Sulligent Post Office
Post office buildings
The man in the doorway is Green Bankhead, post master and brother of Sen. John Hollis Bankhead. The man next to him, leaning against the building is Clyde Oldshue.
Tuscaloosa News Archive
Betty Slowe (Description)
220
Pickens County (AL)
First Coker Tomato Club, 1916
Rural conditions
Clubs
Rural families
4-H clubs
Rural reformers developed tomato clubs for girls in the early 1900s. The club got girls interested in home economics which would benefit them when they became rural mothers. Keeping girls up to date with the latest advances relating to the home would in turn improve family life. These clubs led to 4-H Clubs.
Tuscaloosa News Archive
1916
Jennifer Spraggins (Description)
Photograph
269
Tuscaloosa County (AL)
Cabaniss Grocery in Samantha, circa 1963
Grocers
Cabaniss Grocery store, constructed of native stone, stood at the corner of Hwy. 43 North and Northside Road in northern Tuscaloosa County. Visiting out front are John Manley Cabiniss, George Nelson, Oscar Cabaniss, Virgil Spencer, Buck Savage and Wordner Duncan. The store replaced one that was once part of the Stagecoach Exchange at what was then called 'Marcumville'. The Crossroad Grocery stands on the site now.
Cabaniss Grocery was renamed Cabaniss and Sons after John Manley Cabiness took over from his father,Oscar Cabaniss.
Circa 1963
John Harris (Description)
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
343
Tuscaloosa County (AL)
Buhl Service Station
Businesses
This station belonged to O.M. Davis, who lived behind the station. The pump on the left was for oil. A quart glass container was provided; the customer pumped out a quart and poured it into his car. The gas pump is in the middle. On the right is a pump that dispensed kerosene (coal oil) for lamps. The customer brought in a container and could pump a gallon of the kerosene into it.
Bruce Davis
Circa 1925
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
556
Tuscaloosa County (AL)
Samantha Group
Two horse and buggies stand in front of the Richard R. Thomson home on Tierce Patton Road in Samantha. Mr. Thomson owned land on both sides of the river. He had five sons and a daughter. Hurdis Thomson (married to Nannie Mae Kirk), James Robert Thomson (married Ruth Darman), William J. "Bill" Thomson (married Attie Bell Kimbrell), Randolph Thomson (married Gladys Booth), and Bailey (married Zelda Kimbrell). The daughter Lilia Thomson married E. L. Hendrix.
Bill and Attie Bell Thomson moved to Pickens County where they farmed near Aliceville. Their son, Bailey Thomson, was an associate professor in journalism and an advocate of constitutional reform in Alabama until his death at 54 in 2003.
Jemison Van de Graaff Foundation
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
603
Tuscaloosa County (AL)
Pickensville Stagecoach Inn
Stagecoach Inn
The Pickensville Stagecoach Inn was constructed about 1820 and located along the Old Columbus Road. It is thought to be the oldest surviving structure in the small town of Pickensville, the former seat of government in Pickens County, and once a thriving city. It had a large boat landing on the Tombigbee River and it was the main port for most of the river commerce in the area. A stagecoach ran twice weekly between Columbus and Tuscaloosa, going through Carrollton, Reform, and Gordo also.
Betty Slowe
Betty Slowe
September, 2020
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
663
Pickens County (AL)
Williams Hotel, Gordo, AL
Gordo, Alabama--History
Historic hotels
Hotels
The Willams Hotel was located on Main Street in Gordo, Alabama.
Settlement of the town of Gordo, located on U.S. Hwy 82, 23 miles west of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in east-central Pickens County, began before 1847. A web site, www.postalhistory.com, reports a post office in Gordo at that time. A sawmill had opened in the area in 1831.
Before the Mobile and Ohio Railroad came in 1898, Gordo was called the Crossroads settlement and was located on the stage line, a mile northeast of the city’s present location, at the intersection of the Columbus-Tuscaloosa and Fayette-Vienna Roads.
In Spanish, Gordo means fat or abundant. Speculation is that the city was named for the famous battle of Cerro-Gordo fought near Mexico City during the Mexican-American War in 1847. Cities and counties in Iowa, North Carolina and Illinois are also named after that battle.
On April 5, 1865, Union Captain William A. Southerland of Croxton’s Army and 75 men left Tuscaloosa on the Columbus Road. Southerland’s official report mentioned going through Gordo, where he met no opposition, and continued to Carrollton where the courthouse was burned.
With the railroad a reality in 1898, businesses developed near the railroad and the town moved south. On March 7, 1901, a fire broke out that destroyed several businesses before the fire could be brought under control.
The town was incorporated around 1900. The first mayor was John J. Windham.
By 1905, Gordo had grown enough to support six businesses; by 1913, that number had increased to around 30. A new brick schoolhouse was built in 1911, and by 1913, the town had a telephone system, a bank, a bottling works, and two cotton gins. An elementary school was built in 1936.
The 2010 census showed the population of Gordo to be 1714, up from 1677 in the 2000 census. The present mayor is Craig Patterson.
Town of Gordo
Circa 1930
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
1990
Pickens County (AL)
Stuart Purser Mural, Carrollton, AL
Mural painting and decoration, American
Carrollton, Alabama--History
Purser, Stuart R., 1907-1986
Bankhead, William B. (1844-1940)
United States Post Offices
The Carrollton, Alabama, Post Office and Agriculture Building was built in 1940 and is still in use as the post office today. It has a mural entitled “Farm Scene with Senator Bankhead” painted in 1943 by Stuart R. Purser. Senator William B. Bankhead (1874-1940) was the father of actress Tallulah Bankhead.
Stuart Purser was born in Arkansas but grew up in Louisiana. Despite his father’s wish that he become a medical doctor, Purser chose the life as an artist. With a bachelor of arts degree from Louisiana College in Pineville, he left for Chicago and the Chicago School of Arts with $14 in his pocket. He worked as many as four jobs at one time to graduate from the art school.
He taught for a year in Washington State before returning to Louisiana to head the art program at Louisiana College.
After returning to the South, Stuart painted four murals located in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. These were done during the Depression and funded by the U.S. Government Treasury Department to enhance public buildings. They focused on local themes.
The mural in Carrollton included the U.S. House Speaker William B. Bankhead who had helped secure funds for the project. Other murals are in post offices in Gretna. La., Leland, Ms., and Ferriday, La. The Gretna mural portrays steamboat river traffic in New Orleans. The other two feature the economy of cotton production in the South. The Leland mural shows wagons carrying cotton to the gin; the Ferriday mural shows people working the cotton gins.
Over the years, Purser taught at several universities, retiring in 1975. He died in 1986.
Betty Slowe
Jan. 22, 2016
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
2042
Pickens County (AL)
Echola School
Echola--History
The Echola School was located at the intersection of Echola and Upper Columbus Roads in the community of Echola in northwest Tuscaloosa County, Alabama..
The community was settled about 1828 and was a prosperous farming area before the Civil War. Many pioneer families that settled in the area operated extensive cotton farms, some with slave labor. Cotton became the first product for commerce from the area.
During the years before 1860 and in the early years of the 1900s, beautiful farms and farm homes were built in the area.
There were several cotton gins in Echola operated by water power or by oxen and horse power. Cotton bales were marketed in Northport, Alabama, usually hauled in oxen wagons. Years later, the cotton was carried to Northport, Gordo and Moores Bridge to be ginned.
When cotton was no longer “king,” farmers grew vegetables and dairy cattle; much of the cotton land was used to produce timber for the market. More recently, chicken houses have become prevalent in the area.
Many Indian artifacts have been found in the area around the Sipsey River, Dunn’s Creek and Cleveland Creek; it is certain that the area was home to large Indian communities.
There were several one-room schools around the Echola area. Highland, Sardis, Cleveland and Dunn’s Creek were some of them. In these schools, all ages were taught by one teacher. The students went to school for a few days after the crops were laid by but the school recessed when students were needed to help with the planting and harvesting. The children might go to school for only 3 to 4 months a year, some of them older than the teacher.
People of these communities got together to develop a consolidated school so that the students could get a better education. Community members pledged and donated money and a five-room school was built on donated land near the intersection of Echola and Upper Columbus roads. It was completed in the 1921-22 school year and had ten grades taught by five teachers. The school is shown in the photograph above. Those who wanted to graduate had to transfer to Tuscaloosa County High School or Gordo High School. Eventually used as only an elementary school for several years, the Echola School closed in 1950. The building was purchased by the community and used as a community center for many years. The long-time landmark was severely damaged by a fire in 2010 and had to be demolished.
Golden Mayfield was postmaster at Echola in 1903 when the area was named Elbert. There was another post office in Alabama named Elbert and confusion resulted, so Echola became the official name of the area and the post office.
Julia Pearson followed her father and was postmistress at the Echola Post Office for 50 years. She and her husband operated a small store where the post office was located. She turned the job over to her daughter-in law, Bernice Pearson, who in turn, turned the post office/general store over to her daughter Beth Branyon. The post office and the store are now closed, though the building still stands.
Dunn’s Creek Baptist Church was established in 1834 and is still serving the Echola community. Though there have been other churches in the Echola area during the past 100 years, Dunn’s Creek remained the most active.
Friends of Historic Northport
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
2105
Tuscaloosa County (AL)
Ralph Post Office
United States Post offices
Men meet at the Ralph Post Office to play dominoes around 1938.
Ralph is an unincorporated community in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, located near U.S. Route 11 and U.S. Route 43, 16.4 miles southwest of Tuscaloosa. Ralph has a post office with ZIP code 35480, which opened on March 3, 1900.
Ralph was originally known as Hickman, in honor of the first postmaster, William P. Hickman. In 1900, the name was changed to Ralph, either for Ralph Stewart, the son of the postmaster at the time, or Kathleen Ralf Stewart, the wife of the postmaster
Elaine Sloan
Circa 1938
Betty Slowe (Description)
Photograph
2202
Tuscaloosa County (AL)