Battle of Day's Gap

 

April 30, 1863 -- 6 miles west. Here Gen. Forrest overtook larger force of Col. Streight. Forrest attacked three times. Streight fled toward Rome to destroy Confederate railroad. 
[Before 1965: U.S. Hwy 31 north at Cullman]

 

Battle of Hog Mountain

 

April 30, 1863. Here Gen. Forrest overtook Col. Streight's raiders in hand-to-hand battle after dark. 3 horses short from under Forrest. Union force fled southward with Forrest in relentless pursuit.
[Before 1965: U.S. Hwy 278 west of Cullman]

 

Battleground

 

Named after a Civil War battle fought April 30, 1863, between Confederate troops commanded by General Nathan Bradford Forrest and Union troops commanded by Colonel Abel D. Streight. Confederates lost 50 to 75 men killed or wounded. Union lost 30 men. Shortly after the battle Union forces fled to Hog Mountain pursued by the Confederates.

 

Clarkson Covered Bridge

 

Sometimes called Legg Bridge. This 270 foot bridge was constructed in 1904, destroyed by a flood in 1921 and rebuilt the following year. The only remaining covered bridge in Cullman County, it was restored by the Cullman County Commission in 1975 as an American Revolution Bicentennial Project. Named to Register of Historic Places, June 25, 1974.

 

Corbin Homestead

 

Thomas Monroe Corbin and his wife, Ella, settled here in 1894 on 80 acres and built a home. As pioneers, they cleared the ground with crosscut saws, draft horses, double-bit axes, and shovels. Rocks from the field, removed with a horse-drawn slide, were used to build fences dams, and pillars for their buildings. 
The original home was a three-bedroom double-pen farmhouse with a rear ell and a barn. A corncrib, smokehouse, buggy and cotton house, woodshed, well, and rock walls were added as the farm grew to 120 acres. The Corbins raised cotton, corn, peanuts, peas, sorghum cane, and peaches, and also maintained cattle, mules, hogs, and chickens. 

Thomas Corbin was not only a diversified farmer; he was the only veterinarian in the area between 1890 and 1950. Although self-taught, he was licensed by the state in 1915. Animals were brought to the farm for treatment and he made house calls in his buggy. 

Property added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage 1999. [2012: County Road 1809, Joppa]

Cullman Railroad Depot

 

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company completed building this Mission Style depot in 1913. When the tracks were laid below ground level, it replaced Cullman's first station located on First Avenue at Third Street, SW. 

Passenger service was discontinued in 1968. This building then was used by CSX section crews until it was purchased by the City of Cullman, March 23, 1990. 

Restoration began in February, 1991, funded by donations from Cullman County Historical Society, citizens of Cullman County, and public grants. 

Added to the National Register of Historic Places, June 17, 1976.
[1996: 2nd Ave. NE, Cullman]

 

Evangelical Protestant Church

 

The first church in the City of Cullman was established on this block of land donated by the North and South Railroad in February 1874. Lots 154, 155, 180 and 181 were granted to Henry Dietz, August Henning, and George Stoback as trustees of the Evangelical Protestant Church for the sole purpose of constructing a church building. Col. John Cullman, land agent, was a charter member of the church. The church building was made into a dwelling house after the congregation moved to a new location, 512 Second Avenue East, in 1881.
[2000: Cullman]

 

First Baptist Church Holly Pond

 

First Baptist Church of Holly Pond was organized in 1885 as Holly Pond Missionary Baptist Church. Charter members included the families of P. R. Tennison, William Jefferson Hazelwood, Bill House, Seaborn Shaw, and Isaac Barnett.  Over the course of the church’s life, the congregation worshipped in three different locations and five different sanctuaries.  The first, destroyed by fire in 1895, was a wood-framed structure located in the triangle formed by HWY 278 and Blountsville Road.  The second, destroyed by a wind storm in 1914, was a wood-framed building located 1/10 mile west of the first site.  The third sanctuary was white, wood-framed, and located at the triangle formed by HWY 278 and New Hope Road, as was the fourth, a brick, Georgia Colonial structure built in 1939.  The last was built on this site in 1978, the same year the church’s name was changed to First Baptist. Many preachers and missionaries have been sent from here to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Dedicated October 2015 on the occasion of the church’s 130th anniversary.
Sponsored by the Holly Pond Historical Society
[2015: Highway 278, Holly Pond]

 

Governor Guy Hunt

 

Guy Hunt was born June 17, 1933, in Holly Pond, Alabama, to William Otto and Orene Holcomb Hunt. Guy grew up on the family farm and graduated from Holly Pond High School in 1950 as salutatorian of his class at age sixteen. He married Helen Chambers, daughter of Homer Lee and Mattie Talley Chambers. They had four children. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, where he earned the Distinguished Service Medal, he was ordained as a minister in the Primitive Baptist church in 1958. He served as probate judge of Cullman County from 1965 to 1977, and as state chairman of the Alabama delegation to the Republican National Convention in 1976 and 1980. As a reward for his party loyalty, Hunt was appointed as the state director of the federal Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, serving from 1981 until 1985. In 1986, he was elected as the first Republican governor of the State of Alabama since Reconstruction. In his first year in office, he was named one of the nation’s top governors by U.S. News & World Report. Governor Hunt was reelected in 1990, but was removed from office in 1993 when convicted of misusing inauguration funds. In 1998, The Board of Pardons and Paroles approved a pardon for him on grounds of innocence. Hunt died January 30, 2009, and was laid to rest alongside Helen in the cemetery of his beloved Mt. Vernon Primitive Baptist Church.
[2012: 10845 U.S. Hwy. 278 East, Holly Pond]

 

General Forrest's Pursuit and Union Colonel Streight's Defense

 

From Battle Ground (26 m.-NW) to capture at Lawrence (80 m.-East)-said to be greatest cavalry fight in modern warfare. It passed here May 1, 1863. 
[Before 1965: U.S. 31 at Johnson's Crossing]

 

Holly Pond Cemetery Established 1894

 

Marker by an antique arch, the Holly Pond Cemetery encompasses 10 acres and a chapel built in 1975.  The site was chosen to replace the burial ground in the center of town and make room for the town to grow.  The first acre was deeded to the deacons of the Baptist Church and the stewards of the Methodist Church.  The first burial was a child, W.R. Hendrix, on 15 August 1894.  Interred here are many of the early settlers who came here after the Civil War, including veterans of that conflict.  The cemetery has been maintained by the Holly Pond Homemakers Club since 1949.  As Holly Pond has grown, so has the cemetery providing the final resting place for over 2000 people.

Sponsored by the Holly Pond Historical Society
[2015: County Road 1669, Holly Pond]

​

Holly Pond School

In 1873, a one-room schoolhouse was built in Holly Pond in the triangle between Highway 278 and the Blountsville Road. In 1890-91, a new two-story, four-room frame structure was built on Highway 278, across from the Baptist church. In 1905, a red, two-story frame structure with seven rooms was constructed along the New Hope Road. After a windstorm damaged this building, a second structure, a white, two-story, frame building with an identical floor plan, was constructed on this site. A one-story, brick structure was added in 1927. Prior to 1928, the school offered instruction in the first through tenth grade. Eleventh and twelfth grades were added in 1928-29. The first senior class graduated in 1929 with seven students. In 1952, a fire destroyed the school. It was rebuilt the following year. The campus presently houses an elementary, middle, and high school.

 

Determining that the more economical approach was fewer, larger schools, the Cullman County Board of Education consolidated eleven community schools into Holly Pond School between 1918 and 1963. State and local tax laws enacted in the 1920s allowed for facility renovations and the construction of larger schools in the county to make this possible. For the county's smaller communities, in which a local school was a fixture, this transition was difficult. 

 

School Name           Year Consolidated

New Home                  1918

Shaddrix                     1931

Pine Grove                  1932

Redan                          1936

New Hope                   1939

Unity                           1941

Oak Level                   1945
Center Point                1946
Brooklyn                     1952

Union Grove               1956

Walter                         1963

 

Presented by the Holly Pond Historical Society 
[Buckner Road, Holly Pond]

 

Sand Mountain Plateau

 

Thrifty German colonists, led by Col. John G. Cullman, in 1873 settled this thinly populated plateau. This section, previously thought unproductive, became famous for its diversified crops. 
[Before 1965: Cullman County Courthouse]

 

St. Johns Evangelical Protestant Church

 

The first church at the town site of Cullman. Founded May 1, 1874, at the beginning of the second year of settlement. 

An ethnic German church formed by immigrant families. Services held exclusively in the German language until 1932. In 1937, the Evangelical German churches merged with the Reformed churches and the national Evangelical and reformed denomination was established. St. John's became a part of the United Church of Christ in 1957. 
[1995]