The Vagabond
The Vagabond - Early history on Duck Springs
The Vagabond - Margaret Hand’s Haunted Organ
The Vagabond - History of 514 Broad Street, Part II
The Vagabond - A history of 514 Broad Street
The Vagabond : History of the King family and 414 Broad Street
The Vagabond: Historic tax credits available for area businesses
The Vagabond: An early incident with Alabama City Holy Rollers
The Vagabond - Remembering The Great War: Alabama and WWI
The Vagabond - Tales of Gadsden First Baptist Church
The Vagabond - Etowah County crime in the 1800s: Part one
The Vagabond - Downtown Gadsden in the old days
The Vagabond: Etowah County's role in the Civil War - Part 2
The Vagabond - Etowah County’s role during the Civil War: Part 1
The Vagabond: Nichols and the Dwight Manufacturing Company
The Vagabond: History of Gadsden city officials, Part III
The Vagabond - History of Gadsden city officials, Part II
The Vagabond - History of Gadsden city officials
The Vagabond - Gadsden's Old Commissioner Government
The Vagabond - Sales of Gadsden first lots - Boomtown & Depressions
Gadsden has had a few booms that helped to build the city to its present prosperous stage, although some of them appeared to have caused some damage when they collapsed.
When the town was laid off into city lots, there was a boom in real estate, which was rather interesting, at least.
One year after the first steamboat on
The Vagabond - Gadsden almost became a ghost town… three times!
Back in February of 1868, Gadsden suffered its most disastrous fire up at that time when what was called the Masonic Lodge block was entirely destroyed, along with some of the main stores of the little town. The Masonic Lodge Block was on Broad Street between Third and Fifth streets.
The blaze was discovered at 12
The Vagabond - Local farmers became owners of “dead man”
One of the funniest things to happen in Gadsden during the so-called “Gay Nineties” (1890’s) was the purchase of a “dead man” by four of the leading farmers of Etowah County.
The local farmers were taken in by one of the slickest swindles of the day, but could not do anything but grin and bear it.
Right in the
The Vagabond - Smallest building in Gadsden
It is very unlikely that few if any Gadsden residents can locate where the smallest brick business house on Broad Street or, for that matter the smallest building in the city was located.
Yet, it is right in the center of the downtown district.
The building was a one-story structure wedged in by what is today’s Gadsden Museum of Arts,
The Vagabond - Power project at Noccalula Falls
When there was much discussion of hydroelectric power over the country in the 1900’s, Gadsden was talking about the Coosa River as a potential asset in that direction, but there were other plans before the public.
In this area there was much talk of harnessing Noccalula Falls for power, first by the old water wheel method and later by
The Vagabond - 109 Years Ago Unveiling of the Emma Sansom Statue
The Emma Sansom statue on Broad Street in Gadsden was dedicated back in 2007, and many locals celebrated the unveiling.
This week The Vagabond once again has his nose stuck in the old history book. Sometime way back, Patsy Hanvey of Turkeytown and the late Hazel Oliver bought the dedication to my attention.
On July 4, 1907, a local
The Vagabond - Ringling Brothers Circus first came to Gadsden in 1899
The Ringling Brothers Circus made its first appearance in Gadsden on Nov. 8, 1899. The show had been in Birmingham and Anniston and left to Chattanooga and Huntsville. Everybody had heard of the great organization that was a rival of the Barnum & Bailey show, and equally as large and imposing.
Ringling Brothers Circus was founded in the United
The Vagabond - Stories of Blind Tigers in Etowah County
Last week The Vagabond met a young lady from Huntsville, Sarah Belanger, who is writing a book about Prohibition in Northeast Alabama. The Vagabond in the past wrote about the local Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the little fountain that was built at the corner of Broad and First streets in front of Gadsden City Hall. There were
The Vagabond - The story of Ernest Tubb’s first Texas Troubadours From Gadsden to Nashville, Part II
Charles Reese recently spoke to the Etowah Historical Society about his father, Vernon “Toby” Reese, a famous country star from Gadsden. Charles discussed many things about his father and shared some of the photos of him. Charles wrote a book about his father and donated one to the historical society’s library. Last week we shared some of what he
The Vagabond - History of streetcars in the Gadsden area Part II
Last week the Vagabond discussed the early streetcars in the Gadsden area, the first ones being drawn by horse and later ones by steam locomotion dummies. We continue this week to the electrified streetcars. The story continues...
As stipulated, Captain Elliott had agreed to extend a line to Noccalula Falls on Lookout Mountain. In 1891, the Hollingsworth estate granted
The Vagabond - History of streetcars in the Gadsden area Part II
Although a precise detailed history cannot be written about Gadsden’s street railway and steam dummy systems, the following tentative history has been pieced together.
Sometime during 1886, Col. R.B. Kyle and Herman Herzberg and their associates petitioned the Gadsden City Council to grant the Gadsden Land & Improvement Company a franchise to build a horse car street railroad in the
Vagabond - Early interesting facts about Attalla and its railroad connection
Part II
The story of the naming of Attalla is often incorrect, and The Vagabond would like to tell the factual history on how Attalla was named and how the city was connected with the early railroad that went from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Meridian, Miss.
We continue the story…
An early employee of the railroad remembers that the