Scottsboro area
Scottsboro Road still leads to Scottsboro, even though the little community that grew up northwest of Marion around the turn of the century never had a formal name, and now has been joined to the City of Marion, Illinois.
Most travelers to Scottsboro may get there over Russell Street north of DeYoung Street, but the old Scottsboro Road gets to the same place by running west from Route 37. That’s where the sign marks the turnoff for Scottsboro Road. Regular City of Marion street signs blaze the trail westward along Maplewood Cemetery to the community which for more than 60 years was Marion’s independent neighbor.
It was a community with its own churches, stores, orchestra hall, marching concert band and soccer team. It had a community pride which is manifest today in conversation among the second and third generations of the founding families.
Scottsboro had its beginning in the development of the coal industry. The late A.B. McLaren, who came to Marion around 1901 as superintendent of the Chicago and Big Muddy Coal Mine, attracted many of his friends and former employees in from the Coal City and Carbon Hill areas of Grundy County.
Perhaps most of those new arrivals established homes in what came to be known as Scottsboro. Present day descendants of those early settlers say the name resulted from the nationality of so many of the inhabitants. Most of those coming from the Coal City area originally hailed from England or Scotland.
Members of the family of the late Mrs. William Connell recall that Mrs. Connell suggested the name because most of the residents were Scottish. The Connells, McCluskies, McCluckies, Shanks and Wear families were among the first settlers. Mr. and Mrs. Connell came to America from Scotland with their parents when they were young.
Former City Commissioner E.E. Weber recalls that many of the miners traded with his father who operated the city’s first combination grocery store and meat market on North Market Street. He recalls hearing his father refer to his customers as the men from “Scottsboro”.
However it originated, the name stuck, but it never became an incorporated village or town. The area it occupied was laid out as a survey of out lots to the City of Marion, Illinois, but it was never annexed to the city as a whole.
It is estimated that the population reached a figure of 700 or 800. Most of the heads of households worked in the coal mines. While there was some intermingling with the population of its larger neighbor, Scottsboro without an official name maintained considerable social independence.
Men of the community got together and borrowed money from Charles LaSusa of Marion to build a two story frame building they called, “Concert Hall”. The hall was the scene of band concerts and Saturday night socials. Occasionally there was a boxing match. The people of Scottsboro had an interest in various forms of athletics as well as soccer which was a traditional game brought by their fathers from the old country.
Most of the band members were also members of the soccer team.
Frank Ellis was the director of a 20 piece musical organization known as Ellis’ Concert Band. The members wore sharp uniforms and the name Scottsboro, Ill. was painted in big letters on the band’s bass drum.
Ellis quit the coal mines to start the Isis Movie Theater on West Main Street and later was part of the firm that built the Orpheum Theater of which he was the first manager. The Isis Theater was sold in the early 1920’s and became the first location of E. Blankenship on the southeast corner of the intersection of W. Main and S. Court Streets.
But for several years as a young man, he drilled the concert band in regular rehearsals at the orchestra hall and in concerts on special occasions like the Fourth of July and Bobby Burns Day. Don Miller, the only surviving member of the band in which he served as a 12 year old drummer, recalls, as do members of other early families, at least two occasions when the band played at a funeral of a band member.
In the tradition of musicians, the band marched slowly to the cemetery playing a funeral dirge, and after the services, strode smartly in retracing its steps to the tune of a lively march.
At the funeral of one band members, the music was played by members of the Marion Military Band, while Scottsboro bandsmen marched with their musical instruments silent and draped in black.
Descendants of many of the band members live in the community and are active in Marion’s life.
Don Miller is the only surviving member. William Connell was the father of Alex S. and Russell Connell, Mrs. A (Elizabeth) Enis and Mrs. Charles (Leora) Dallas.
Andrew McCluskie was the father of Mrs. Roy (Marie) Barth, Mrs. Harold (Wanda) Burnett and Mrs. Emma Mae Crain.
Alex McCLuskie was the husband of Mrs. Linnie McCluskie and the father of Alex (Buster) McCluskie.
(Glimpses of Life Article by Homer Butler printed in the 1960’s Marion Daily Republican)
Sam’s Notes: One of the main streets in Scottsboro running east-west is Morgan Drive which rarely got any traffic except for locals going home because that’s the only place it really went. With all of the development directly across the Interstate in the area known as The Hill, Morgan Drive became a through street to access the new developments in 2008. It had no sooner been turned into a busy artery before plans were laid to turn it into a larger road to handle increasing traffic and Interstate 57 ramps. A STAR District has been formed on the outskirts of Scottsboro next to I-57 and plans have been laid since around 2010 to develop a large water park complex at this location which has yet to materialize in 2013. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 work has been going on to reroute additional on and off ramps to access the Hill area and other parts of the city more readily which will eliminate the original New Route 13 clover leaf exchange.