Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County---March 21-27
This week’s blog topic was to be a continuation of last week about the medical community. On March 19th when multiple tornados tore through Calhoun County and hit the town of Jacksonville, having family members and friends who were in the direct path of the storm changed the focus of the blog for this week. Thankfully, there were no major injuries but the path of the destruction was huge. The city of Jacksonville and Jacksonville State University bore the brunt of the storm damage.
Drayton was founded in 1832 and the site of the first courthouse for Calhoun County. Shortly after it was established, the town was renamed by the soldiers who severed with Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812. Some of these men had returned to settle on the land they had passed through during the war and wanted to honor their former commander by naming the town Jacksonville. In 1882, the Alabama Legislature created the Normal School at Jacksonville that would become Jacksonville State University.
On March 20th, the day after the storms, my cousin was riding through town trying to return to the family home in Jacksonville when she called me. Throughout the telephone call, she described the condition of each building at Jacksonville State’s campus. It was gut wrenching as I thought back to my time as a young college student at Jacksonville State University. I spent many days on the 3rd floor of Stone Center listening to some of the finest history professors lecture. Dr. Taylor, Dr. Childress, and both Drs. Wingo all assigned research topics that forced me to spend my nights and weekends at Houston Cole Library. Even after leaving JSU to continue my education, I still returned to Houston Cole to do research.
Seeing the pictures of the storm’s aftermath and the destruction are heart-breaking. Recovering and rebuilding will be a long process. If you would like to help the citizens of Calhoun County and JSU recover from this disaster please go to these links at the Anniston Star and Jacksonville State University.
This blog post is ©2018 by Kimberly O’Dell and may not be reprinted (in part or in whole) without written permission and approval of the author Kimberly O’Dell.
