Huntsville Tours By Our Classmates

Tommy Towery

LHS '64

We had some good responses to our question about where we would take visitors to Huntsville. The top choice should be no surprise, and it was The Space and Rocket Center. The Big Spring Park was right there at the top as well, along with Monte Sano Mountain. Following are the answers given by your classmates and other Traveller readers.

Belinda German Talley,  HHS 1969, "1st Top Tour Place - The Space and Rocket Center; 2nd Top Tour Place - Big Spring Park; 3rd Top Tour Place - Downtown, Historic HSV, Harrison Brothers, Ghost Tours with Robert and Jackie Reeves"

Mary Ann Bond Wallace, LHS '64, "1st Top Tour Place - Harrison Brothers est 1897, 124 Southside Square; 2nd Top Tour Place - Space and Rocket Center; 3rd Top Tour Place - Big Spring Park (where it begins and the stories that all of us have heard)"

Nancy Hummel, LHS '65, "1st Top Tour Place - Big Spring Park; 2nd Top Tour Place - Space and Rocket Center; 3rd Top Tour Place - Twickenham Historic District."

Delores McBride Kilgore, LHS '66, "1st Top Tour Place - Space and Rocket Center; 2nd Top Tour Place - Burriitt  Museum; 3rd Top Tour Place - Big Spring Cafe. (I also would take the downtown tour of the old houses in Huntsville.)

John Scales,  LHS '66, "1st Top Tour Place - Space & Rocket Center; 2nd Top Tour Place - Botanical Garden; 3rd Top Tour Place - Monte Sano State Park."

Cecilia Levan Watson, LHS '68, "1st Top Tour Place - Monte Sano State Park; 2nd Top Tour Place - Botanical Gardens; 3rd Top Tour Place - Downtown and Big Springs Park."

Linda Taylor, LHS '64, "1st Top Tour Place - Old Depot; 2nd Top Tour Place - Constitution Hall; 3rd Top Tour Place - USSRC."

Jeffrey Fussell, LHS '66, "1st Top Tour Place - Hays Preserve; 2nd Top Tour Place - Toyoya Field; 3rd Top Tour Place - Big Spring Park."

Pam Grooms Smith, LHS '65, "1st Top Tour Place - Big Spring Park; 2nd Top Tour Place - Burt Museum on the Mountain; 3rd Top Tour Place -Redstone Arsenal."

Craig Bannecke, LHS '65, "1st Top Tour Place - The Space and Rocket Center; 2nd Top Tour Place -   Jennifer and I have been gone from Huntsville so long and it has grown and changed so much that none of the places after the first recommendation still exist!  We were last home about two years ago and decided one day to drive around and visit some of the old place we remembered growing up in Huntsville.  The Lee High/ West Huntsville area had changed so much that the only things we recognized was the street names!  Pretty much the Huntsville we grew up in and remember is gone."

Dwight Jones, LHS '64, "1st Top Tour Place - Ladies and Gentlemen. It's with great pleasure we will be visiting the place it has been rumored that Jessie James robbed the bank and rode off the cliff down to what we know as the Big Spring which was a wonderful place to spend a evening back in the 60's; 2nd Top Tour Place - Our next stop will be on the north side of what we know as Mount Santo at night where you can see all the beautiful  lights from the city below like the star's at night in the sky; 3rd Top Tour Place - The last stop on out tour will be what is known as the "upside down hill" which is just to the north side of Governer's Drive on the way down the mountain which is really an "optical illusion" but at night it's hard to convince most folks it's really not a hill you car rolls up on instead of down."

The Wayback Machine

Upside-Down Hill

I made this video on one of my trips back to Huntsville, trying to show the phenomenon we call Upside-Down Hill. It is still there, but gone are the signs directing you to it. 

Thanks to all of you who assisted this issue by submitting your favorite tourist attractions for Huntsville. I have had a couple of requests to be a tour guide for people who wanted to see what we thought was important back in Huntsville. My top three were The Space and Rocket Center, The Big Spring, and Monte Sano. The "almost" list included Upside-Down Hill, The Three Caves, and Maple Hill Cemetery. Memories lost are Carter's Skateland, Bradley's Cafeteria, The Grand Newstand, Lee High School, the Shoney's and Jerry's cruise, Downtown Huntsville, and the houses where I lived.

Last Week's Questions, Answers, And Comments

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