Category: Historic Preservation
National Experts Taking Closer Look at Glenwood Cemetery
September 30, 2015
Officials of the National Association of Gravestones Studies will be on site at Glenwood Cemetery on Saturday, October 3 at 2pm joining the City of Huntsville’s effort to survey more than 1,100 historic gravestones in the cemetery. Established in 1870 Glenwood Cemetery is the oldest surviving intact African-American cemetery in the City of Huntsville. Alabama A&M University Urban Planning Department and The University of Alabama Anthropology Department will be onsite also [more]
Read MoreOld Town Historic District Earns Placement on National Register of Historic Places
September 16, 2015
Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle is proud to announce the Old Town Historic District has been expanded and included in the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior. This important designation reaffirms Old Town as one of the nation’s foremost cultural resources worthy of preservation. “This distinction further recognizes, at a national level, the importance and scale of these marvelous historic properties in our City,” said Mayor [more]
Read MoreHigh Cotton and Marble Columns
August 4, 2015
Preserving History Recognizing the historic significance of the First National Bank building the City of Huntsville has partnered with Bob Broadway, the current building tenant, and Big Spring Partners to place a historic preservation easement on the building. A historic preservation easement is a legal document that runs with the deed, and protects the historic features aesthetic qualities of a historic property in perpetuity. A number of nonprofit and public-interest groups across [more]
Read MoreBanking on History
August 4, 2015
A Brief History of the First National Bank Building The Branch of the Bank of the State of Alabama at Huntsville was established by the General Assembly on January 10, 1835. Despite the lack of a building to house the bank, the state appointed a board of directors to oversee the bank’s progress on January 9, 1835. According to several primary source supporting documents, the bank building on Westside Square was [more]
Read MoreMeet Huntsville’s Premier Architect
August 4, 2015
George Gilliam Steele (1798 – 1855) Considered to be the premiere antebellum architect for the city of Huntsville, George Gilliam Steele was born on April 1, 1798, to George and Sally Gilliam Steele in Bedford County, Virginia. Steele’s early life remains largely shrouded, and there are no known records that Steele received any formal architectural training, according to his obituary he was self-taught. Steele came to Huntsville from Virginia around 1818, [more]
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