Madison County AlArchives History .....A Brief History Of Huntsville; Date Late 1960's February 1968
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David Norton http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006057 June 6, 2008, 9:21 pm



                        A Brief History of Huntsville


(Compiled from a booklet published by the Huntsville Industrial Expansion 
Committee during the 1960s)


Huntsville's origin is credited to John Hunt, a veteran of the Revolutionary 
War. He came to Alabama from Tennessee in 1805 when Alabama was still a portion 
of the Mississippi Territory that the Indians called Ah-la-bama. John Hunt 
built his log cabin in the beautiful wooded valley just above the "Big Spring" 
thus founding the town that would bear his name. 

Other pioneers, attracted by the rich bottom lands, also settled around 
the "Big Spring" making it the nucleus of a thriving town. Madison County was 
created by the proclamation of Governor Robert Williams of the Mississippi 
Territory on December 13, 1808. A provision was made by the Federal Government 
to have the land sold at public auction during August and September of 1809.

Sixty acres of the land surrounding the "Big Spring" were purchased by LeRoy 
Pope, a planter of the Broad River area in Georgia, for twenty-three dollars an 
acre. This area was chosen as the county seat by a special commission. The town 
was first named Twickenham, as requested by LeRoy Pope, after Alexander Pope's 
English home. A special act of the Territorial Legislature on November 25, 
1811, changed the city's name from Twickenham to Huntsville in honor of the 
town's first settler. Huntsville originally contained sixty acres divided into 
two-acre blocks each subdivided into four lots. LeRoy Pope donated a portion of 
this land for the first courthouse, which was erected in 1816. 

The growth rate began to increase rapidly. In 1812, a city newspaper was 
established. Stores became numerous around the square; a public school was 
organized and built, as well as a library, an imposing bank building, and the 
first Presbyterian Church in the state.

In 1823, Huntsville boasted what may have been the first public water system in 
America. The system was made up of a wooden pump, wooden storage tank, and a 
few hundred feet of hollowed cedar logs which carried water from the "Big 
Spring."

The influx of people and their record of accomplishments made Huntsville's 
importance grow in the Mississippi Territory. In 1819, Alabama was made a 
state, and Huntsville was chosen as the first Capital.

The Civil War and Reconstruction period brought hard times to these progressive 
pioneers. By the turn of the century, emphasis was placed on industry and the 
scars of the Civil War began to heal. Huntsville again set the pace by opening 
the doors to the first textile mill in Alabama. In time, ten textile mills were 
located in Madison County. 

Huntsville expanded with the event of World War I, but industry declined during 
the depression in the 1930s. During these years Huntsville was famed as 
the "Watercress Capital of the World," and Madison County was Alabama's leader 
in cotton production.

Just before the United States entered World War II, Huntsville Arsenal was 
constructed adjacent to the city to manufacture chemical artillery shells. A 
few months later, another plant was constructed to assemble explosives for the 
shells. During the peak of World War II production, the two arsenals—Huntsville 
and Redstone—employed about 20,000 persons. 

During the immediate post-war period, arsenal activities were sharply 
curtailed. In 1950, the Army transferred its small group of missile experts to 
Huntsville from Fort Bliss, Texas. The group included Dr. Wernher von Braun and 
his team. 

In 1958, the Army team from Redstone Arsenal put aloft a Jupiter C missile. As 
a result, the complete U. S. Army missile development and training program and 
the space vehicle center for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration 
were firmly established in Huntsville.



Additional Comments:
Credit for this narrative should go to the successor organizations, the 
Huntsville-Madison County Industrial Development Authority, the Madison County 
Commission and, the Huntsville-Madison County Chamber of Commerce. Authorship 
is not fully known; probably the main contributor was Mr. James Ralph Record, 
Sr., born December 27, 1918 and died December 1, 1996. Commissioner Record 
served as Chairman of the Madison County Commission for many years. He was a 
veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, a local historian, and a 
life-long devoted public servant.

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