A History

In the weeks and months to come I regularly hiked the Land Trust trails. Most of the time alone, occasionally talking friends into going with me on what was one of my deceptively long and arduous hikes.

A majority of the time I took Railroad Bed trail. Roughly a mile or so from start to finish, it follows the path of a long defunct railway that took visitors up the mountain to the Hotel Monte Sano in the late 1800’s.

The summers of the latter decades of the 1800’s saw the rise of quite a few nasty diseases, mostly due to unsanitary conditions. Diphtheria results from a bacterial infection, many times causing the throat to swell so much that the victim had to have a medical procedure called a “tracheotomy” in which a tube is inserted from the outside of the throat into the trachea, or windpipe. 

Yellow fever, transmitted by female mosquitoes, can infect the liver, causing the victim to turn yellow. “Yellow jack” or “bronze john” can start out seeming like a common cold. The victim will appear to get better for a few hours to a day, but then it returns, with severe abdominal pain and internal bleeding.

Locals found that after spending a few days on Monte Sano their health improved and, in some cases, dramatically. This was generally attributed to the natural mineral springs, but it was also likely due to the cooler air and more sanitary lifestyle.

The Hotel Monte Sano was built in 1886 by the North Alabama Improvement Company. It consisted of 233 rooms with mineral spring baths and beautiful views of the Tennessee Valley. Eleven dollars per day bought a visitor a room, the spa, and three square meals. The hotel registry held the names of Tennessee Valley’s elite. Some of the wealthiest citizens in the country visited the hotel looking for relaxation and regeneration. Because Huntsville was made up mostly of poor mill workers and cotton field hands, most of her citizenry could barely afford food, let alone a night there. 

Not keen on walking or the four hour ride up the mountainside in a filthy wagon, a railway was built from the Huntsville depot, along the southern face of the mountain, to the hotel. Pulled by a Baldwin steam engine the cars were a bit smaller than normal, mainly due to the smaller gauge of the rails and the tight turns in the line as it tacked up the slope. The train made three runs per day for twenty five cents a pop. At the top, passengers were ferried in a fine Taliaferro buggy to the hotel.

Due to a derailment, would-be passengers were frightened away from taking the coach and, after some financial mismanagement, the rail went into bankruptcy. There was some talk of salvaging the line, but in the spring thaw of 1899 an enormous boulder fell onto the tracks permanently ending its run.

As science progressed and sanitation became common practice, yellow fever, cholera, and many other diseases were diminished if not eradicated. Vaccines, better sanitation and a lack of convenient transportation took away the hotels perceived raison d’etre. The Hotel Monte Sano shut its doors in 1900.

All that’s left of the hotel is a stone chimney in a front yard and the occasional auction of antique hotel furnishings.

And all that’s left of the rail are stone trestle supports and stone embankments.

On my frequent hikes I liked to imagine the Waldorfs and Astors riding through the same air I was breathing. I liked to stand atop the embankments and look out over the creek beds. My mind often wandered to the men who built the rail, hauling these stones hither and yon via mule wagons and carving out the stone for the trestles. Maybe they sat on this rock and ate lunch with weathered, strong, scarred, filthy hands. The back breaking work in the southern heat, the valley winter, so wealthy financiers and blue bloods could find solace in pools of mineral water.

And it was all for naught , because, as I stood there, all that was left were stones the mountain would eventually reclaim into herself.

Occasionally I thought I felt a presence watching me, but I would shrug it off as another hiker up on the bluff or down below along Fagan Creek. Every now and then I caught the bright colors of Patagonia backpacks or a North Face jacket, but I recall every so often I would just barely catch a shadow out of the corner of my eye, paralleling my progress on the trail.

I hiked a lot up there. After my divorce I discovered that exercise does amazing things to cure depression. The brain creates chemicals that alter mood. Good and bad. Hiking produced mostly good.

The new job was not going well, I was effectively homeless, and I had given up my kids. Every day seemed gray and cold, through and through, so every morning I determined I should make a hike in these woods on the Mountain of Health.

I’ll never forget the amazement of discovering Three Caves. Early spring one year I decided to take Alms House trail as far as I could. After three or so miles I noticed what appeared to be a clearing after a short rise. The closer I got I noticed manmade lines breaking the fractals of trees and bushes. These lines became a railing and I wondered what could possibly be on the other side. I was shocked to find the quarry that is Three Caves.

A deep gash into the mountain floor led to three, huge gaping holes in the mountain side.

In the early 1800’s the stone for the Madison county courthouse was quarried here. They used “room and pillar” mining in which the miners would dig out huge cavernous rooms, leaving enormous pillars to hold up the roof of the mine. This left what was essentially one gigantic open face separated by two pillars. Hence the name, “Three Caves.”

The caves were gaping holes in the mountainside, and like a tracheotomy, she would breath through the artificial chasm. A humid breeze flowed in and around the pillars and occasionally she might blow you a kiss as you wandered near.

There had been signs warning that it was prohibited to go into the great halls of Three Caves. The ceiling was failing. I wanted so badly to go in, but unfortunately I was no fearless adventurer, no matter how many hiking trips on marked trails less than a mile in any given direction from someone’s house.