1844 – Te-lah-nay walks from Oklahoma back to the Shoals, becoming the first documented Native American woman to make it back to her home following the Trail of Tears. A monument built in her honor by her great, great grandson can be visited along the Natchez Trace. 1860 – The Memphis and Charleston Railroad Bridge, now part of Southern Railway, is constructed over the Tennessee River. 1861-1865 – The Civil War – Lauderdale’s Secession Convention Delegates are cooperationists, believing that all the Southern states should band together and first try to work out differences with the federal government. However, they are outnumbered, and Alabama secedes. There are no major battles during the war, but there are skirmishes. Two Union gunboats chase the Confederate C.S.S. Dunbar up Cypress Creek where it becomes stuck on a sandbar at the Gundle Ford. Confederate forces burn the M&C Railroad Bridge to keep it from being used by Union forces. Pope’s Tavern is one of several field hospitals, serving men on both sides. 1867 – Colbert County splits from Franklin County in order to give North Alabama another representative in the state senate and to make getting to the county seat easier for residents. 1872 – Civil War Guerilla Chief “Mountain Tom” Clark is arrested and confesses to murdering 16 men. He is lynched, and due to his boast that “no one ever runs over Tom Clark,” he is buried underneath East Tennessee Street, just outside the city cemetery, so that everyone would have to run over him – or so the legend goes. Also that year, Florence native James T. Rapier becomes the second AfricanAmerican from Alabama elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. 1873 – W.C. Handy is born in a log cabin near downtown Florence. He later becomes the father of the blues with notable works including St. Louis Blues and Beale St. Blues. The brick walls of the Colbert County Courthouse date back to its construction in 1881. It houses county government and serves as the centerpiece of the surrounding Tuscumbia National Register Historic District. The dome and columned porticoes were added when the building was rebuilt in 1908 following a fire. Photo by Shannon Wells.
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