c. 1840) 1005 17th Ave. is in the upper right corner of this image. #9. Marmaduke Williams House (c. 1835) 907 17th Ave. is to the left of #8. #10. Foster-Murfee-Caples House (c. 1838) 815 17th Avenue is the large house with the circular drive which is to the left of #9. You can see a line of tenant houses proceeding to the left of #10. To the right of this line of what were originally slave quarters is #11. McEachin-Little House (c. 1842) 709 Queen City. Across the street to the left of #11 is #12. Turner-McAlpin-Fellows House (c. 1840) 621 Queen City Avenue. #13. Jemison-Wilbourne House (c. 1870) 1904 7th Street has not been identified on this image but structures on "Union Street" are present where it should be located on this map. The same thing goes with #14. Palmer-Deal House (c. 1866) 1902 8th Street has not been identified on the image but should be among the structures pictured across the street from #7.Moody-Warner House.



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."

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