July 2004 -- The Florence, Alabama area is the birthplace of two great American pioneers -- W. C. Handy and Helen Keller. Handy, the "The Father of the Blues," is considered by many to be the first person to write and preserve that form of music, composing ur-pieces such as "The Memphis Blues" and "Beale Street Blues." Keller, struck deaf and blind as a small child, overcame her disabilities to become one of America's most respected writers and a lecturer on behalf of the world's disabled. In Florence, you can visit the homes of each, noting their vast differences in background and similar rises over adversity to remake American life.
If Handy and Keller aren't celebrity enough for you, consider Sam Phillips, the owner of Sun Records who is credited with discovering Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and others. More than any other person, he is responsible for the development of the "Muscle Shoals Sound," a genre of music named for Florence's neighboring town, where records are still produced today.
Besides the music, another big influence on Florence, at the southern end of the Appalachian Plateau, was the Tennessee Valley Authority, a US government sponsored program that brought electricity to undeveloped rural America in the 1930s. Without the benefits of the power generated by TVA, this impoverished part of the country would not have modernized as rapidly as it did. Today, TVA is a federal corporation and America's largest public power producer, its electricity costing about 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour for consumers here, well below the national average of 8.5 cents.
Highlights
Note: Across the river from Florence are three sister cities: Tuscumbia, Muscle Shoals and Sheffield.
The W. C. Handy Home was recently (May 2004) reopened after renovation. It's a hand-hewn log cabin, the logs are original, but the cabin itself is restored. Inside are a trumpet that belonged to Handy, the piano on which "The Saint Louis Blues" was composed, and handwritten sheet music, as well as photographs and household furnishings. Open Tues.-Sat., admission $2. 620 West College Street, phone 256/760-6434.
The Birthplace of Helen Keller has been beautifully preserved, and honors in a dramatic fashion her life and times. In addition to the main house (Ivy Green), you can see the birth cottage and the actual well-pump where she first learned the meaning of a word ("water"), a cook house and more. Ivy Green, on a 640-acre tract and built in 1820, is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The house is open daily, admission $6, $4 for seniors, $2 for students (5-18). 300 West North Commons, phone 888/329-2124 or 256/383-4066, website www.helenkellerbirthplace.org.
The Miracle Worker a marvelous drama, has been presented annually for 43 years on weekend nights under the stars on the grounds in a specially-built amphitheater; this year's showings run between June 11 and July 17. Seats $7 to $10. For details, check the phone and website noted earlier.
Next door to the Keller home is the Tennessee Valley Art Center, where you'll find a collection by artists from the area and the famous Martin Petroglyph, carved in the period from about 500 to 1000 and brought here for safekeeping after other petroglyphs nearby were plundered. 511 N. Water St., Tuscumbia, phone 256/383-0533, website tvac.agentsweb.com.
Pope's Tavern Museum, one of the oldest structures in town, was a stagecoach stop, a tavern, an inn, and a hospital during the Civil War. Much memorabilia from the 18th and 19th centuries has been conserved and is on display. 203 Hermitage Drive, phone 256/760-6439. Closed Sun. & Mon.
The Rosenbaum House (1939) in Florence is the only structure in Alabama built by Frank Lloyd Wright, and is consider a pure example of his Usonian design. Open Tues.-Sat., admission $8 adults, $5 seniors and students. 601 Riverview Drive, phone 256/740-8899, website www.wrightinalabama.com.
In Waterloo (25 miles west of Florence) and overlooking the Tennessee River (including the Trail of Tears embarkation site) is the Edith Newman Culver Memorial Museum, a nicely preserved house (1872) with artifacts from several wars, open mid-March to mid-December. On the main drag, phone 256/767-6081.
In Tuscumbia, the Alabama Music Hall of Fame contains several sections for genres of pickin' and singin'. In addition to the ubiquitous Country, there's Popular, Rhythm & Blues, Southern Gospel, Muscle Shoals, and a Songwriters area. US Hwy 72 West, phone 256/381-4417 or 800/239-2643, website www.alamhof.org. Closed Sundays.
If you want to give the kids a treat, the Children's Museum of the Shoals, though small, is one of the best I've seen of its kind. $4 admission. 2810 Darby Drive, Florence, phone 256/765-0500, website www.shoalschildrensmuseum.org.
Events
Come for the WC Handy Music Festival in Florence from July 25 to 31, 2004, with more than a week of concerts, master classes, and related events in venues around the area. Go to www.wchandymusicfestival.com for more details or phone 256/766-7642.
If you can stand the noise or are a motorcyclist, consider the Trail of Tears Commemoration & Motorcycle Ride, going the 250 miles from Chattanooga TN to Waterloo AL on the third Saturday of September (September 18, 2004). In this small town, thousands of bikers and some normal people honor the memory of those Native Americans who were forced from their homes by the provisions of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and forcibly marched to reservations west of the Mississippi River. At Waterloo, they were collected into camps until they could be placed aboard vessels to transport them farther. Much of the journey was along what is now US 72, which in Northern Alabama is an Official Historic Route recognized by the National Park Service. By a recent count, over 90,000 motorcycles came to Waterloo on this day in 2001. Their website is www.al-tn-trailoftears.org.
On the fourth weekend in October, the Alabama Renaissance Faire takes place in Florence. If you've seen one, in my opinion, you've seen them all, but at least this one takes place in a town named for a city in Italy where a fair share of the real renaissance took place. More information is at 256/740-4141. Their website is www.geocities.com/alabamarenfaire.
Lodging
One of the biggest hostelries is The Hampton Inn, part of the nationwide chain, with an outdoor pool, free continental breakfast and a fitness center. Rooms from about $72 per room. 2281 Florence Blvd., phone 800/HAMPTON or 256/764-8888, website www.hampton-inn.com.
Dining Out
Have breakfast or lunch (no dinner) with Florence's gentility in Eva Marie's Specialty Shop, where a smoked turkey roller sandwich goes for $5.55 (with choice of a specialty salad or chips), a spinach salad for $6.25. If you want "just a sandwich," pay as little as $1.95 for grilled cheese (on white bread, 50 cents more for other kinds of bread). On the Courthouse Square, phone 256/760-0004.
For typical southern BBQ and the like, try Famous Dave's (part of a growing mostly Midwestern chain), where over a pound of rib tips goes for $7.99 (with corn bread muffin, corn on the cob, and choice of two side orders), and a double-smoked ham sandwich (BBQ style) costs $5.99 (served "Memphis style" with choice of coleslaw, drunken apples, Wilbur beans, shack fries or potato salad). 212 Cox Creek Pkwy, phone 256/764-4499.
In Mooresville, about halfway between Florence and Huntsville, the rebirth of a small village is taking place around a recently re-opened (February 2004) country-style restaurant, the Limestone Bay Trading Company, in a refurbished shoe store. The daily special is just $5.99 at lunchtime, sandwiches a dollar less. My special was pulled pork BBQ with jalapeno cornbread, and it was delicious. Dessert was extra, the $3 cheesecake selections including your choice of chocolate, coconut, "dream sickle" (like an orange Popsicle) or plain. Don't be put off by the outside, kept in its ramshackle condition on purpose, the owner saying "my favorite color is rust." Don't close your eyes passing through Mooresville, and don't sniff, either. Andrew Johnson, later the US president, served as a tailor's apprentice here, making frock coats in the 1840s. Moreover, General James A. Garfield preached at the Church of Christ here while his Union Army unit camped nearby during the Civil War, about 20 years before he also became president. The restaurant's address and phone: 24950 Old Highway 20, Mooresville, phone 256/353-6326.
Shopping
There are 13 antique shops in historic downtown Florence. You can get a brochure listing them at most shops. "The World's Longest Yard Sale," incidentally, runs through here. It begins in nearby Gadsden and stretches 450 miles into Ohio, it is said. Their website is: www.tourdekalb.com/yardsale.htm.
A Side Trip to Huntsville
Huntsville is bigger than Florence, and much more modern. It's less the Old South than the New, with the main reason for visiting here a chance to visit the U. S. Space & Rocket Center. Moreover, it has the only Space Camp in the USA, one which has special sessions for blind and deaf children, showing again how Helen Keller helped change our country's attitudes, in this case towards children with disabilities. The town feels indebted to Wernher von Braun, one of the world's first and foremost rocket engineers. Von Braun led the space industry here to its many successes (the convention center is named after him and there's even a Von Braun Astronomical Society), but I can't help but recall a joke which circulated when the German designer of the Nazi V-2 rocket later in life published his autobiography, "I Aim for the Stars." At the time, a comedian reported, the book should have been subtitled "But Sometimes I Hit London."
I have to admit it -- the U. S. Space &Rocket Center is fabulous. You can "train like an astronaut" and experience simulated missions at this, the "Earth's greatest space attraction". That's if you climb inside the Centrifuge, enter the Mars Mission motion-based simulator or soar 140 feet into the air in the Space Shot. For more sedentary pleasure, just check out the real-sized Space Shuttle or the 363-foot Saturn V rocket mock-up, a National Historic Landmark already. Admission includes the museum and the IMAX film. The separate Space Camp, which they claim is "the largest youth destination program in the world," was started by Von Braun. Open daily except for major winter holidays, phone 256/837-3400. Admission $16.95 adults, $11.95 children (ages 3-12). Website www.spacecamp.com.
If you want something old-fashioned, head for Alabama Constitution Village, where several buildings house reenactments of life in July 1819, when the state's founding document was created here. You'll see ladies making candles, spinning, baking, printing and the like, in period costume. Admission $7 adults, $6 seniors, children free. 109 Gates Avenue, Huntsville, phone 256/564-8100, website www.earlyworks.com. (The village is associated with the Early Works Children's Museum, around the corner.)
Demonstrating that you really can turn swords into plowshares, the gorgeous Huntsville Botanical Garden, established in 1988, sits on 110 acres once part of the gigantic Redstone Arsenal, the U. S. Army's rocket and missile center for over 40 years. Look for the 100-year-old giant dogwood tree, the garden's centerpiece. 4747 Bob Wallace Avenue, phone 256/830-4447, website www.hsvbg.org.
En route between Florence and Huntsville on Highway 72, you should drop in at the Pettus Museum, where you can experience a lot of history, especially if Mr. Ronald Pettus is on hand to show you around. The place is crammed with artifacts from several wars, notably World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and political memorabilia, as well as antique toys and stuff about the Boy Scouts. You even can see a pension grant from the US Government to the widow of Pettus' great grandfather, a survivor of the Confederate Army who went on to fight the Indians out west after the Civil War. Highway 72, Killen, phone 256/757-9229, website www.pettusmuseum.com.
Lodging in Huntsville
One of the town's biggest places to stay is the Marriott at the Space Center, 5 Tranquility Base, phone 256/830-2222, website www.marriott.com/HSVAL. Rates from about $111 per room.
Dining Out in Huntsville
Try Pauli's, one of the city's best, for upscale food and a great wine list. Sample starter might be shrimp and grits for $10, sample entr?penne pasta with Angus beef tips $21, both good. Outstanding service. Corner Slaughter Road and Route 72, phone 256/722-2080, website www.paulisbarandgrill.com.
You might also enjoy The Jazz Factory, which says it has San Francisco-style cuisine, though I couldn't pin down what that means. 109 North Side Square, phone 265/539-1919.
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