Historical Sites in Blount County Alabama
Historical Sites in Blount County Alabama
Blount County: A County Older Than the State of Alabama
Created Feb. 7, 1818 by Alabama Territorial Legislature from lands ceded by the Creek Indian Nation. Named for the Tennessee Governor W. G. Blount, who sent militia under Andrew Jackson to punish the Creeks for Fort Mims massacre. Jackson fought and won the Creek War. Creeks gave up half of their lands in Treaty of Ft. Jackson, 1814. Some of Jackson’s men were first settlers of Blount. County seat moved here in 1889. [2006: 220 2nd Avenue East, Oneonta. 2006 marker has replaced previous marker. 33.94637 N 86.47561 W]
Murphrees Valley
Three miles southeast of Clarence, Alabama.
Murphree Valley is a valley west of Woodhaven, Alabama, southeast of Gurley, Alabama, and south of Brentwood, Alabama. Murphree Valley has an elevation of 653 feet.
Solomon Murphree, son of Daniel and Sarah Murphree, was born in 1757, most likely in Bertie County, North Carolina, where his parents lived at the time. He later lived in Orange and Chatham Counties, North Carolina; in Pendleton District, South Carolina; and in Blount County, Alabama. He married Sarah Ward about 1779.
He served as a private in the Continental Line during the Revolutionary War after which he possibly bought and sold land in Washington County, Tennessee.
Solomon moved from Pendleton District, SC, to Blount County, Alabama. Murphree’s Valley in Blount County is named for him. There he organized the Mt. Moriah Primitive Baptist Church. His last years seem to have been in Benton (now Calhoun) County, Alabama. After his wife Sarah Ward Murphree died, he married (2) Mrs. Mary Elizabeth (“Polly”) Prator (Praytor) whose birth surname is only partially known: Chan–(Chandler?) or Cham–(Champion?). She was born in 1780-1790 and died before the 1850 census was taken.
Solomon Murphree died in Benton (now Calhoun) County in 1854 and is buried in the Eulation Methodist Church Cemetery near Anniston in present-day Calhoun County.
Exploit of Murphree Sisters
Incident of May 1, 1863 during Streight (Union flag)-Forrest (Confederate flag) Campaign. Three prowling Union soldiers invaded the home of sisters-in-law Celia and Winnie Mae Murphree taking food and drink and killing two colts. When soldiers fell asleep, these two young girls took rifles and marched the soldiers to the headquarters of General Forrest, bivouacked at Royal Crossing on Warrior River.
Taits Gap Alabama
The elevation of Taits Gap is 1,089 feet. Taits Gap appears on the Oneonta U.S. Geological Survey Map. Located on railroad, 3 miles southwest of Altoona, Alabama. Altoona is a town in Etowah County, Alabama. At the 2010 census the population was 933.
Taits Gap Topo Map in Blount County Alabama
Coal Stripping in Alabama (Article about Tait’s Gap, October 1921)
Champion Alabama
On railroad, three miles east Oneonta, Alabama. John Hanby came in 1817 and found a rich seam of brown iron ore. Named Champion in 1882 when Henry DeBardeleben & James Sloss bought land and brought L & N Railroad causing county seat to be moved from Blountsville to Oneonta in 1889. Most ore was mined by Shook and Fletcher 1925-1967 from Champion & Taits Gap mines under E. N. Vandergrift, superintendent. Ore was shipped to Woodward, T.C.I. & Sloss furnaces in Birmingham and Republic in Gadsden.
Inland Junction Alabama
On railroad, five miles southwest of Allgood (Allgood is located in south-central Blount County at 33°54′15″N 86°30′59″W (33.904216, -86.516428). It is in the Murphree Valley, with Straight Mountain to the southeast and Red Mountain and Sand Mountain to the northwest. Alabama State Route 75 passes through the town, leading northeast three miles to Oneonta, the county seat, and southwest 38 miles to Birmingham.
Royal Alabama
Five miles due south Allgood (Allgood, formerly known as Chepultepec (pronounced: cha-PULL-ti-peck), is a town in Blount County.. At the 2010 census the population was 622.
Blount Springs Alabama
Blount Springs is an unincorporated community about 30 miles north of Birmingham, three miles east of Interstate 65, at 33°55’52” North and 86°47’38” West.. Blount Springs’s mineral springs and rural setting made it a summer resort for thousands of wealthy people from Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and more from 1820 to the 1930s. After a fire started in the kitchen of the main hotel and burned much of the town in June 1915, the end of the resort happened. Combined with the changing of the railroad so that it didn’t go through town anymore and the easy access to other entertainments, the town started dying.
Rockland Alabama
Hayden, Alabama is a small town in the southwestern part of Blount County. First called Rockland, probably so named because of all of the small to medium size rocks that were scattered over the hilly terrain. Rockland became Hayden with the advent of the L & N Railroad in 1914.
Linton Alabama
On railroad and south of Blount County / Jefferson County line and three miles north of Warrior, Alabama.
Lehigh Alabama
Five miles south of Locust Fork, Alabama.
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