Dearing-Bagby House, 421 Queen City Avenue, Tuscaloosa

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS ALA,63-TUSLO,16-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

421 Queen City Avenue, Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Date of Construction: Description: This Greek Revival style house, constructed of brick (stuccoed and scored to resemble stone), features a full-length hexastyle Ionic portico. Interiors feature a center- hall plan and Colonial Revival woodwork added in the John J. Webster served as master-builder; William Nichols may possibly have been the architect of the property.

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS ALA,63-TUSLO,16-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

This report is based on written documentation donated by the Birmingham Historical Society, reformatted to HABS/HAER guidelines Significance Associated with James Dearing, early Warrior River navigator/merchant whose steamboat and early trip up the Warrior led to the naming of the major Southern waterway. DEARING-BAGBY HOUSE HABS No. AL-230 (Page 4)

Historical Overview

Steamboat captain James H. Dearing built the first home in Tuscaloosa with a monumental Ionic-columned portico in The Federal style structure employed many of the architectural features of the Capitol Building which it faced. The residence, reported to cost set the style for the finer houses in Tuscaloosa. Dearing a North Carolina native and enterprising merchant, built a steamboat "the Tom Bigbie" and made what is said to be the second trip up the Warrior River in to the site of the early city. Here he established a storehouse. Energetic and aggressive, Dearing also engaged himself in experimental agriculture as well as building and running steamboats and steam-mills. He served as director of the State Bank.

He is said to have built this house as a present for his wife, Julia Searcy but unruly university students destroyed the family's pleasure in living there. They lived here several years before moving to a plantation in Hale County. Arthur Bagby, Governor of Alabama from 183 7 to and later U.S. Senator and Minister to Russia, resided in the house during his term as governor. Prominent Tuscaloosa residents Mr. and H. D. Warner purchased the residence in for use by the University of Alabama as a faculty club. Sources Consulted HABS, Tuscaloosa County Site Surveyr p. 104 Gamble, Robert; The Alabama Catalog, p. 353 Little Robert Irving, History of the University Club Building and Siter University of Alabama Library, Smith, William R., Reminiscences of a Long Life, Vol. I, pp.

Stewart, John Craig, Governors of Alabama