Click image to enlarge. Alabama's oldest houses are rapidly vanishing. Built as homes for our early pioneers, many are located in rural areas and are abandoned and deteriorating. Their remote locations make finding the right homeowner particularly challenging and often preclude adapting them for other uses. So goes the story of the John Ash house, home of Ashville’s founder and one of the oldest surviving buildings in St. Clair County. Although widely recognized as a local landmark, the house now sits vacant with no plan or funds to restore it.
Constructed around 1818, the house began as a two-room log cabin with a sleeping loft. Later, it was expanded and “Victorianized.” Inside, however, one of the original rooms preserves its early appearance, with wide board walls and floors, a low, beamed ceiling, and original windows flanking the fireplace. Local preservationists are encouraging the current owner (a descendent of the Ash family) to preserve this important building so yet another pioneer dwelling will not vanish from the Alabama landscape.
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