Scottsboro, Alabama

Scottsboro, Alabama
City
Jackson County Courthouse
Motto: "Someplace Special"
Location in Jackson County and the state of Alabama
Coordinates: 34°39′5″N 86°2′33″W / 34.65139°N 86.04250°W / 34.65139; -86.04250
Country	United States
State	Alabama
County	Jackson
Government
• Type	Mayor Council
• Mayor	Melton Potter
Area
• Total	51.7 sq mi (134 km2)
• Land	47.3 sq mi (122.6 km2)
• Water	4.4 sq mi (11.4 km2)
Elevation	689 ft (210 m)
Population (2010)
• Total	14,770
• Density	285.5/sq mi (110.2/km2)
Time zone	Central (CST) (UTC-6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
ZIP codes	35768-35769
Area code(s)	256
FIPS code	01-68736
GNIS feature ID	0154493
Website	cityofscottsboro.com

Scottsboro is a city in Jackson County, Alabama, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the city is 14,770. Named for its founder Robert Scott, the city is the county seat of Jackson County.

From its incorporation in 1870 until 1890, it was the largest community in Jackson County, losing the distinction from 1900 to 1920 to Bridgeport,^[1] but reclaiming the title in 1930 and holding it since that time.

It is located 30 miles each from the state boundaries of Georgia to the east (Dade County) and Tennessee to the north, about 45 miles from Huntsville, Alabama to the west and about 55 miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee to the northeast.

History

Early history

Prior to Scottsboro's founding, the area surrounding the present-day city was inhabited by the Cherokee Indians. While the Tennessee Valley did not have large Native American settlements at the time of the first white settlers, there was a Cherokee town named "Crow Town" near where Scottsboro is located today.^[2]

As settlers began pouring into the Tennessee region, they found the Tennessee River to be an excellent source of food, water, and a way of shipping goods to the big cities. John Hunt, in 1805, decided to migrate to the area and built a small log cabin in the woods near the river. More people settled in the area and Huntsville was formally incorporated in 1811.

More settlers moved into the Mississippi Territory, resulting in the statehood of Mississippi, and the creation of the Alabama Territory in 1818. Delegates from Tennessee and the newly formed Madison County met in Sauta Cave and decided to admit a new county.

On December 13, 1819, Jackson County was formed.^[3] Then, only one day later, the State of Alabama was admitted into the Union as the 22nd state on December 14, 1819.

The first county seat of Jackson County was at Sauta, a former native town, near present-day Scottsboro. Early county meeting were held in Sauta cave. Sauta did not survive after the courthouse was moved to Bellefonte in 1821.^[4]

Since Bellefonte had better access to the Tennessee River than Sauta, more settlers started moving to the area, they were also attracted by it being the county seat.

Scottsboro's founder, Robert Thomas Scott, served in the Alabama Legislature^[5] for almost 20 years and later ran a hotel in Bellefonte.^[6][7] Since he and his wife, Elizabeth, wanted a place to call their own and were not very fond of Bellefonte, they moved to Scottsboro around 1850–53. The town was called Scottsville, Scott's Mill,^[8] or Sage Town^[9] until 1868. In 1853, the newly formed Memphis and Charleston Railroad (a stretch of railroad that starts at Memphis, TN, and ends in Charleston, SC) decided to build a station at Scottsboro and did so in 1857.^[7] In the same year, passengers started disembarking at Scott's Station. On January 20, 1870, Scottsboro was incorporated by the Alabama Legislature. A. Snodgrass was the first mayor.^[7] Scottsboro got its first telegraph office in 1872.^[7]

Bellefonte citizens rejected the railroad because they did not want train travel to interfere with the town's thriving river trade and the low riverside land was not suitable for tracks.^[10]

In 1861/1863, the Bellefonte courthouse was set ablaze and charred. The area was heavily damaged during the U.S. Civil War.

Selection of the new county seat began in 1860 by having a contest to see which towns were suitable.

Many of the county's towns pushed for their selection, but the leading candidates were Hollywood, Stevenson, Larkinsville, and Scotts-borough (Scottsboro). To narrow the nominees, the county council decided that:

• The town must be within 8 miles (13 km) of the Memphis & Charleston Railroad line.
• The town must be near the center of the county.

The second requirement eliminated Stevenson and Larkinsville,^[11] and the County Commissioners ultimately selected Scottsboro as the county seat. Courthouse construction began in 1868 with the jail following two years later.^[12] County commissioners sited the courthouse at its current location in the public square.

The 20th century would bring great changes to Scottsboro. In 1902, two cases of smallpox were found but fortunately the disease did not spread more widely. In 1903, the first car that came to the town drove through the square en route from Ohio to Florida. In 1906, local blacksmith H.C. Payne built Scottsboro's first homemade automobile, which was made with a wooden frame, four sprocket wheels, and hand-powered cranks. In 1911, the courthouse was set ablaze and was rebuilt. In 1912, the courthouse was demolished and an election was held to determine whether the courthouse would be moved to Stevenson or stay in Scottsboro (some Stevenson residents did not think Scottsboro deserved the role of county seat). Scottsboro won the vote and the present courthouse was built (before the renovation and expansion in 1954.)

Scottsboro Boys

The Scottsboro Boys case was among the most important cases in the history of American jurisprudence. It went to the United States Supreme Court twice and established forever the principles that, in the United States, criminal defendants are entitled to effective assistance of counsel^[13] and that people may not be de facto excluded from juries due to their race.^[14] The case of the Scottsboro Boys arose in Scottsboro in 1931, when nine black youths, ranging in age from twelve to twenty, were accused of raping two white women, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates, one of whom would later recant. The victims and accused alike had all hitched rides on a passing train on the Southern Railroad freight route from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931, which just happened to stop in Jackson County, Alabama where these women made their accusations to the local officials against these black youths.^[15] The defendants were brought to Scottsboro for trial, because it was the county seat of Jackson County.^[16]

The four trials, during the course of which most of the youths were convicted and sentenced to death by all-white juries despite the weak and contradictory testimonies of the witnesses, are now widely regarded (including in Scottsboro) as one of the worst travesties of justice perpetrated against blacks in the post-Reconstruction South. Only the first trials were held in Scottsboro. The case was, in reality, many cases that were tried only in the first instance in Depression era Scottsboro, Alabama in 1931. Of the original nine young black defendants (some of them minors), accused of gang raping two fellow hobo white women on a freight train, eight were quickly convicted and sentenced to death in quick succession in trials occurring in a mob atmosphere in Scottsboro by all white juries. The only two attorneys who were willing to take the cases had few qualifications for criminal defense work. They were unable to put up much of a defense when the judge gave them no time to prepare their defenses before the trials. He started the first trial as soon as they agreed to take the cases and then began each next case as soon the jury had gone out on the previous one.

Fortunately, the Scottsboro defendants benefited from their two landmark triumphs in the United States Supreme Court, mostly from the fact that they were all relieved from their death sentences they had received at their first trial in Scottsboro. The Supreme Court ruled both times only that the way their convictions were obtained was improper and not that they were innocent. Those convicted spent at least six years and as many as nineteen years incarcerated in harsh jails and prisons. The Scottsboro Boys had served long prison sentences when the arch segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace, in one of history's ironies, partially mitigated this widely accepted injustice (after the United States Supreme Court had failed to do so twice) by issuing a pardon in 1976 for the one remaining Scottsboro defendant still subject to the Alabama penal system.^[17]

"In January 2004, amidst television cameras and radio and newspaper reporters, a crowd gathered near the Jackson County Court House in Scottsboro to dedicate a historical marker commemorating the Scottsboro Boys' trial and their struggle for justice."^[18] "An 87-year-old black man who attended the ceremony, one of the few who could remember the cases firsthand, recalled that the mob scene following the Boys' arrest 'was frightening' and that death threats were leveled against the jailed suspects. He applauded the town's move to install the plaque on the courthouse yard. 'I think it will bring the races closer together,' he said, 'to understand each other better.'"^[19]

The Scottsboro Boys Museum was opened in February 2010.^[20]

Modern history

In 1900, Scottsboro was home to about 1,000 residents.^[21]

Beginning in 1908, a ferry began transporting passengers and automobiles to and from Sand Mountain.^[22] In 1928–1931, the Kansas City Bridge Company built the B.B. Comer Bridge, a long steel bridge that now connects the county seat to Sand Mountain, almost tripling the town's population. The bridge entered use in July 1930.^[23] By 2007, the aging structure was classified by the Alabama Department of Transportation as being a structurally deficient bridge with an overall rating of 7.7 out of 100. Construction of a replacement bridge commenced in October 2007, and is expected to be complete by 2012. In 1932, a couple were wed on top of the bridge. The newlywed wife commented "I wanted to be married where the light-blue water touches and meets with the light-blue sky…"^[24] In the 1980s, a second bridge was built to increase travel and reduce traffic on the B.B. Comer bridge.

In 1913 the city purchased approximately 30 acres (12 ha) for a water system on Sand Mountain. The first electric lights in Scottsboro became operational on January 21, 1916. Scottsboro's first hospital was established in 1923.^[25]

In 1927, aviator Charles Lindbergh performed stunts in his famous plane the Spirit of St. Louis.^[26] In 1932, Scottsboro officially became a "city" when an act of the Alabama Legislature bestowed that title on towns with more than 2000 inhabitants. Scottsboro's population at the time was about 2304.^[27]

In 1954, the courthouse was starting to deteriorate, so it was renovated and all the wooden walls were replaced with marble. Because of the growth in population and demand, more rooms were added to expand offices for services such as automobile tags and land records.

Since the early 1980s to the late 2000s, Scottsboro has seen substantial population growth and an economy moved away from its rural agrarian post to a more diversified one. Real estate in a small town environment and competitive state business tax rates both appealed to newcomers who bought homes and/or commute to jobs in Chattanooga, Huntsville and Atlanta.

Geography

Scottsboro is located at 34°39′5″N 86°2′33″W / 34.65139°N 86.04250°W / 34.65139; -86.04250 (34.651368, −86.042570).^[28]

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 51.7 square miles (134 km²), of which, 47.3 square miles (123 km²) of it is land and 4.4 square miles (11 km²) of it (8.47%) is water. The water areas are the Tennessee River and its backwaters.

The section of the Tennessee River Valley that includes Scottsboro is geologically related to the Sequatchie Valley.

Climate

Scottsboro, Alabama
Climate chart (explanation)
J F M A M J J A S O N D     6     50 28     5.2     55 31     6.5     64 38     4.5     72 45     5     55 80     4.4     63 87     4.5     90 67     3.4     90 65     4.8     84 59     3.6     74 46     5     63 37     5.7     54 31 Average max. and min. temperatures in °F Precipitation totals in inches Source: Scottdsboro, Alabama at usclimatedata.com.
Metric conversion J F M A M J J A S O N D     153     10 −2     133     13 −1     166     18 3     115     22 7     128     13 27     111     17 31     115     32 19     87     32 18     122     29 15     92     23 8     126     17 3     144     12 −1 Average max. and min. temperatures in °C Precipitation totals in mm

Demographics

Historical population
Census	Pop.		%±
1870	357		—
1880	722		102.2%
1890	959		32.8%
1900	1,014		5.7%
1910	1,019		0.5%
1920	1,417		39.1%
1930	2,304		62.6%
1940	2,834		23.0%
1950	4,731		66.9%
1960	6,449		36.3%
1970	9,324		44.6%
1980	14,758		58.3%
1990	13,786		−6.6%
2000	14,762		7.1%
2010	14,770		0.1%
Est. 2015	14,722	[29]	−0.3%
U.S. Decennial Census[30] 2013 Estimate[31]

As of the census^[32] of 2000, there were 14,762 people, 6,224 households, and 4,201 families residing in the city. The population density was 311.8 people per square mile (120.4/km²). There were 6,848 housing units at an average density of 144.6 per square mile (55.8/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 91.11% White, 5.34% African American, 1.02% Native American, 0.54% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 0.56% from other races, and 1.42% from two or more races. 1.50% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 6,224 households out of which 28.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 52.5% were married couples living together, 12.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 32.5% were non-families. 29.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.32 and the average family size was 2.85.

In the city the population was spread out with 22.8% under the age of 18, 7.7% from 18 to 24, 27.8% from 25 to 44, 25.9% from 45 to 64, and 15.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 88.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 84.5 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $32,654, and the median income for a family was $42,509. Males had a median income of $32,318 versus $21,965 for females. The per capita income for the city was $18,430. About 9.9% of families and 14.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including 19.1% of those under age 18 and 20.5% of those age 65 or over.

2010 census

As of the census^[33] of 2010, there were 14,770 people, 6,245 households, and 4,141 families residing in the city. The population density was 285.5 people per square mile (110.2/km²). There were 7,039 housing units at an average density of 136.2 per square mile (52.5/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 89.8% White, 4.6% African American, .8% Native American, 0.8% Asian, 0.2% Pacific Islander, 2.0% from other races, and 1.8% from two or more races. 3.5% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

There were 6,245 households out of which 25.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 49.6% were married couples living together, 12.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.7% were non-families. 30.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 14.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.31 and the average family size was 2.86.

In the city the population was spread out with 21.7% under the age of 18, 7.9% from 18 to 24, 23.8% from 25 to 44, 27.7% from 45 to 64, and 18.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42.2 years. For every 100 females there were 90.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 94.4 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $36,554, and the median income for a family was $48,803. Males had a median income of $35,909 versus $25,403 for females. The per capita income for the city was $21,065. About 14.6% of families and 16.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 23.0% of those under age 18 and 14.6% of those age 65 or over.

Attractions

Scottsboro is famously the home to the Unclaimed Baggage Center.^[34] This center sells articles of unclaimed and undeliverable airline luggage whose owners the air lines cannot locate. The Center ends up with such items as electronics, clothing, and any other item that might be found in lost airline luggage. The prices are low and the offerings eclectic enough to attract visitors from other states, and even from other parts of the world who make their way to Scottsboro to see what others have lost. The Unclaimed Baggage Center has been featured several times in the media, including in The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, Good Morning America, The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Baltimore Sun, The Seattle Times and the travel/adventure television series Globe Trekker.

Also, on the old Memphis and Charleston Railroad near the public square, the freight depot still stands. Built in 1856, it is considered the oldest standing structure in the original city limits. During the Civil War, Union raiders and Confederate soldiers fought in a skirmish, which ended up with bullet holes in the brick walls and wooden cargo doors. The structure was restored and reopened as a museum in June 2012.^[35]

First Monday has been a major draw for over one hundred years,^[36] perhaps since 1870.^[37] In the old Southern style, First Monday is a trade day (or flea market) in which people set up stalls, sell homemade wares, and generally have a good time. More info on First Monday Trade Days: http://www.cityofscottsboro.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42&Itemid=118

Payne's Soda Shop, located on the Courthouse Square, has been in business since 1869. The small, yet elegant, shop shows off a 1950s-themed design, offering the classic malt, and it even sports rare photographs of Scottsboro's past.

King Caldwell Park is situated near downtown Scottsboro, right next to the Library and across the street from the Police Department. It is largely wooded, with several nature trails running through it. It offers picnic tables, a pavilion with rest rooms and a playground. It is the home of Art Sunday, which is an arts and crafts festival that Scottsboro holds the Sunday before Labor Day each year. Many exhibitors and thousands of people attend this festival each year. The King Caldwell Park is named after Scottsboro native and philanthropist, David King Caldwell, who went by the name "King Caldwell". He moved to Tyler, Texas, where he became an oil tycoon and founded the Caldwell Zoo. However, he never forgot his Scottsboro roots. He constantly gave generously to local causes in Scottsboro and paid for the higher education of many Scottsboro school children. He is still fondly remembered in Scottsboro for having gone to his namesake Caldwell School in Scottsboro and giving every child in the school a shiny new quarter, at a time when that was a lot of money for a child to receive.

Development

The attraction of Lake Guntersville has brought in numerous real estate developers. The Goose Pond area of Scottsboro has seen recent development of communities centered around a lake-living lifestyle.

Media

The Clarion The Clarion (Weekly Community Newspaper – 15,500 3 County Distribution)

The Scottsboro Daily Sentinel daily newspaper

Health care

• Highlands Medical Center 170-bed facility

Notable people

• Lucille Benson, actress
• Kenneth Carter, member of the Rhode Island House of Representatives
• Bob Clemens, former fullback for the Green Bay Packers
• Robert K. Dawson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) from 1985 to 1987
• Robert E. Jones, Jr., U.S. Representative from 1947 to 1977
• Ken Kifer, bicyclist and writer. Lived near Scottsboro.^[38]
• Nolan Strong, lead singer of Nolan Strong & The Diablos
• Pat Trammell, former University of Alabama quarterback
• Thomas E. Weatherly, Jr., poet
• Debra Webb, romance novelist

Notes

• John R. Kennamer: History of Jackson County, Alabama. Jackson County Historical Association, Scottsboro, Alabama 1935 (reprinted 1993), ISBN 0-9638815-0-7

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Scottsboro, Alabama.

• Arts Festival in King Caldwell Park
• City of Scottsboro
• Court House Square in Scottsboro
• Jackson County Heritage Center
• History of Scottsboro Railway Terminal
• Article Discussing Unclaimed Baggage

Coordinates: 34°39′05″N 86°02′33″W / 34.651368°N 86.04257°W / 34.651368; -86.04257