SPECIAL TO THE REPORTER

Members of the Cahaba Valley Garden Club held their monthly meeting Nov. 9 at the Indian Springs Village Town Hall on Highway 119.

The meeting celebrated the club’s 53rd year of gathering together as friends and neighbors to learn and share all phases of gardening and horticulture. The club is believed to be the oldest in Shelby County.

It began in 1952 in a 100-year-old log cabin near the current location of Indian Springs School and was attended by between 75 and 100 women from across Shelby County and the surrounding area.

At the Nov. 9 meeting, club members dedicated a historical marker in the memory of Francis Dudley, who served as president in 2004.

The marker is an &8220;Ashville to Montevallo Stagecoach Historical Sign,&8221; which commemorates an early mode of transportation during the mid 1800s. The stagecoach line ran from Washington, Tenn., through several counties of Alabama to the early state capitol in Old Cahaba at the time.

The route ran down Cahaba Valley Road in front of the current Indian Springs Town Hall, which was formerly the home of an early settler of Shelby County.

The stagecoach signs establish a true link with the early days of Shelby County. The sign joins many others that have been erected along the actual route in Etowah, St. Clair and Jefferson counties.

The project originally began by the Leeds Historical Society and the idea was brought to the Cahaba Valley Garden Club by Marie Cromer.