Many people who come here have never seen a town like this, and they're amazed. They just love it. Talladegans' love for their city's historic buildings goes back a long way, Massey says. The city's popular annual tour of homes each April, for example, has been going on since the early 1950s, bringing thousands of visitors each year to Talladega's Silk Stocking District. And that's had the effect of sending the value of surrounding properties up.
People are excited about what's happening.
The Silk Stocking District covers about 113 acres south of Courthouse Square, and was the first historic district in Taladega to be added to the National Register of Historic Places. The historic 1836 county courthouse, around which the square is built, is the oldest continuously used courthouse in Alabama, and a local landmark. Talladega College, founded in 1867, is the third of the city's National Historic Districts. Among other outstanding historic buildings is the old Louisville and Nashville train depot on East Street South, now home to the Greater Talladega Area Chamber of Commerce. The building still boasts the original brass-barred ticket windows and a room with blue tile floors in which unescorted ladies waited for their trains.