Friday event to mark location of historic road

Published 10:18 am Wednesday, September 24, 2008

By Adam Smith

The North Jefferson News



Those traveling past the Gardendale Civic Center on Friday may get the impression that a western movie is being filmed in the city.

Don’t be fooled — members of the Gardendale HIstorical Society will be celebrating the history of Stouts Road, one of the region’s oldest routes of travel. Festivities will begin at 10 a.m.

The celebration will include a period stagecoach and actors in 19th-century dress. The festivities will culminate in the unveiling of a historic marker noting the significance of the road in the early civilization of north Jefferson County.

Stouts Road in Gardendale is now a thing of the past. New roads and development have concealed the road, which was mostly forgotten until Gardendale native Kermit Dooley and his fellow society members began to research the road.

Main Street in Gardendale runs over what was once Stouts Road in Gardendale. Dooley said there’s a possibility the road was also more to the west. Portions of Moncrief Road, North Road, Snow Rogers Road and Old Highway 31 also likely make up what was once Stouts Road.

A portion of the road still exists in Birmingham, west of Carraway Hospital, near Oak Hill Cemetery.

“It was for all types of travel, from people walking, riding horseback, riding on wagons and stagecoaches,” Dooley said.

The road dates back to 1823, when Abraham Stouts was given permission to continue Stouts Road from Baltimore to Elyton, which is now known as Birmingham.

In those days, Stouts Road was a toll road. Stouts and his associates were able to collect a toll for about 12 years.

Dooley described the horse-drawn stagecoach that will be at Friday’s festivities as an authentic period replica, hand-built by a Mennonite craftsman. In addition to actors in period clothing, a mountain man re-enactor is also scheduled to be on hand.

The Gardendale Historical Society have several other projects in the works, including its participation in a state-sponsored program which provides historical markers for cities.

The historical society is also planning markers for the city’s remaining historic buildings and to mark the site of the old jug factory, from which the city earned its first namesake — Jugtown.

The group is also conducting interviews with senior citizens who were raised in the area to compile an early history of the city’s earliest days.

The recordings will be sent to Montgomery for the state archives and will also be kept at the Gardendale public library.

Dooley said the purpose of the projects are to inform the city’s residents of its roots, but also generate interest in the historical society, which meets the third Saturday of each month at the library.

“It’s important to learn about the past history of Gardendale and to see where we came from,” he said. “That way, we can see where we are today and have a better appreciation of what we have in the city.”