City to celebrate bicentennial this weekend
By Gary Lloyd
PINSON — The green grass is littered with maroon sleds and orange cones for football practice. Torn candy wrappers skip through the grass as the wind blows. The fence is rusted. Some cinder blocks sit near the fence, though why is unclear.
The field behind the Rock School Center feels dilapidated, but on Saturday, April 11, history will bring it to life.
Across the street from the Rock School Center on a cold March afternoon, Pinson Mayor Hoyt Sanders, Pinson City Councilman Joe Cochran and the Pinson Historical Society’s Stanley Moss are eating lunch at China Luck. They talk about how the area was first settled after the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Moss says there’s a source in the Alabama Department of Archives that shows settlement of the Turkey Creek area in 1815.
VIDEO: Watch a video preview of Pinson’s bicentennial celebration.
The bicentennial celebration in Pinson will be held at the field behind the Rock School Center.
photo by Gary Lloyd
That year is considered the first settling of the Pinson area. Now, 200 years later, the city of Pinson, which incorporated in 2004, is celebrating its past and looking forward to its future. On Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the field behind the Rock School Center, the city will hold its bicentennial celebration. Admission and parking are free, and it will include kids’ rides and activities, a time capsule ceremony, free cupcakes at noon, an 1800s-era costume contest, craft and food vendors, exhibits, demonstrations, games of the era, and live entertainment throughout the day. Pinson is likely the first Jefferson County city to celebrate its bicentennial.
As egg drop soup and Coca-Cola are brought to a long table at China Luck, the stories continue. There used to be mining in the Pinson area, Sanders says. A railroad came through the center of town, and there was a hotel and movie theater.
“There was a lot of stuff in Pinson,” Cochran says.
Sanders says a lot of the historical buildings Pinson once had burned years ago. The buildings were heated with wood stoves and fireplaces, making fires more likely back then than today.
Pinson will likely serve as a prototype for other small Alabama cities that will eventually hold bicentennial celebrations. The state of Alabama will celebrate its 200-year history between 2017 and 2019. Alabama became a territory in 1817 and later became a state in 1819.
Sanders and Moss have lived in Pinson for much of their lives. Cochran has been there almost 24 years. Most of the discussion over Mongolian and sesame chicken centered on the times closer to the present. Sanders recalls working to get a state law changed to allow Pinson to hold a vote for incorporation. That vote happened March 30, 2004, and 96 percent of voters said Pinson should be its own city. The move became official April 2, 2004 — Pinson’s birthday. The bicentennial wasn’t held last weekend due to Easter.
“It’ll be just a fun day for everyone,” says Sanders, the city’s only mayor. “It’ll be a good educational experience.”
Had Pinson not incorporated in 2004, much would be different. The traffic light at Pinson Valley High School likely would have never been completed. The Pinson Public Library surely wouldn’t exist. The four Pinson schools wouldn’t receive money from the city for projects. The Palmerdale-Homesteads Community Center wouldn’t have new doors and a new roof.
Cochran, a member of the city council since 2004, grew up in Fultondale. He says his favorite thing about Pinson is the balance of planned neighborhoods and rural areas.
“It’s a great mixture,” he says.
As Pinson celebrates 200 years, it continues to mold its own identity. Sanders says “my hope” is to reveal new street signs at the bicentennial, ones that will rename a section of highway in the city Pinson Boulevard. He says the new city park could open “possibly in May.” The housing market has stabilized, and more families are moving to the city or are being annexed in.
Many signs are attached to power poles across Pinson.
photo by Gary Lloyd
“I think the future is very bright considering everything that’s going on,” Sanders says. “It’s going to be a great year for us.”
The Northern Beltline’s construction starting in Pinson will give the city a chance to enhance itself through commercial development. Interstate access usually means additional commercialized areas.
“That’s our goal, to try and make the town you live in a place you can stay in,” Cochran says.
Despite impending commercialization or an increase in population, Pinson will maintain its comfortable feel.
“This is a comfortable town,” Cochran says. “It feels homey.”
Moss agrees, describing Pinson as “tradition coupled with progress.”
“Sometimes progress is the enemy of tradition and tradition can be the enemy of progress,” he says. “I think we’ve done a good job of coupling that together.”
At almost every Pinson City Council meeting, annexations are approved. The city grows. The meetings are fast, efficient and informative. When the city first started annexing properties or parcels of land, Sanders would ask the council, “Any additional comments?” Cochran then — and every annexation now — said “Welcome to Pinson” to the person who had just become a Pinson resident.
“Oh, yeah, he always says that,” says Palmerdale-Homesteads Community Center President Barry Wilson, who attends every city council meeting.
Wilson thinks the city’s borders could expand into Palmerdale in the near future. He’s lived in Palmerdale for eight years, on Miles Spring Road. He’d like to have his home annexed into Pinson. He likes the close-knit feel Pinson has. He always runs into someone he knows at Food Giant. If his property is ever annexed, Wilson will be at the city council meeting, likely on the front row.
“Welcome to Pinson,” Cochran will say.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.
