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Tuscaloosa - Alabama - History |
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The 19th Century began to lead a few intrepid white frontiersmen to the area. The pace of white
settlement increased greatly after the War of 1812, and a small assortment of log cabins soon arose near the large Creek Indian village at the
Fall Line of the river. In honor of the legendary "Black Warrior", a great chief who had had a fateful encounter with explorer
Hernando DeSoto centuries before somewhere in Southwest Alabama, the settlers named the place Tuscaloosa (from the Choctaw words "tushka"
meaning warrior and "lusa" meaning black). In 1817, Alabama became a territory, and on December 13, 1819, the territorial legislature
incorporated the town of Tuscaloosa, exactly one day before Congress admitted Alabama to the Union as a state. Thus, the City of Tuscaloosa is
one day older than the State of Alabama. From 1826 to 1846 Tuscaloosa was the state capital of Alabama. During this period, in 1831, the University of
Alabama was established. These developments, together with the region's growing economy, raised the number of the town's inhabitants to 4,250 by
1845, but after the departure of the capital to Montgomery, population fell to 1,950 in 1850. Establishment of the Bryce State Hospital for the
Insane in Tuscaloosa in the 1850's helped restore the City's fortunes. During the Civil War, Tuscaloosa County furnished about 3,500 men to the
Confederate armies. During the last weeks of the War, a Federal raiding party burned the campus of the University. Tuscaloosa shared fully in
the South's economic sufferings which followed the defeat. The construction of a system of locks and dams on the Black Warrior River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in
the 1890's opened up an inexpensive link to the Gulf seaport of Mobile, stimulating especially the mining and metallurgical industries of the
region. By the advent of the 20th Century, the growth of the University of Alabama and a strong national economy fueled a steady
growth in Tuscaloosa which continued unabated for 100 years |
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Incorporated in 1819, Tuscaloosa takes
its name from a sixteenth-century native American leader, Tuskalusa, meaning Black Warrior in the Creek and Choctaw languages. A west-central
Alabama city, Tuscaloosa and the surrounding metro area have a population of 130,000. From 1826 to 1846, Tuscaloosa was Alabama's capital city;
the former governor's mansion now houses the University Club. Bryce Hospital, established in the mid-nineteenth century as the Alabama Insane
Hospital, is of interest both for its historic structures and for its role in the pioneering treatment developed by psychiatric physician Dr.
Peter Bryce. It is adjacent to the University of Alabama and the Black Warrior River. The University accepted its first students in 1831, and
four buildings dating from that era still stand. 
