by Christopher Gryniewicz

Created on: September 23, 2009   Last Updated: September 24, 2009

In 1805, Revolutionary War veteran, John Hunt, built a log cabin near "Big Spring." It was the earliest settlement in the area that would become Huntsville, Alabama. John Hunt, however, along with many other early settlers was living on squatters rights and could not afford the cost of officially purchasing his land. It is for this reason that Huntsville's original name was Twickenham, named by Leroy Pope after the English estate of his ancestor, Alexander Pope.

Leroy Pope was a man of considerable wealth and success. He was a planter and a lawyer and was able to purchased large amounts of land in the area that is today downtown Huntsville with ease. Pope's original plot included sixty acres at a cost of twenty-three dollars an acre. Although he is known as the "Father of Huntsville," it is squatter John Hunt who gives the city its name.

In 1811, only six years after the initial settlement, the name was officially changed to Huntsville by an act of Territorial Legislature. According to Edward Chambers Betts, "Early history of Huntsville, Alabama 1804 to 1870" there is a local legend of a feud between Pope and Hunt or the "Royal Party" and the "Castor-oil Party." Truth is, Betts says, Hunt himself left Huntsville in 1809 and the main reason for the change was simply that it was a British name.

Tensions were rising in 1811 between the United States and England as the War of 1812 approached as cities named after English town didn't sit well with the general public.

Based in a large part on Pope's vision, Huntsville grew quickly, by 1812 the city had a newspaper, a public school, a library, a bank, a church, and plenty of commerce. Since the city's inception in 1811, it has been a town of many firsts. It was the first capital of Alabama after hosting the states constitutional convention in 1819. It had the first Presbyterian Church in the state; built in 1812. The first public water system in the nation ran from the "Big Spring" in 1823. Huntsville was even the first city to obtain a textile mill following the civil war.

Leaping ahead to the twentieth century, Huntsville is probably best known as the home of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center or the first home of NASA. The Redstone Arsenal, which became the flight center, was built along with the Huntsville Arsenal to manufacture weapons during World War II. When Redstone developed the technology that allowed it to launch the Jupiter C Missile in 1958 it was huge step in rocket propulsion that would lead to space flight and greater weaponry.

As the forth largest city in Alabama, Huntsville will continue to be the historic over-achiever it has always been. From those early days of squatter John Hunt's log cabin to the cotton farms and textile mills of Pope's city and the rocket propulsion research that continues today, Huntsville has been and always will be a city of firsts.

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