Did You Know These 5 Things About Tuscaloosa?

If you live in Tuscaloosa, you probably know a lot about Alabama football, but how much do you know about the city they play in?

The great City of Tuscaloosa is known for many things like football, the University of Alabama, Stillman College, Shelton State, an amazing night life and art scene, and so much more. But the history of Tuscaloosa runs deep.

Sure, at one time we had three Krispy Kreme locations but did you know...

Tuscaloosa is named after Chief Tuskaloosa, a paramount chief of a Mississippian chiefdom in what is now Alabama. According to Wikipedia, Tuskaloosa is notable for leading the Battle of Mabila at his fortified village against Hernando de Soto. Contemporary records describe the chief as being very tall and well built, with some of the chroniclers saying Tuskaloosa stood a foot and a half taller than the Spaniards. His name, derived from the western Muskogean language elements taska and losa, means "Black Warrior".

A 2019 article by the University of Alabama stated that there were 85 traffic signals in and around Tuscaloosa. We've come a long way since 1947, the year the city's first traffic light was installed at 25th Street and Hackberry Lane.

Tuscaloosa was chosen in 1825 as a replacement to the state capitol at Cahaba and served as such until 1846. Legislators decided then to move the capitol to the center of the state at Montgomery on the Alabama River. The loss of the capital caused Tuscaloosa to lose over half of its population.

The city and University of Alabama were partially burned on March 29, 1865 when General John Croxton and 1,500 troops marched from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa with orders to destroy factories, the bridge and the university.

A blog at AlabamaHeritage.com explains more.

How about we end on a funny note? In the 1930 motion picture Animal Crackers, Groucho Mark of the Marx Brothers, when talking about a hunting trip to Africa, joked, "As I say, we tried to remove the tusks. But they were embedded so firmly we couldn’t budge them. Of course, in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. But that’s entirely irrelephant to what I’m talking about."

Now you may have five more things to talk about when asked about Tuscaloosa.