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Tuscaloosa is the regional center of industry, commerce, healthcare and education for the area of west-central Alabama known as West Alabama. It is the principal city of the Tuscaloosa Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Tuscaloosa, Hale and Pickens counties.
Apr 25, 2024 · The town is named after Tuskaloosa, leader of the Mississippian town of Mabila (also known as Mauvila) who was executed by Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto's men in 1540. Tuscaloosa served as the state's capital from 1826 to 1846 and has been home to the University of Alabama since 1831.
- The River
- Desoto
- 1826-1850
- Civil War
- Growth
The river shoals at Tuscaloosa represented the southernmost site on the river which could be forded under most conditions. Inevitably, a network of Native American trails converged upon the place, the same network that in the first years of the 19thcentury began to lead a few intrepid white frontiersmen to the area. The pace of white settlement inc...
In honor of the legendary "Black Warrior," a great chief who had had a fateful encounter with explorer Hernando DeSoto centuries before somewhere in Southwest Alabama, the settlers named the place Tuscaloosa (from the Choctaw words "tushka" meaning warrior and "lusa" meaning black). In 1817 Alabama became a territory, and on Dec. 13, 1819 the terri...
From 1826 to 1846 Tuscaloosa was the state capital of Alabama. The University of Alabama was established during this period in 1831. These developments, together with the region's growing economy, increased the number of the town's inhabitants to 4,250 by 1845, but after the departure of the capital to Montgomery, population fell to 1,950 in 1850.
Establishment of the Bryce State Hospital for the Insane in Tuscaloosa in the 1850s helped restore the City's fortunes. During the Civil War Tuscaloosa County furnished about 3,500 men to the Confederate armies. During the last weeks of the War, a Federal raiding party burned the campus of the University. Tuscaloosa shared fully in the South's econ...
The construction of a system of locks and dams on the Black Warrior River by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1890s opened up an inexpensive link to the Gulf seaport of Mobile, stimulating especially the mining and metallurgical industries of the region. By the advent of the 20thcentury, the growth of The University of Alabama and a strong n...
Sep 14, 2009 · In fact, the word “druid” itself may be derived from Greek and proto-Celtic words for oak. Less well known as a nickname for Tuscaloosa is The Queen City. This derives from the railroad...
Tuskaloosa ( Tuskalusa, Tastaluca, Tuskaluza) (died 1540) was a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now the U.S. state of Alabama. His people were possibly ancestors to the several southern Native American confederacies (the Choctaw and Creek peoples) who later emerged in the region.
Nov 22, 2015 · Tuscaloosa was known as "The Oak City" and "The Druid City" (after an ancient Celtic people who worshiped oaks) in its early years because huge water oak trees lined the downtown streets since the 1940's. Some of the giant oaks still spread their branches over the streets of Tuscaloosa.
Tuscaloosa, the county seat of Tuscaloosa County, is located in west central Alabama, on the Black Warrior River. The city is named for the Choctaw chief Tascaluza, or Tuskalusa, who was defeated by Hernando de Soto in 1540 in the Battle of Mauvila.
