| Huntsville: Picture Perfect |
You've heard it said that "a picture is worth a thousand words." I never realized the extent of that saying until I sat down to see Old Huntsville's Photo Album CD. It became an emotional experience for me. I wasn't planning on looking at all 300 photos. I intended to just get a quick preview of the photographs. It came as a shock to me when I came to the end of the CD some 90 minutes later. I was ready for more and kept clicking my mouse button in anxious anticipation.
Tom Carney, editor of Old Huntsville magazine, has spent the last ten years collecting the history and old stories of Huntsville. Along the way, he's acquired over nine cardboard boxes of thousands of pictures. People give them to him. When someone dies, a lot of times there is no one who wants or cares about the old family photographs. Sometimes they just don't know who or what is in the picture. Carney has learned a lot by studying the clothing or buildings in photographs and usually can guess accurately to the date or time period in most pictures.
Now Tom Carney has made us our city's "family" album. I know my
mother, aunts, and uncles don't have some of the pictures of things that they
remember were around town when they were growing up. They'll be thankful that Carney has
collected these pictures for them. I found photographs from the
times of my great-great-grandparents, too. It was thrilling to see what
Huntsville must have been like while they were living. Whether
you are a serious genealogist, a sentimental long-time resident, or a relative
newcomer to Huntsville, I think you'll enjoy and appreciate the town we live in
when you view this dramatic black-and-white history. Just like someone
sitting with you to point out whose who when you look at family photographs,
Carney has added captions to all the pictures and explains what part of history
your viewing throughout the photo tour.
I felt a community spirit as I looked at the pictures of the cotton mill workers, early horse-drawn funeral processions, the building of Bankhead Parkway, the fabulous Monte Sano Hotel, private family reunions, slave cabins, soldiers from the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, the early days of the space program, the Big Spring Park swimming pool I went to as a child, and the toll gate guard house on the road to my grandmother's. There were pictures of Tallulah
Related Sites
Old Huntsville
Magazine
Homespun stories that make you wonder if they are really true or
not; plus some serious old-time stuff like the 1859 City
Directory and listings for Maple Hill Cemetery.
Alabama
Genealogy
Resources for researching genealogy and history in Alabama, the
South, the Civil War, and in general.
The Man Behind Old Huntsville Magazine
Tom Carney and his wife started Old Huntsville magazine
as a joke on their neighbors. It has turned into a local icon and
affected a lot of people in Huntsville.
