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Monte Sano Railroad Workers' House

Alabama Registered Historic Place stubsHouses completed in 1888Houses in Huntsville, AlabamaHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in AlabamaNational Register of Historic Places in Huntsville, Alabama
Use mdy dates from August 2023
MONTE SANO RAILROAD WORKERS’ HOUSE, HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, AL
MONTE SANO RAILROAD WORKERS’ HOUSE, HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, AL

The Monte Sano Railroad Workers' House is a historic boarding house in Huntsville, Alabama, United States. Built in 1888, it is the only remaining building relating to the Monte Sano Hotel and Railroad. The North Alabama Improvement Company built the three-story, Queen Anne hotel on Monte Sano Mountain in 1887. The following year, construction began on a rail line connecting the hotel with the Memphis and Charleston Depot downtown. The house was constructed to house workers building and later operating the railroad. The workers' house was originally a saddlebag plan building, consisting of two rooms sharing a central chimney. A shed roofed, two-room addition was added in 1925. The façade has two doors, flanked by two-over-two sash windows. The house is clad with board-and-batten siding, and topped with a gabled metal roof. The structure was modernized after 1997, and a shed-roof front porch added. The hotel and railroad venture was not a financial success, and the railroad shut down in 1895, followed by the hotel in 1904. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Monte Sano Railroad Workers' House (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Monte Sano Railroad Workers' House
Shelby Avenue Southeast, Huntsville

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Latitude Longitude
N 34.741388888889 ° E -86.523888888889 °
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Address

Shelby Avenue Southeast 4141
35801 Huntsville
Alabama, United States
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MONTE SANO RAILROAD WORKERS’ HOUSE, HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, AL
MONTE SANO RAILROAD WORKERS’ HOUSE, HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY, AL
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Nearby Places

Monte Sano Nature Preserve

Monte Sano Nature Preserve is, at 1,107 acres (448 ha), one of the largest urban nature preserves in the US and is located on Monte Sano Mountain in Huntsville, Alabama. The Land Trust of North Alabama manages the nature preserve and Land Trust volunteers have created 23+ miles of public trails. Residents and visitors alike enjoy the multi-use trails for hiking, biking, running, bird watching, environmental education, and general recreation. The trail system was honored in 2011 by the Department of the Interior as National Recreation Trails making them the first NRT trails in Madison County. "Huntsville/Madison County's mountains form the final segment of the Great Appalachian chain and provide some of the southernmost habitats of broadleaf hardwoods such as the Sugar Maple. Monte Sano is home to several plant species important to the study of ecosystem stability referred to by scientists as "relics," because they provide clues to the climate of periods hundreds of thousands of years ago. Some of these species include the American Smoketree (Chittamwood), Morefield's Leather Flower, Price's Potato Bean, and Cumberland Rosinweed."Special features of the Monte Sano Nature Preserve include a former limestone quarry known as Three Caves, an historic spring named Trough Springs which was the site of one of the last Alabama confrontations of the Civil War, and the remnants of the Monte Sano Railroad from the late 1800s. The Old Railroad Bed Trail is one of the first 500 Rails-to-Trails Conservancy projects.

Oak Place (Huntsville, Alabama)
Oak Place (Huntsville, Alabama)

Oak Place (also known as the Steele-Fowler House) is a historic residence in Huntsville, Alabama. It was built by renowned Huntsville architect George Steele in 1840 on 320 acres (130 ha). Steele designed a number of buildings across the South, including the First National Bank building in Huntsville, and the second Madison County Courthouse, which stood from 1840 until 1914. Similar to many of his buildings, Steele designed the Oak Place house in a Greek Revival style, although much more restrained in detail. The house has a low hipped roof, and is three stories, although it appears as two stories with a basement due to its unusual interior layout. The façade has three steps leading to a one-story, flat-roofed portico supported by two square Doric columns on the corners and two fluted Doric columns in the middle. The entablature is the most decorated part of the house, although it is limited to groups of vertical strakes. Windows flanking the portico are six-over-nine sashes surrounded by square pilasters and Doric capitals with plain entablature and cornice. The interior layout was different than the standard home of the day. It features a central entrance hall, with a large ballroom with 14-foot (4.2-m) ceilings to one side, and two smaller rooms several steps above on the other. In the basement below the two smaller rooms is a dining room, taking advantage of the higher ceiling. There are four bedrooms on the second floor. Like the exterior, the interior was restrained. Many details were lost when it was converted from a house to a church school building by the East Huntsville Baptist Church. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Withers-Chapman House
Withers-Chapman House

The Withers-Chapman House is a historic residence in Huntsville, Alabama. The house was built by Allen Christian circa 1835 as the center of a farm that would become one of the major dairy suppliers in central North Alabama. After Christian's death in 1849, the house was purchased by Augustine and Mary Withers. Former Governor of Alabama Reuben Chapman acquired the house in 1873, after his previous house nearby had been burned by departing Union soldiers in 1865. The house remained in Chapman's family from 1873 until 1971. The surrounding farmland has been sold off into suburban development, but the house retains a prominent position on a 2-acre (0.8 ha) lot on a hillside. The 1+1⁄2-story house was built in the Federal style, with Greek Revival details. The house is clad in white clapboard and features a pedimented portico supported by four Tuscan columns over the entry. The portico is flanked by twelve-over-twelve sash windows. On each side of the house, two chimneys project through the end gable. There are two nine-over-nine windows between the chimneys on the main floor and a single twelve-over-twelve window on the upper floor. A central chimney and a shed roofed porch along the rear (connecting the formerly free-standing kitchen to the main house) were added in the 1930s. The interior is laid out with a central hall, with a dining room and parlor to one side and two bedrooms to the other. A stairwell at the end of the hall leads to two bedrooms upstairs. A shed roofed porch along the rear two-thirds of the eastern wall was enclosed in the 1960s to provide space for bathrooms.The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.