I read in The Dispatch last week that a new industry is locating here. That brought to mind the first industry in Columbus and how industrial sites and the products manufactured here have changed over the years.

What is now the Hitching Lot Farmers Market and the adjoining soccer complex in Burns Bottom was the location of the earliest known industrial site in Columbus. The original United States Survey of 1823, which includes Columbus, calls Moore’s Creek the “Tan Yard Branch” and shows a farm or improved area south of the creek about where the Farmers Market and soccer complex are now located. Second Avenue North going west from the YMCA is the original Military Road and led to its 1817 Tombigbee River ferry location.

The first mention of a tan yard is in the 1822 minutes of the Trustees of Franklin Academy, which was the first governing body of Columbus. It records that “Bonn and Tinsley” were operating a tan yard in Columbus in 1822. In the 1830s, a man by the name of Goode “had his tan yard at the intersection of Franklin and Military streets.” That would be the present-day intersection of Third Street North and Second Avenue North.

Oscar Keeler’s 1849 map of Columbus shows a “Tan Yard Shop” on the site where the 1820 farm had been. The shop stood about where the Boy Scout building now sits on the Hitching Lot.

There are several possibilities as the operators of the tannery. The earliest records from 1822 mention that “Bonn and Tinsley” were operating a tan yard. In describing the early settlement of Columbus, W.E. Gibbs wrote in 1871 that George Goode “had his tan yard at the intersection of Franklin and Military streets.”

The 1820 census of Columbus, however, does not list a Bonn, Tinsley or Goode. It does give the names of three people in Columbus who have manufacturing operations. They were John Bibb, William Cocke, and Andrew McCrary. The original tan yard operation could have been any of those six or even someone unknown.

The tan yard was, however, the first recorded industry in Columbus. Hides for the tan yard would have been provided both from local farms and prior to 1832 from the Indian trade.

During the 1830s George Goode owned the property which is now the Hitching Lot. He sold it to Hale and Murdoch, who in 1858 sold the east half of the property to Harvey and Shelton. The west half which is the location of the farmers market was Hale and Murdock’s Columbus Manufacturing Co. During the Civil War the company made woolen saddle blankets and wool felt hats. In 1863, when the Union Calvary of Grierson’s Raid passed through Starkville, it captured a wagon load of wool hats that had been made in Columbus.

In 1885 the company was operating as A. Murdock’s Columbus Woolen Mill, Cotton Gin and Grist Mill. The company still made saddle blankets and occupied the two story building where the Hitching Lot Farmers Market is now located.

By the 1870s the area around Murdock’s and along the west end of Second Avenue North experienced an industrial boom. Industries in that area included Columbus Woolen Mill, Union Cotton and Lumber Mill, Tombigbee Cotton Mill, Columbus Ice Company, the city gas works, blacksmith and wheelwright shops and a grist mill. After 1900 many of those industries began to close or move.

Between 1905 and 1910, Murdock’s building was sold and became C.A. Williams Wagon Repairs. The rest of that block had become residential. Cox’s Alley ran east and west through the middle of the block and was lined with six tenant houses.

Eventually the old Murdock building was torn down. With most of the Murdock block no longer being used, the city addressed a new problem. The “Hitch Lot” was set aside by the city in 1936, as increasing motor vehicle traffic created a need to prevent horse and wagon traffic from clogging up Main Street.

Today the remnants of the brick walls of Hale and Murdock’s 1850s building can be seen in the grass between the Farmer’s Market and Second Street North. It is the only evidence still visible of the history of the site of Columbus’ first industry. Not too far north in the soccer complex stands a weather scarred ancient cypress tree. What stories that tree could tell.

Rufus Ward is a local historian.

Rufus Ward is a Columbus native a local historian. E-mail your questions about local history to Rufus at [email protected].

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