Cullman County

[Guidedawg]

1.   Ave Maria Grotto - St. Bernard Abbey  Cullman
2.   Clarkson Bridge – West of Cullman   Cullman
3.   Crane Hill Masonic Lodge – 14538 County Road 222   Crane Hill
4.   Cullman Downtown Commercial Historic District - 4th and 1st Aves. and 2nd and 5th Sts., SE
5.   Cullman Historic District - 1st and 8th Aves. and 3rd and 9th Sts.
6.   Ernest Edward Greene House - 105 6th Ave., SE  Cullman
7.   Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot – 309 1st Ave. NE  Cullman
8.   Shady Grove Methodist Church and Cemetery - Ruby Community 3.7 miles west of Logan
9.   Stiefelmeyer's - 202 1st Ave., SE


All sites from this county have been documented. (Great job Nice Goat!) Who will contribute to another?

[Al Goodwin]

Your #3, the Crane Hill Masonic Lodge is now a restaurant.....good, GOOD country cooking. :P

[Nice Goat]

1.   Ave Maria Grotto - St. Bernard Abbey  Cullman

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/vkkYqmfKr8z

If you ever wanted to feel like Godzilla, this is the place.  Ave Maria Grotto is the life work of a monk at St. Bernard Abbey.

Known throughout the world as "Jerusalem in Miniature," is a beautifully landscaped, four-acre park designed to provide a natural setting for the 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous historic buildings and shrines of the world.  The masterpieces of stone and concrete are the lifetime work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard Abbey.  Begun as a hobby, with various materials he could find, and infinite patience and a remarkable sense of symmetry and proportion, Brother Joseph re-created some of the greatest edifices of all time.

[Nice Goat]

2.   Clarkson Bridge – West of Cullman   Cullman

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/DFwfua7Lmjv

You cannot ride across it any more, but there is a nice little park there with a dogtrot cabin, a grist mill, some picnic tables, and some rocks you can climb on.  You can get in the creek too, if you really want to.

One of Cullman's most well known attractions and historically rich sites, Clarkson Covered Bridge, originally built in 1904, and was once used regularly by farmers and travelers to cross Crooked Creek, the weatherworn bridge is now closed to traffic, the centerpiece of a park built in period fashion to showcase the bridge and its historical significance.

[Nice Goat]

3.   Crane Hill Masonic Lodge – 14538 County Road 222   Crane Hill

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/ScdnokK85wq

The Crane Hill Masonic Lodge is a simple two-story, frame, free standing gable-front building located in the rural community of Crane Hill in southwest Cullman County, Alabama.  The building was constructed in 1904 by Philip Aquilla Cooper, better known as "P. A." in this community, and his assistant Robert Boone.

The Lodge was constructed in 1904 as a Masonic lodge and to provide space for a school, as the previous one had burned several years earlier.  Local masons met in the upper floor of one of the local general stores, receiving their charter in 1899 and moving into the new building in 1904.  The first floor has been used for a variety of purposes over the years including a general store, school, as apartments for local head mill (producing heads for barrels) workers in the 1940s, as the local fire station and polling site in the mid 1970s, and as a senior citizens center since 1978.  The first floor was used for educational purposes from 1904 until 1934 when the new consolidated H. G. Dowling School was completed and again in 1938 as an interim facility while a new school was rebuilt after a devastating fire that same year.

As Allen said above, the building is now home to the Crooked Chimney Restaurant.

[Nice Goat]

6.   Ernest Edward Greene House - 105 6th Ave., SE  Cullman

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/2uEb7SisaeP2

The Greene House in Cullman is a fine and intact example of the Neoclassical style which was the prevailing style from 1900 to 1940.  Built in 1913, the house features Ionic colossal columns supporting a projecting portico, multi-pane sashes, and symmetrical facade and central hall plan.  Fine details including transom and sidelights with lead earning and beveled glass, bracketed eaves, and corner boards with Ionic capitals remain intact.

[Nice Goat]

8.   Shady Grove Methodist Church and Cemetery - Ruby Community 3.7 miles west of Logan

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/wy2KgUCDuZL2

This one is my favorite in Cullman County.  This place is always peaceful and it feels like it is filled with love.

The Shady Grove Methodist Church is situated on the outskirts of Logan on the ridgeline in Western Cullman County about 10 miles from the town of Cullman.  The church is a locally significant example of a late nineteenth-century rural church with Gothic Revival influences.  The church retains a high degree of architectural detailing and represents the influence of the Gothic Revival movement in American religious architecture.  Built in 1892-93, this one story, wood frame, front gable roof church is characterized by its Gothic Revival detailing.  The interior of the church features a nave embellished with triangular-headed windows.  The church retains a high degree of architectural integrity.  The church forms the core of a 7-acre parcel of property that also includes a five-acre cemetery.

Georgia farmers and Scottish and Irish trappers intermingled with German immigrants and resided in the vicinity of what is today Logan.  This group of mixed ethnic backgrounds came together on a sporadic basis for worship.  They met among a grove of trees atop a ridge outside of Logan.  Some of these settlers had heard John and Charles Wesley preach under the oak trees in St. Simon, Georgia.  They commemorated these sermons in the grove of trees in Cullman County.  In the early 1870s, the group decided to organize a Methodist Church following the teachings of John Wesley.

The Shady Grove Methodist Church lot is characterized by a number of man-made and natural elements.  Established on a hill, the cemetery rests on five acres of sandy loam soil, which fronts the parcel.  A road cuts between the church and the cemetery. Trailing between the church and the cemetery is a rock wall with steps and a handrail.  The property sits among a dense stand of trees.  The cemetery encloses 381 graves with markers made from sandstone, granite and marble.  There are ninety-six unmarked graves, the ages of which range from 1863 to the present.  The majority of the graves date from before 1940.  Three burials of Confederate soldiers and two burials of Union soldiers rest in the cemetery.  The faint remains of two crossing trails are visible.  Originally Native Americans in the area formed these paths; Irish and Scottish hunters who frequented this spot in their trapping and trading later used them.

[Nice Goat]

4.   Cullman Downtown Commercial Historic District - 4th and 1st Aves. and 2nd and 5th Sts., SE

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/VJ4ZYdcKf2K2

This basically incorporates the entire downtown area.  Too many buildings to photograph, so I took some of my favorites.

Cullman was founded in 1873 by John G. Cullmann, who purchased land from the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.  Most early commercial buildings were constructed of wood, with the first brick building, a hotel and restaurant across from the L&N depot, completed in 1881.  Most of the early wooden buildings burned, including the C. A. Stiefelmeyer Storehouse in 1892, which was replaced with the current Stiefelmeyer's building.  A new post office building was constructed in 1910, at the same time as a major boom in construction.  Following a lull during World War I, construction continued in the 1920s, including the First United Methodist Church in 1923.  The majority of the 58 contributing structures in the district are one- or two-story brick buildings in basic commercial styles, some influenced by the Chicago School.  Notable exceptions are the wooden Italianate Stiefelmeyer's building, the stone Gothic Revival First Methodist Church, and the Neoclassical Federal Building and German Bank building's corner cupola.

[Nice Goat]

5.   Cullman Historic District - 1st and 8th Aves. and 3rd and 9th Sts.

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/x1YwTWFEQXN2

This incorporates a large residential area very close to the downtown commercial district.  Over 100 houses are in this district.

The Cullman Historic District of "Die Deutsche Kolonie Von Nord Alabama" consists of twenty-seven blocks lying east of the sunken Louisville and Nashville Railway tracks and the southeast of the central business district of Cullman.  Except for a few commercial buildings, the district consists primarily of single-family dwellings.  The district is not cut by any major streets or highways.  Almost at the center of the district lies an open block with the functional purpose of a school playground and serves as a focal point of the area.  Two schools and two churches face onto this block from three sides.

The district contains 135 buildings, consisting of three churches, a few commercial buildings, two sections of row house apartments, a public and church affiliated school, all of which date from the mid-1870s to the 1970s. Of the 135 buildings within the district, 77 are contributing, 51 are non contributing, most because of age less than 50 years, others because of major irreversible alterations performed within the last 50 years, and seven are conditionally contributing.

Architectural influences present in the district include: Queen Anne, Eastlake, High Victorian Italianate, Italian Romanesque Revival, Georgian Revival, Colonial Revival Classical Revival, Jacobethan Revival, Commercial style, Bungalow style, International style, Modern and Rustic plus several types that are presently unclassified or are intermixtures of various styles due to remodeling, additions, or stylistic interims or meldings.  Types range from examples designed by skilled architects to ones which are contractor or owner designed.

[Nice Goat]

...
7.   Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot – 309 1st Ave. NE  Cullman
...
9.   Stiefelmeyer's - 202 1st Ave., SE

Still need these two.  I've taken photos of them before, I know, because I completed this for BR 1.0.  But I can't find the photos anywhere.  They must've been on my PhotoBukkit account...

[Nice Goat]

7.   Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot – 309 1st Ave. NE  Cullman

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/qJ9fHBHzP3r

The depot was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.

The Louisville and Nashville Railroad Depot is an historic train station in Cullman, Alabama.  The depot was built in 1913 as a replacement for Cullman's original station.  Cullman's founder, John G. Cullmann, gave money to the city upon his death in 1895 to lower the Louisville and Nashville Railroad tracks through town, in order to reduce noise and pollution.  The plan was not enacted until 1911, when the L&N laid double tracks through the town, necessitating the construction of a new depot.  The depot served passengers until 1968, and was used for maintenance storage by new owner CSX until it was sold to the city in 1990.  It was restored and now houses offices for the local United Way chapter.

The depot is built in Mission Revival style, unique among otherwise standard and less stylized L&N depot designs.  The center section of the three-bay building is separated by two piers which rise above the parapet.  The piers have shallow pyramidal tops, and are decorated with recessed panels and horizontal banding.  In the central bay lies the main entrance, covered by a hipped roof portico which is supported by heavy square columns and brackets.  The parapet is arched in each bay of the façade, and in the center bay of the rear, track-facing side.  Each bay features 2 one-over-one sash windows with single-light transoms.  The north end of the building has a set of carriage doors, originally leading to the baggage area, while the south end has a covered porch that leads to the tracks.

[Nice Goat]

9.   Stiefelmeyer's - 202 1st Ave., SE

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/uT8buP5z53P2

The building was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage in 1978 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

Stiefelmeyer's is a historic commercial building in Cullman, Alabama.  The store was founded in 1888, and occupied a two-story frame storehouse until it was destroyed by fire in 1892.  Although brick had already become the material of choice for commercial buildings in the town, the current Stiefelmeyer's was built in 1892 of wood.  An addition was constructed in 1900, expanding the building to its current size.  As other wood commercial buildings were destroyed by fire and replaced with brick structures, Stiefelmeyer's remains the only example of the once-dominant building material in Cullman's commercial district.

The two-story building was designed in Italianate style.  The building has a tall cornice with scroll-cut brackets and modillions.  The front façade features two sets of double-leaf doors, each flanked by large display windows resting on marble base panels.  A shed roofed canopy, similar to the one installed around 1900, covers the sidewalk along the front.  The first floor doors and windows are topped with prism glass transoms.  Two further entrances are along the 2nd Street side, one in the middle, and a recessed entrance near the rear.  Several one-over-one sash windows with small transoms also line the side of the building.  The second floor on the front and side also have rows of one-over-one windows.