Indians Holding Up Parking Garage Improvement Project

Fairhope, Alabama


Garage alley today.


Proposed 'Art Alley'

FEDERAL FUNDING REQUIREMENT

According to public works director Johnson an Oklahoma-based (Wetumka) tribe of Muskogee Indians (Choctaw) is  holding up the parking garage project that was supposed to get under way this summer, because of cultural heritage concerns.

The tribe wants the city to hire an archaeologist to survey/monitor the site for artifacts where the asphalt is to be dug up and replaced (with pavers), Johnson said.

The so called 'Art Alley' project includes a BRATS bus transit hub on the south side and is intended to increase usage of the city parking garage to ease chronic street-parking shortages: total cost estimate was $817K.

Funding is mostly to be from the Eastern Shore Metropolitan Transit Organization with appropriate match from the city.

Art Alley layout.

NATIVE AMERICANS IN FAIRHOPE

Five different native American cultures inhabited the area over time, according to an exhibit at the museum where artifacts found here are on display now.


Fairhope history museum.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Our country's history is complicated and imperfect, but it's history. Tribes were displacing (and slaughtering) each other long before Europeans thought that they found India in the Americas.
Over the course of federal policies of removal, assimilation, reorganization, termination, and self-determination, the subject land was likely purchased from Indians more than once. It's over.
This is not state property, and these are not burial mounds. The development should go on.
Otherwise, we will be paralyzed, as they are in places such as California--a model of failed government that Alabama can reliably look to as a negative role model.
Anonymous said…
Native American
Anonymous said…
First comment is right. I am all in favor of correcting injustices done to living people. If you go back far enough every inch of this country was taken, pretty much by force, from someone. My family lost s lot of land during the Civil War and were pretty much wiped out financially because they were on the losing side. (On the other hand my wife’s family was on the winning side but they were deadbeats and did not have anything either.)
Anonymous said…
Who made the term native american, african american etc.,, If one looks hard enough you will find items from all the represented groups. But the major group after the flood was Noah and his family. This should be a comfort to know we are all family. God Bless
Anonymous said…
"Native American"

What's your point? Do you know what most of these indigenous people call themselves? Indians, Native Americans, or both.

So, whom are you scolding? Beware: wokeness and facts seldom correspond.

Let's stick to the issue.
Anonymous said…
Stick to the issue. The issue is a lot larger than you think. Your argument is to shallow. In the early years of this country. The Indians were known by region. But the issue is we all come from a small family and are all related. This battle our country faces is spiritual. And not of our name or skin color. Please read the book of Genesis about 30 min. and you will learn the battle. God Bless
Anonymous said…
Hmmm based on the last couple of weeks of news media, etc. I thought "All Lives Mattered"? Who knows whats under Fairhope's historical grounds?
Anonymous said…
We used to find arrowheads in the gullys when we were kids.
Anonymous said…
900 AD Lief Erikksson a Viking lands in the new world, 1492 Christopher Columbus also. 13 Colonies form after that known as colonials. 1776 these colonies become a Nation. What were the natives called prior to 1776??
Anonymous said…
I'm a Native American because I was born in the United States of American.
EG said…
This is ridiculous. Big government at its worst!