Group holds history tour

The Morgan County Genealogical Society held its annual history tour March 24.  The theme this year was Banks and Hotels, as the bus tour pointed out historic sites along the trail and location of these structures.
Areas where structures stood such as the Americana Hotel, the Hilda Hotel (later the Dixie), the Dancy Polk House (which at one time housed the Polk Hotel), and the Lyons and the Echols Hotels were pointed out on the way to the first stop which was Riverview (commonly known as the McEntire-Burleson House).  Here the group was greeted by Sandi Bennett and toured the home and the property.  Photos and stories of early residents such as Mary Fennel, Dr. Aaron A. Burleson, his daughter Anna Burleson Vardaman (who would become the first lady of Mississippi), and our claim to English royalty, Grace Hinds, Lady Curzon were viewed and discussed.  Riverview would house the Park Hotel, when the Hinds family lived in the tenement building (now gone) located west of the house while on the opposite corner to the property was the Olive Hotel that was built in 1888 by future mayor of Decatur and one-time resident of Riverview, H. S. Freeman.
The next stop of the tour was the Old State Bank with our host being Melinda Dunn.  Stories and past presidents of the oldest standing bank building in Alabama were relayed by Melinda as the group toured both floors.  Conversations about Washington Keyes, the bank’s first clerk, as well as its most controversial painting done by Eleanor Massy Bridges back in the 1930’s (the Bridges were Birmingham artists, she a painter and her husband a sculptor) was discussed.
The last stop was the Garth Cemetery with Phil Wirey telling past stories of General Garth (the Old State’s first director and future president) as well as Dr. Francis Winfield Sykes, senator from Alabama, whose portrait hung in the state capital for many years, and whose father, James Turner Sykes, was one of the most prominent of the past Old State Bank presidents.  Many of the Garth Dancy Sykes families were buried here with the home of General Jessie Winston Garth being just east of the cemetery.  It was there in 1864 that the famous Confederate General John B. Hood would make his camp along Danville Road during the demonstration against the Union Army’s General Granville Dodge.