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Farming For A Better Future, page 29
nearby and while it was not mandated for people of color to be hired at Reynolds, there were several crews of African American men. Located to the west of Wise Alloys (Reynolds Metal Co.) at the northwest corner of East 2nd Street and Ford Road is the Mt. Olivia School. The school was one of eight Rosenwald schools in Colbert County. It was a two-teacher type school budgeted for the 1920-1921 school year. It cost a total of $2,900 with $1,200 contributed by the African American community, $900 in public donations, and $800 from the Rosenwald Fund. Mt. Olivia School * Mt. Olivia School has been referred to by a few names. Some local sources refer to the school by the nearby Pond Creek - i.e. Pond Creek School. The 1914 USGS and 1936 USGS/TVA topographic maps label the school as “Mt. Olivious” School. Other references, including the Fisk-Rosenwald database, refer to this school as Mt. Olivia. On the 1936 map, the school is adjacent to an unnamed church. The 1953 USGS topographic map indicates that the building may have had an addition. Like many rural African American schools, Mt. Olivia was closed by 1970 and the building is not included on the 1971 topographic map. The adjacent church, however, is labeled as Mt. Olivia Church. In the past decade or so, the Mount Olivia Missionary Baptist Church built a new building where the school was located and the original church building was expanded and became a funeral home. 191 Melrose Plantation* Melrose Plantation was located southeast of Tuscumbia. Most likely it was built by David Short Goodloe (1776-1845). Born in North Carolina, Goodloe moved to the Tuscumbia area in about 1820. Shortly thereafter, he purchased the quarter section of land in 1823 from the federal government. Goodloe and his family only lived there until 1837 when he moved to the western portion of the county where his three sons owned plantations. There, David Goodloe built another house called Myrtle Hall. The only census to capture Goodloe at Melrose was the census of 1830. The Goodloe household included 88 slaves that year. 29 - COLBERT - (4557)