Robert Mellown’s The University of Alabama: A Guide to the Campus and Its Architecture is full of colorful stories from the University’s past. His entry about the UA University Club includes an irascible report in the newspaper of the day by the house’s original builder, steamboat captain James H. Dearing. In the 1830s, Dearing’s peaceful nights were disrupted when “night after night, week after week . . . companies of students came by singing songs, most obscene, and using language that was most disgraceful and offensive to decency.”
Thus was born Tuscaloosa’s famed student district, “The Strip.”
Fun fact: although often referred to as “the governor’s mansion,” the home was never an official residence. Early Alabama made no provision for an executive mansion or governor’s home. The moniker arose from its being the private home of Arthur P. Bagby, the tenth governor of Alabama, who served from 1837 to 1841.
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