TUSCALOOSA, a city of western Alabama, U.S.A., the county seat of Tuscaloosa county; on the Warrior river and Fed eral highway 11, 55 m. S.W. of Birmingham. It has a municipal airport and is served by the Louisville and Nashville and the Mobile and Ohio railways and barges of the Inland Waterways Corporation (Mississippi-Warrior Service). Pop. (1920) 11,996 (38% negroes) ; in 1930 20,659 by the Federal census. The city lies at the edge of the great coal and mineral deposits of Alabama, in a rich agricultural region. There are many fine old residences and gardens, dating from the time (1826-46) when Tuscaloosa was the capital of the State; and the older streets are lined with magnificent water oaks, planted in the years beginning with 1839. Tuscaloosa is the seat of the State home for mentally deficient children, the Bryce (State) hospital for the insane 0860, Still man Institute (a Presbyterian theological seminary for negroes; 1876), and the University of Alabama, which occupies 30o ac. adjacent to the city limits. The university was founded in 1820, on an endowment of 46,080 ac. of land, donated by the U.S. Congress in 1819, and it was opened to students in 1831. On April 4, 1865, a body of Federal cavalry set fire to and completely destroyed all the buildings except the astronomical observatory and a little house where the records were kept, and instruction was necessarily suspended until 1869. By way of
restitution, a second grant of 46,080 ac. was made by Congress in 1884. The enrolment for the year 1926-27 was 6,151, includ ing 2,395 in the extension division. Tuscaloosa is the trade centre of a large cotton-growing, lumbering, farming and dairying region. Ample hydro-electric power is available from the development on the Coosa river. There are 58 plants in Tuscaloosa county (in cluding foundries, blast furnaces, coke ovens and paper mills) with an output in 1927 valued at $13,099,729. The city valuation for 1928 was $16,232,872.
Tusca-Lusa ("Black Warrior") was a Choctaw chief (com memorated by a granite monolith in Court House square), who, according to tradition, hanged himself, to escape capture, after a desperate battle with De Soto in 1540 somewhere in this region. In 1816 Emanuel York and John Bartow came from Tennessee and settled on the plain where the city now stands. A town site was laid out and the city was chartered in 1819, and in 1825 it was chosen to be the seat of government of the State. Industrial development began after the removal of the capital (1846).