Offset streets and city blocks across South Side and along Military Road and Waterworks on North Side show the footprints of Columbus’ earliest days.
When Columbus was established as a town in 1819, there were few roads in the area. The principal highways were the Military Road, the Upper Tuscaloosa Road, Hamilton (Old Aberdeen) Road and the Pickensville or Lower Tuscaloosa Road. These roads predated the street grid that was laid out in 1821 resulting in streets that cut across or dog-legged around city blocks.
The Military Road construction began in 1817 and was completed in 1820. It is the oldest road within Columbus. Across the Tombigbee, it tied into the older St. Stephens Trace, which by 1813 was a wagon road connecting Chickasaw villages at present day Tupelo through John Pitchlynn’s at Plymouth Bluff with St. Stephens on the Tombigbee north of Mobile. It was the Military Road’s Tombigbee ferry location that became the site of Columbus.
The first house at Columbus was built in the fall of 1817, but the settlement remained little developed until a significant influx of people came during the summer of 1819. In December 1819, the settlement was officially recognized as the Town of Columbus. However, the recognition was from the Alabama Legislature as the state line had not been surveyed and the settlement was believed to be in Alabama. It was on February 10, 1821, that Columbus was chartered by the Mississippi Legislature.
On July 13, 1821, commissioners who had surveyed the town presented their survey of three east-west streets: Military (Second Avenue North), Broad (Main) and Washington (College). There were three crossstreets: West (Third), Center (Market) and East (Seventh).
The road crossed the Tombigbee River just north of the new bridge to the island and just south of Moore’s Creek and extended northeast toward Alabama. Military Road followed current Second Avenue North, breaking from the street grid at Eighth Street, the northeast corner of the original town limits. When the town limits were later expanded to the north, the Military Road route was already established so the new streets were simply laid out to fit over it. It is the old road slicing through city blocks that creates the series of small triangular blocks that one encounters driving along Military on north side.
The earliest legal reference to a road in Columbus other than the Military Road is in the form of a congressional act in the spring of 1820 to establish “Post Roads — in Alabama: Tuscaloosa, by Marion County (Alabama) County Court House (Henry Greer’s house at present site of Columbus Air Force Base) to Columbus.” The remains of that road in Columbus are probably the Old Aberdeen Road and Third Street North. Within a few years the Tuscaloosa Road, known as the Upper Tuscaloosa Road, went straight into Columbus roughly following Highway 50 East. Within Columbus that road is now Waterworks Road.
Another road that may date as early as 1820 is the Pickensville or Lower Tuscaloosa Road. In 1823, that road was designated as the Columbus to Tuscaloosa Post Road. That year, Richard Barry bought 160 acres south of Columbus. His brother-in-law, Henry W. Hunt, built the Cartney-Hunt house on Seventh Street South and the fence at the north side of that property was the original south boundary of the Town of Columbus.
Barry’s land was crossed diagonally by the road to Pickensville and Tuscaloosa. To follow that route, start at Pickensville, Alabama, and follow AL Hwy. 14 and MS Hwy. 69 to the Old Pickensville Road, then follow that road west to its junction with Nashville Ferry Road. From there the road traveled in a straight line to 11th Avenue South and thence angled across south side to Market Street.
When Richard Barry began to lay out a circa 1835 addition to the south of Columbus, his 160 acres of land was bounded by the 16th Section town limits on the north, Fourth Street, 11th Avenue and Eighth Street. He laid out the street grid due north and east but he had a problem. The Pickensville Road ran diagonally through his new town extension. His solution was to offset the streets where they intersected the highway, hence the offset at the Light and Water Department and two more intersections to the southeast, including the intersection of Seventh Street South and Sixth Avenue.
That brings us to the Light and Water Dept building in the middle of south end of Market Street. I have often been asked why the building was put in what ought to be the middle of the street. There is actually a simple explanation to that dog-leg. When Columbus was organized as a town in Mississippi, that dog-leg marked the southern limits of the town. So the block at the south end of Market street downtown was outside of the original town limits and was in the later Barry’s Addition. The survey for Barry’s Addition did not line up with the existing street grid resulting in the dog-leg we find today at the end of Market Street.
The next time you drive down a Columbus street and see a miniature triangular block or a weird dog-leg street, remember that you are looking at a footprint from Columbus’ earliest days. Thanks to Carolyn Kaye for working with me on this column.
Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].
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