Connecting north Cullman with U.S. Highway 278, there’s a lot of local history to be found along Fromhold Road. 

The site where some of Cullman’s earliest German settlers put down roots with their industrious penchant for farming, it’s a road still lined with the original home places that were first set down by some of the area’s oldest families. 

But there are natural artifacts to be found along the road’s roughly three-mile length — like the magnificent southern catalpa tree that still drops its blooms each spring in the backyard of current resident Mark Whatley, himself an heir to the Fromhold family legacy.

Whatley, who lives in the same house built in 1938 by his grandfather, Tony Fromhold, said he doesn’t remember a time when the gigantic tree wasn’t there. 

But he didn’t realize it was something special until a visit from family friend and Wallace State life sciences instructor Connie Briehn, who took a look at the tree’s foot-long, bean-shaped seed pods and said she’d not seen too many specimens of the tree in these parts. 

For a few fleeting weeks each spring — including right now — the tree sprouts white blossoms that visually overpower its green leaves and pods. “But let one good rain storm come through here,” says Whatley, “and this will all be gone.” 

In all, Whatley says his tree typically doesn’t stay in bloom longer than a month each year.  

“But it’s always in bloom for Mother’s Day,” he notes. “That happens year in and year out.”

Native to the South with its predominant habitat in central and south Alabama, the southern catalpa can grow up to 60 feet in height (a measurement that Whatley’s tree appears either to meet or surpass). 

In addition to its desirability as a long-term landscaping feature, the tree’s wood is also prized by craftspeople for its unique appearance when made into furnishings both fine and rustic — including its frequent use for decorative fencing.

Whatley says he’s no botanist, but he’s not seen any other examples of the tree either on his own property or anywhere else in Cullman. “It’s just something that’s always been here, as far back as I remember” from the 1960s onward. And viewed in full bloom on a recent May afternoon, it looks as if the tree has no plans to go anywhere anytime soon. 

Benjamin Bullard can be reached by phone at 256-734-2131 ext. 145.