Celebrating 200 Years

Long before a furniture store on the corner of Main Street and North Chalkville Road was demolished, there was the smell of burning ham.

Burning ham?

“I want to tell you a story,” said Jane Alexander, a Trussville Historical Board member involved in the planning of this year’s Trussville Bicentennial Celebration events, most of which were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Warren Truss founded Trussville in 1820, and 45 years later, the Civil War was not far from concluding. Even after Confederacy General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia on April 9, 1865, the Civil War affected Trussville in a significant way.

Ten percent of all meat, corn and wheat in storage or raised was taken by the Confederate government for support of its army and navy. The tenth taken was designated as a war tax, known as a “tax in kind.” Set aside for government use, the tenth was amassed in a stone storehouse that had been converted into a warehouse for these supplies. The warehouse was well filled with supplies when, on April 20, 1865, General James H. Wilson and a brigade of Union soldiers came through. They took all they could and attempted to burn the storehouse, which was located on the corner of Main Street and North Chalkville Road.

At that corner is where Alexander’s story picks up. She said there is an old interview of a Truss family descendant, a man with the last name Worthington, in which he talks about the Civil War and that storehouse. He vividly remembered the smell of burning ham in the air.

“Somebody thought to interview that man years later, I think when he was like 75 years old, well past the Civil War,” Alexander said. “It’s important for somebody to write it down because after you pass it from one to the next one over a period of years, you don’t know whether you’ve got the right story or not.”

Alexander said her family has practiced this for years, even recording her parents’ memories of their wedding, honeymoon and more. She likens the family tradition to a city’s history.

“To me, it’s interesting. I would go to school every day all day long if I had time to do that and there was nothing else to do,” she said. “I’m a firm believer that if you can read a book, you can do anything you want to do because somebody has written it down somewhere. All you have to do is read it.”

Trussville is celebrating 200 years as a city this year, and as it continues to move forward and grow, the past is important to remember.

“You learn from the past,” said Trussville Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director June Mathews. “History is what you learn from. I think if I didn’t know as much about Trussville as I do from what I’ve lived and what I’ve learned, I don’t think I would feel as connected to Trussville. I love that connectedness.”

Trussville’s history runs deep, but the Cahaba Project is the crown jewel, the center of the city where 287 homes were constructed in the 1930s as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal Program, a series of economic programs enacted between 1933 and 1936 focusing on relief, recovery and reform in the wake of the Great Depression. Ian Maddox and his family moved into one of those homes in 2015.

“Anyone that spends any amount of time in Trussville will learn quickly that the Cahaba Project is very much the heart of our city,” Maddox said. “It is a landmark, a place that people come to walk, run, ride their bikes, visit the library or greenway. To me, the Project is a cultural and social hub for the city.”

Alexander agrees. Her Cahaba Project home’s roof is nearing 80 years old and still does not leak.

“People do not understand that Cahaba Project is one-of-a-kind,” she said. “The government had developments all over the United States. This is the only one that was like a subdivision because subdivisions didn’t exist then.”

Of course, there is more than just the historic homes. There is the school building, now Cahaba Elementary, that opened in 1938. There is the old Civitan Bridge that spans the Cahaba River. There is an iconic gazebo and massive trees that shade Parkway Drive. There are churches and businesses, both old and new. More than anything, there are the people and their stories.

“It’s so important to know what we’ve had, to really treasure it and to try to preserve it,” Mathews said. “It makes people want to keep that Mayberry feeling.”

Alexander and Mathews, speaking in a room inside Trussville City Hall, play off each other’s words when preaching about the importance of the city’s history. They talk about bygone days, about past businesses and fun events.

“It still is a unique place,” Alexander said.

“It is,” Mathews agrees.

They could tell stories of Trussville happenings all day. All an interested person must do is ask. Now, however, it is time to turn the lights off to this room and move along with the day.

“Oh no,” Alexander said, “we’re not through.”