greetings from sand town!
UDC is voted into law!
PROTECTIONS AFFORDED SAND TOWN
Sand Town residents are to work with representative Gina Gregory of District 7 and Shayla Beaco of Build Mobile to draft an amendment to the UDC. The amendment is to provide protections and a Safe Zone for Sand Town against commercial development and encroachment.
We view these actions as movement in a positive direction. Thank you to citizens of greater Mobile, our Spring Hill neighbors, business owners and members of other civic organizations who have helped elevate our voices while continuing to support us on this journey. Stay tuned.
Please direct all questions from the media to: inquiry@sandtowngroup.org. Thank you!
SAVE SAND TOWN
The Village of Spring Hill’s Master Plan Endangers Sand Town and Its Historical Significance to Mobile!
The Village of Spring Hill organization recently sent the following in an email to supporters:
“The Village of Spring Hill form-based code that guides our Master Plan will finally be voted on at the City Council meeting July 12th at 10:30 am. If the code is not approved as mandatory no doubt stagnant development will persist in the Village. If the code IS approved as mandatory, a precedent will be set in the City of Mobile allowing the “citizens” of Spring Hill to determine the future of their community and allow our Master Plan to be fully realized!.... there are still those few individuals who continue to speak against our efforts.
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Are We, The People Of Sand Town, Established Before 1845 In Spring Hill By Freed Slaves and Indigenous People, NOT “Citizens”?
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A home is the most sacred and biggest investment that one makes. Their Master Plan includes, among other things, the development of a Commercial Center right in the heart of our historical, safe, peaceful, quiet residential neighborhood!! The radical development that Linda St. John, president of the Village of Spring Hill, and their corporation of commercial investors advocate in our area jeopardizes our existence and even the peaceful, quiet, safe, quality of life for citizens and neighborhoods in closest proximity to Sand Town!
Now Ask Yourself:
- How can two ex-officio members of the Village of Spring Hill organization: Councilwoman Gina Gregory and Councilman Joel Daves, be allowed to vote on this issue when they were instrumental and facilitators of this Master Plan from its inception?
- Why have our repeated requests over a two-year period for Sand Town’s exemption from the mandatory Village of Spring Hill Overlay fallen on deaf ears?
- Why isn’t the new, more modern UDC code for the rest of Mobile not good enough for Sand Town as opposed to the 16-year-old Village of Springhill’s deceptive, draconian plan; and why do we need a special overlay that promises to geographically Split Sand Town in HALF?
- Why was this plan created without the knowledge or input of Sand Town residents all those years ago?
- Why has the Village of Spring Hill told Sand Town residents that they cannot join nor have a voice in the Village of Spring Hill organization?
- Why are Sand Town residents and the traditional Spring Hill businesses along Old Shell Road subjected to this outside commercial developers’ Mandatory Master Plan with no regard for what we all envision for our own future development?
The Village of Spring Hill speaks about “being allowed to determine the future of THEIR community.” Most members of that organization don’t even live within the community that they want to control! Why aren’t the residents of Sand Town allowed to determine OUR OWN future while preserving our peaceful history and quality of life?
It makes one wonder: “What is the group of corporate developers who comprise The Village of Spring Hill organization really trying to accomplish?”
dora franlin finley african-american heritage trail
MARKER CONTENT
FRONT SIDE:
Sand Town, the oldest African American neighborhood in the area
of Spring Hill, in Mobile, Alabama, was established before 1845, by
former enslaved and free, indigenous people of color. Sand Town residents
built their own homes, school and places of worship and founded the Rising
Sons Cemetery. It is a thriving community populated by multigenerational
descendants of the original, proud and hard-working property owners.
The Spring Hill School for Colored applied to open in 1873 and remained
open through the 1948-49 school year. The Mt. Hebron Methodist
Church was formed in 1847. After a fire in 1884, a new church was
constructed at the corner of Spring Hill Avenue and Knowles Street.
Sand Town ancestors, former residents and veterans are buried in the
Rising Sons Cemetery, located at the end of Knowles Street.
In 1937, under the guidance of Spring Hill College, St. Augustine
Catholic Church, a log cabin, was built for Colored Catholics in the
area. It existed until 1963, when many African American Catholics in
Spring Hill began attending St. Ignatius Catholic Church. Windows and
doors from St. Augustine Church are installed in the Mt. Hebron A. M. E.
Zion Church.
BACK SIDE:
The community and descendants of Sand Town
grew from the original founding families
and residents listed below, who resided on
Knowles Street:
Christopher Knowles, Lewis Morgan,
Elizabeth Johnson, Theodore Johnson,
Manuel Milligan
Originally, Sand Town was comprised of land
in and around Spring Hill Avenue and Knowles
Street and eventually grew to include Mordecai
and Sheips Lanes and land to Three Mile Creek.