|
The History of Spring HillOLD SHELL ROAD, MOBILE, ALABAMA From its beginnings, c.1824 until 1850, the picturesque and tree lined Isabella Street was one of Mobile’s most popular drives. During this same time Spring Hill was rapidly becoming Mobile’s fashionable summer resort and refuge from the dread yellow fever epidemics. About midway through the 19th, century a group of Spring Hill’s wealthy summer residents financed from their own purses the surfacing of the original country road with shells. To provide for the maintenance of the road, which had to be resurfaced with shells four times a year, an act of legislature, February 13th, 1850, opened Isabella Street to toll and renamed it the “Shell Road”. A toll gate located near Stickney’s Hollow (now known as Fernway) charged 25 and 50 cents per vehicle. Beginning at Broad Street, the “Shell Road” passed through Stickney’s Hollow, along the fringes of Summerville (now Spring Hill Avenue) skirting Ashland, the home of Mrs. Augusta Evans Wilson (now Ashland Place) near Nepoleonville (now Crichton) eventually climbing “The Hill” and ending majestically at Spring Hill College. On February 10th., 1854, a second act of legislature authorized the construction of another shell road along Mobile Bay. It was at that time, so as to distinguish one from the other, that the original “Shell Road” was renamed “Old Shell Road”. A visitor to Spring Hill during the early 1880’s wrote of the community and it’s road:
|
Site Design by SBM Systems - Hosting Services by sbmdomains.com