Naming the Shoals - 2021 Update

Cities and towns are like cats; they usually have an official name and a nickname. Say the “Big Apple” or the “Second City,” and everyone knows which town is being discussed. That’s also true of Shoals towns, or at least most of them.

Look at Sheffield; it now seems to have two nicknames. In 2016, PNS published an article about a Sheffield city council candidate who had a recent local arrest. When one editor used the term “City on the Bluff,” the candidate took great issue with it, stating the public wouldn’t understand the arrest was in Sheffield. The other editor agreed with her, stating “City on the Bluff” was an old name for the town. Is it?

The first record of that name found on the Internet is from an early 1980s Sheffield High School pep rally. In 1985, the Sheffield Library published the history of the town on the eve of its 100th anniversary. The book was called Sheffield, City on the Bluff – 1885-1985.

In this century, local filmmaker Steve Wiggins has produced Sheffield: City on the Bluff. Even current Sheffield police patches give a nod to the name, displaying it prominently at the top of the insignias officers wear daily. Yet Sheffield does have a new nickname. Will it displace “City on the Bluff?”

An Internet search shows early 2014 as the first date “Center of the Shoals” was used to describe the small Colbert County town. At that time, a refurbished neon sign was placed at the juncture of Muscle Shoals and Sheffield on East Second Street.

Since that time, the city has begun to use the designation on its website and in other blurbs. Yet there has been much discussion on local forums as to how accurate a description this new name really is. Exactly how does one define the center of the Shoals area when not everyone can decide its geographical boundaries? Or is “center” merely a relative term?

To add more confusion, a new Sheffield development is now calling itself the "Center of the Shoals."  Which name will win the battle of the nicknames? Perhaps the City of Florence can tell us; we’ll visit it next.

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We last visited the City on the Bluff; now we’ll visit the Queen City. Not familiar with that appellation? That makes you under the age of 50.

The term Queen City is used for towns in almost all the states. Once Alabama had two Queen Cities: Tuscaloosa and Florence. In the 1960s and 1970s, it wasn’t unusual to see vehicles sporting the car tag “Florence, Ala – the Queen City.”

The last official reference to Florence as the Queen City was found online in a 1989 newspaper article by the TimesDaily reporter Lorene Frederick who wrote of the winner in a Florence jingle contest. It would seem the blush and shoulder pads era daily wasn’t that much different from the one of today.

Did the name Queen City fall out of favor because it was confusing? Or did the rising era of gay rights tarnish the term in the eyes of some?

Florence seemed to languish for at least a years without an official nickname; however, by the late 1980s, the annual Renaissance Faire had arrived. Florence, Italy, and Florence, Alabama, had been proclaimed sister cities. What better way to cement that relationship than by dubbing the Alabama town the Renaissance City?

Over the years, signage has sprung up bearing the image of the Italian town’s signature giglio, sometimes known as the lily or fleur-de-lis. Even the marble floor in the back lobby of the public library sports the floral logo.

Arguments have sprung up over the presence or absence of stamen in the signature flower and what makes it a true giglio. While it may have convoluted origins, it looks like the name Renaissance City is here to stay.

One Colbert County town didn’t have quite such a circuitous path to its nickname. Next: Muscle Shoals.

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It was 1921 when Henry Ford visited Muscle Shoals. He proposed purchasing Wilson Dam for five million dollars and turning the miniscule plat on the map into what he called “the Detroit of the South.” Congress refused Ford’s offer based on the construction price of the dam having been at least eight times what Ford offered, but the nickname Detroit of the South stuck for years, possibly as much in derision as in apt description.

At least four decades passed before things changed appreciably in Muscle Shoals, but change they did. The small town of Sheffield refused to consider U.S. Highway 43 passing through its city limits, and Muscle Shoals became the next logical choice for the major traffic artery. The Detroit of the South was about to boom, if in only a small way.

Since the town had nothing to do with the automotive industry at this point, a new nickname was needed to convey what the town represented, and the success of Fame Studios provided it. Muscle Shoals was officially dubbed “the Hit Recording Capital of the World.”

Signs designating the town as a hit recording capital have waned over the years, but recent interest in the small Colbert County town’s musical history has again brought the name to the forefront 40 years after it first appeared. It just may be a keeper.

Next we’ll visit Tuscumbia…

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The city of Tuscumbia is one of the oldest communities in the Shoals. It’s either the same age as Florence or two years younger, depending upon one’s point of view. From the official town history:

The town incorporated as Ococoposa in 1820. The name was soon changed to Big Spring. This name, however, still did not seem to do the town justice. In 1822, a vote was taken to change the name to either Anniston, after the first white child born in Big Spring, or Tuscumbia, in honor of the Chickasaw Indian chief living here. Tuscumbia won by one vote.

Should we consider Ococoposa a nickname? Probably not. How about Big Spring? Ditto.

So what is Tuscumbia’s nickname? If Florence, Sheffield, and Muscle Shoals each have two sobriquets, doesn’t Tuscumbia have at least one? Those we’ve asked have uniformly replied in the negative.

In the interest of fairness, it’s incumbent upon PNS to dub the city of Tuscumbia with an appellation it can be proud to display on billboards leading into the town. A historian residing in legendary Limestone County has come to the town’s rescue and coined a brilliant nickname for the Colbert County town. From this point on, the picturesque municipality shall be designated:

Tuscumbia – Gateway to Barton.

Yet five years after the original publication of these articles in Pen-N-Sword, there's been a new development in Tuscumbia. It seems the most picturesque of the Colbert town trio now has an official name:

Will "Charm of the Shoals" stick? Some of us were hoping for "Tuscumbia, a Dickens of a Town." 

Bette F. Terry holds a B.A. in history from UAH

F. T. Appleby: A Biography

 

Flavius Thompson Appleby 

April 2, 1875 - December 20, 1932

Flavius Thompson Appleby was born in an era when it was considered socially desirable to give sons classical names, usually Greek or Roman. Many recipients of these names later preferred to use only first and middle initials, and we may assume F. T. Appleby, the namesake of a Roman emperor, was one of these.

Appleby’s family history is recorded in the History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, Volume 3 by Thomas McAdory Owen and Marie Bankhead Owen. The following is a brief excerpt:

“(Appleby was the) son of Samuel Argyle and Rebeckah (Ewing) Appleby, the former a native of Verona, Marshall County, Tenn., who lived at Lewisburgh and was a farmer and stock breeder; grandson of Samuel Bell and Emma Jane (Ewing) Appleby of Verona, Tenn. and of Lyle A. and Rebeckah (Leiper) Ewing, who lived at Farmington, Tenn. His great-grandfather, John Appleby, came with two brothers from Appleby, Westmoreland County, England, to South Carolina soon after the Revolution, and from there moved to Tennessee. The brothers went one to Pennsylvania, and the other to Georgia. His great-grandfather, John Leiper, was the founder of the Leiper's Mill community in Tennessee, and one of the founders of the old Presbyterian Church Bethberel. Mr. Appleby attended the country schools near Lewisburgh, Tenn.: was graduated from the University of Tennessee, B.S. 1901; took graduate work in Columbia University, New York and spent three summers at Winona Lake summer school, Indiana. He began teaching in a district school in Tennessee; then in a village school in the same state; became teacher of mathematics in Elmwood seminary for young ladies, Farmington, Miss.; was elected president of that school and held the position for four years; came to Alabama as superintendent of Tuscumbia city schools, 1906-1910; served as president of LaFayette College; was elected superintendent of city schools at Florence, 1919.”

While living in Campbellsville, Kentucky, Appleby married Mary Grider (Mayme) Mourning in December 1902. The couple had one son born in January 1904. By August 1906, Mayme had passed away at the age of 25, leaving Appleby with a young child to raise. He then moved to Northwest Alabama where he met Ella Henry Johnson of Tuscumbia. They married in January 1909; their union lasted until Flavius’ death in December 1932. He was also survived by his son James Mourning Appleby who died in 1977.

F. T. Appleby taught school until 1917, at which time he was elected the superintendent of Florence City Schools. He remained in that position until his death. Once installed in the office, Appleby set about to raise the academic achievements of the school system. The year 1917 also marked the opening of Coffee High School on Jackson Highway (now Hermitage Drive); by 1920, it had become the first locally accredited high school in the area under the educator’s guidance.

Four years after Appleby’s death, the city built Florence Junior High adjacent to Coffee High School. In 1951, a new Coffee High School building opened a few blocks away from the original, and the former high school was renamed F. T. Appleby Elementary School after the beloved late superintendent.

F. T. Appleby Elementary and Florence Junior High sat side by side on Hermitage Drive for ten years until 1961 when the Henry Grady Richards Elementary School opened on Riverview Drive. At that time the entire complex became F. T. Appleby Junior High School. The two buildings, joined by a breezeway, remained in service until 1980 when they were replaced by Rufus G. Hibbett Sr. Middle School.

In honor of F. T. Appleby, the newly constructed city street leading to Hibbett Middle School was named Appleby Boulevard. Sadly, the Appleby complex on Hermitage Drive was damaged by several fires over the years and was eventually completely razed.

Flavius Thompson Appleby and his wife Ella Johnson Appleby are buried in the Oakwood Cemetery in Tuscumbia, Alabama. You may learn more about the Appleby/Johnson families at Find-A-Grave.

Bette Favor Terry holds a BA in history from UAH.