Troy University Athletics
City of Troy
TROY'S EARLY HISTORY
Troy was founded in 1838 when the county seat of Pike County was moved from Monticello to a more central location in the county atop Deer Stand Hill near the little village of Centerville. Deer Stand Hill gained its name from the deer which would graze on the wild oats found in the cane brake on this hill. John Hanchey and John Coskrey gave to the county 30 acres of land that formed the top of Deer Stand Hill which was to be used for the formation of a new town and county seat. This land was laid out in lots to form a square by a surveyor named Robert Smiley, and the lots were sold in quick order.
The town was named Troy in an October 9, 1838 deed recorded by Luke Simmons, Pike County's state representative in the Alabama legislature, when he referred to the town site of Troy in the recording. He had substituted for John Curtis, county recorder, to record a purchase by Curtis of one of the lots on the square. Simmons, a native North Carolinian, would later say he named Troy in honor of Alexander Troy, once attorney general of North Carolina. He made this comment while in conversation in Montgomery with Governor Thomas Watts of Alabama and the governor's son in law Colonel D. S. Troy. Troy was the son of Alexander Troy.
This story was made popular by accounts of it in the Montgomery Advertiser. However, it seems unlikely that a single person would be allowed to make a snap decision as to what the new town's name would be and name it after a man few people knew about. Simmons' remark about how Troy gained its name may have been a comment made by him to curry favor with a sitting governor. But of all the legends, and there are many, about how Troy secured its name, this one may be the most likely. Troy was incorporated as a city February 4, 1843, and it is this date that the town has chosen to observe as its birth date.
Two families who helped Troy survive as a community in its early days were the Loves and Murphrees. Ann Love and her children moved her tavern and hotel from Monticello to Troy and it quickly became the social center of the new town. Love, a Presbyterian, brought the first Methodist Church circuit rider to town and thus established regular religious services in Troy. James Strother Murphree came to town in 1844, and he established a farm, a mercantile Store, real estate holdings, the first business and family wealth in Troy and a family that still influences activities in Troy to this very date.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861, the little village of Troy had a population of around 600 people. This wasn't many, but it was enough for Dr. J. P. Amerine of Troy to organize the 57th Alabama Infantry Regiment in Troy in 1863. Dr. Amerine was appointed the regiment's first commander with the rank of colonel. He was not with the 57th when it was destroyed as a fighting force at the Battle of Peachtree Creek before Atlanta July 20, 1864.
Troy was spared from the ravages of the war, except that its sons were dying on battlefields throughout the South. However, on April 26, 1865, a brigade of Union cavalry under the command of General Benjamin Henry Grierson camped outside of Troy. These soldiers moved on to Louisville, Clayton and Eufaula the next day without incident.
Troy's growth was happenstance and agricultural after the war until Urban Louis Jones, almost by himself, brought the Mobile and Girard Railway to Troy in 1870. Jones, Troy's first recorded mayor, broke himself financially in the process, but Troy became the terminus for the Mobile and Girard Railway (later Central of Georgia) for 22 years and had rail transportation all the way to Columbus, Georgia and then on to Savannah, Georgia. In a round about manner, the Mobile and Girard went to Montgomery as a spur connected Columbus to Opelika which had tracks to the Alabama capital city.
The railroad's impact was not immediate. When its economic good times did arrive, they were not in time to save Jones' fortune, which he had mortgaged to finance construction. He lost everything, but Troy had a railroad. In 1870, Troy’s population was 1,000. At the end of the decade, Troy's population was more than 3,000. This is still the greatest leap in population during any decade of Troy's existence.
More importantly, the Mobile Girard Railway brought the Henderson family to Troy as Jeremiah Augustus Henderson moved his operational base and family from Henderson to Troy in 1869, even before the railroad was finished. Before his death, he established the largest financial fortune found in the area. His family then became the most influential in the history of the town until the modern era. One of his sons, Charles Henderson, became governor of Alabama.
In 1887, a group of local educators and prominent citizens of Troy joined to acquire a state normal school (teacher training school ) for Troy. Thanks mostly to the efforts of Ariosto Appling Wiley, a powerful state senator who was born in Troy, Troy won the education prize over Lowndesboro, which had also wanted the school. The school was eventually constructed in downtown Troy on a four-acre campus
This school, which went on to become Troy University, had a stormy early history and was lucky to have survived on its cramped downtown location. Its survival was assured when the third president of the college, Edward Madison Shackelford, led the movement from downtown to its present site starting in 1924. Troy University has had many name changes since it moved, but its enrollment growth has seen a steady increase through the years, and it has grown to be the most important economic factor in Troy's modern existence.
In 1892, the second railway to come to Troy, the Alabama Midland Railway (later Atlantic Coast Line and then CSX ), completed tracks from Bainbridge, Georgia through Troy on its way to Montgomery. This brought direct passenger and freight rail traffic between Montgomery and Troy and another economic stimulus for Troy. It also motivated the Mobile and Girard to extend its tracks toward Mobile, its ultimate destination out of Troy. Until 1983, Troy was then served by two railroads. These two railroads led to the development of industry in Troy by local people. This tradition is maintained today as most of the industrial jobs in Troy have been furnished by locally-developed industry.
Charles Henderson's contributions to Troy were many, but his greatest occurred while he was mayor. Mayor Henderson not only proposed that Troy acquire electric lights but that it form its own electric company to produce the new phenomenon. In his first term, he established an electric company in Troy's government May 7, 1891, and his wife, Laura Montgomery Henderson, cut the lights on that evening for the first time. Down through the years, Troy has produced its own power, or bought power from the Pea River Power Company (a Charles Henderson enterprise), the Rural Electric Cooperative and is currently buying power from the Alabama Power Company. Today, Troy Utilities is the only department within the city that produces a profit, and it currently contributes $3 million to the operating budget of Troy.
In 1906, Charles Henderson built his home on College Street adjacent to his family home. Within a 100-yard distance on this street lived, at one time or the other, two United States congressmen and brothers, Oilver Cicero Wiley and Ariosto Appling Wiley; one chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Lucien Gardner; the man who established Liberty National Life Insurance Company as one of the foremost insurance companies in the nation, Frank Park Samford; the founder of Golden Flake Potato Chip Company, Sloan Bashinsky; and the adjutant general of the Alabama National Guard under Governor Henderson, Graph Hubbard. It’s hard to imagine another community street in Alabama that generated this much influence.
Even though establishing the electric business in Troy was Charles Henderson’s most influential act for the city, his most famous contribution was the trust he established to foster education in Pike County and Troy. After his death in 1937, his will directed that a trust be established with the Troy Bank and Trust Company as trustee of $1 million of his wealth. After 20 years of accumulating income, the trust was to be used to foster education in Pike County and Troy by building and equipping schools "as may be needed." Then the trust was directed to build and operate a cripple children's hospital in Troy.
Since Charles Henderson was thinking of the effects of polio and did not know that this disease would be eradicated by the Salk vaccine after his death, the courts were needed to clarify his will and trust as a cripple children's hospital was no longer needed. In point of fact, there is not one in Alabama today. The net result is that the Charles Henderson Child Health Care Center in Troy was built in lieu of a hospital. There is currently $41 million in the trust to operate the clinic, and the trust continues to grow every year.
TRANSITION
It seems today that it was a natural transition for Troy to go from a rail transportation center to a host for a major highway artery. Construction was started in 1954 on U.S. Highway 231 to four lane the federal highway. This project was not completed until 1978 when the last leg of the Troy Bypass was finished near Philley's Crossing (where U.S. Highway 29 crosses U.S. 231 ). This established four-lane traffic between Montgomery, Alabama through Troy to the Florida border south of Dothan. This traffic has grown in volume beyond anyone’s comprehension who was around when construction of the highway first started. The end results is the retail explosion Troy is currently enjoying, and the fact that the highway has become Troy's number-one employer.
It also led to the establishment of many trucking firms along the 231 corridor. Wiley Sanders started one of these companies. His trucking company eventually grew to 600 trucks and 1,600 trailers and led to the growth of a business that operated in every state of the Union except Hawaii.
Wiley Sanders established the second of his companies in Troy in 1970 when he incorporated Sanders Lead Company. His purpose was to recycle the lead plates extracted from batteries and provide a product his trucks could haul back to Troy after completing freight deliveries. This business proved to be ultra successful and led to many expansions, the foremost of which was the establishment by Sanders and Kenny Campbell of KW Plastics.
KW ultimately became the largest recycler of high density plastic polyethylene (HDPE) within the United States. The pellets KW gains from its manufacturing process with the HDPE plastic it attains from throughout the United States is sold to other companies for manufacturing into plastic containers.
Sanders and Campbell vertically integrated their business when they opened a paint can and lid manufacturing facility in 2005. They use recycled polypropylene plastic secured from the battery casings of the batteries they were bringing to Troy to manufacture the paint lids and covers. Today, all the Sanders Companies employ 1,600 people and 1,350 in Troy.
About the time Wiley Sanders started his industries, social issues became the first-page news in Troy. In 1965, the Civil Rights Era started in Troy when voluntary school integration was offered by the Troy City School Board. At the time, jobs for blacks was the foremost objective of those involved in the local movement. This movement was led by Johnny Mae Warren, Johnny Mae Money, George Grubbs, Juanita Money, Elder Paul, Charley Terry, Mattie Curry, Annie Lee Lewis and James Bell. All schools were eventually integrated when it was mandated by Alabama Federal Middle District Judge Frank Johnson in 1971.
Alphonso Byrd became one of the first black teachers at Charles Henderson High School and went on to become the first black representative, with Johnnie Mae Warren, on the Troy City Council in 1985.That year, Troy changed from a commission form of government to a mayor-council form to avoid being sued by Dejerilyn King Henderson in federal court. She contended that Troy's commission style of government kept blacks from being elected to serve. The city eventually agreed with her.
The year 1985 also marked the beginning of Mayor Jimmy Lunsford influence in government as he was elected to the old city commission in 1983 and elected again as mayor when the mayor-council government was formed. He has been serving as Troy's mayor since.
One of Lunsford's first acts was to lead the city council in selling Edge Hospital and establishing a trust fund with $14 million of the proceeds. This trust has since grown to nearly $16 million. It will continue to grow as 10 percent of its annual income is returned to the fund's principal each year. Selling the hospital also eliminated a sizable annual donation to it by the city to maintain the medical facility. This allowed Troy to complete a reconstruction of the city's governmental infrastructure along with the expansion of Troy's Recreational Department to include the construction of a state of the art recreation center and the addition of lighting by the Troy Utility Department along U.S. 231 through Troy.
The most recent addition to the city's complex is the Holman and Ethel Johnson Cultural Art Center which was developed in the old post office by private and governmental funds. Sizable contributions were made to the art center by Manley Johnson and his wife Mary Lois, who pledged $500,000, and Corley Chapman, Jr, and Claudia Crosby, who gave $100,000 each. The center will be a showplace for local, state and national art.
The next major development by the city of Troy will be the development of a new public library on the site of old Troy High School. Plans are being made for the expansion of the Troy Municipal Airport to include a new entrance, visitor lounge and center and an extension of one of the runways.
TROY UNIVERSITY
Except for post World War II growth, Troy University is currently experiencing its most rapid growth ever locally, statewide and internationally. Student enrollment in Troy was 6,300 students in the fall of 2008. Total state and international enrollment exceeded 25,000 this same period. After combining enrollment at all four of its state campuses, Troy University becomes the third largest college campus in Alabama in student population and the fourth largest in state appropriations. As more classrooms are added, Troy's enrollment will be allowed to grow with the expansions as applications for enrollment exceed current capacity by 32 percent.
There has been a phenomenal expansion of the college's infrastructure and beautification projects under current chancellor Jack Hawkins to include the purchase of 26 acres of the Baptist Children’s Home campus and its buildings. The Home buildings were converted to sorority houses and the ROTC training center was recently moved to this part of the campus. A modern recreational and gym facility was built on the old Home campus along with a new softball complex for the girl's softball team. Next door, 12 new lighted tennis courts were developed and a tennis pro shop was added. Troy helped in the construction and the tennis complex was opened to Troy citizens as long as there wasn’t a tennis tournament ongoing. The complex was named for Mayor Jimmy Lunsford.
Other developments during Chancellor Hawkins' tenure have been the addition of a new science building, hall of honor, administrative building, four new dormitories, the rebuild and beautification of Clements Hall, the refurbishment of Shackelford Hall and a new classroom building which will be expanded further when McCartha Hall is razed and a new classroom and administrative facility is added on its site. This new facility will connect with the unnamed classroom and will further enhance the beauty already created by effects of the Bibb Graves Quad project.
Athletic facilities' improvements have been highlighted by a complete rebuild and expansion of the football stadium to 30,000 seats along with the addition of a six-story press box that runs the length of the football field. A new soccer field, running track and soccer and track grandstands have been added near the new athletic administration building. Sartain Hall, the current basketball complex, secured seating expansion, air conditioning and was expanded to accommodate the men's and women's basketball offices. Riddle-Pace Baseball Field was rebuilt and the Jerry Lott Baseball Field House and adjoining batting and pitching complex were added along with a state of the art artificial field and fencing that provides a big-time baseball look. Future athletic plans call for the construction of a new basketball center somewhere on the golf course near the athletic department.
The beauty of the back side of the Troy campus has been enhanced by the addition of a book store. Two new buildings have been added to the physical plant during Hawkins' time in command, and a bus system for students has been added.
It is obvious that the expansion of the Troy University campus will be a never-ending endeavor. This has led to massive apartment construction projects in Troy which will be used for student housing.
TROJANS
Troy has produced its share of famous people. The foremost of whom are Charles Henderson, governor of Alabama during the World War One era; Douglas Edwards, CBS television news' first anchor person; Mary Harmon Black Bryant, Coach Paul Bryant's wife; Admiral Henry Wiley, chief operational officer and highest ranking officer in the United States Navy in the late 1930's; Clarence "Pinetop" Smith, the inventor of boogie woogie music; Patricia "Sister" Schubert Barnes, the originator of Sister Schubert rolls; Bobby Marlow, an All-American football player at the University of Alabama; Keith Watkins, current federal judge for the Middle District of Alabama; Nall Hollis, an artist of renown; Ralph Adams, Troy University's first chancellor, who was also a George Wallace aide and confidant, major general in the Alabama Air National Guard and member of the President Gerald Ford Clemency Commission; and Johnny Long, the developer of the Sound of the South Band.
The population of Troy was estimated to exceed 14,000 by the United States Census Bureau in July 2006. The town has always had the look of a larger town than it decade census tabulation has shown. This is due to out-of-town college students not being counted in census figures.
- History of Troy as provided by Bill Rice, Sr.
Troy was founded in 1838 when the county seat of Pike County was moved from Monticello to a more central location in the county atop Deer Stand Hill near the little village of Centerville. Deer Stand Hill gained its name from the deer which would graze on the wild oats found in the cane brake on this hill. John Hanchey and John Coskrey gave to the county 30 acres of land that formed the top of Deer Stand Hill which was to be used for the formation of a new town and county seat. This land was laid out in lots to form a square by a surveyor named Robert Smiley, and the lots were sold in quick order.
The town was named Troy in an October 9, 1838 deed recorded by Luke Simmons, Pike County's state representative in the Alabama legislature, when he referred to the town site of Troy in the recording. He had substituted for John Curtis, county recorder, to record a purchase by Curtis of one of the lots on the square. Simmons, a native North Carolinian, would later say he named Troy in honor of Alexander Troy, once attorney general of North Carolina. He made this comment while in conversation in Montgomery with Governor Thomas Watts of Alabama and the governor's son in law Colonel D. S. Troy. Troy was the son of Alexander Troy.
This story was made popular by accounts of it in the Montgomery Advertiser. However, it seems unlikely that a single person would be allowed to make a snap decision as to what the new town's name would be and name it after a man few people knew about. Simmons' remark about how Troy gained its name may have been a comment made by him to curry favor with a sitting governor. But of all the legends, and there are many, about how Troy secured its name, this one may be the most likely. Troy was incorporated as a city February 4, 1843, and it is this date that the town has chosen to observe as its birth date.
Two families who helped Troy survive as a community in its early days were the Loves and Murphrees. Ann Love and her children moved her tavern and hotel from Monticello to Troy and it quickly became the social center of the new town. Love, a Presbyterian, brought the first Methodist Church circuit rider to town and thus established regular religious services in Troy. James Strother Murphree came to town in 1844, and he established a farm, a mercantile Store, real estate holdings, the first business and family wealth in Troy and a family that still influences activities in Troy to this very date.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in April of 1861, the little village of Troy had a population of around 600 people. This wasn't many, but it was enough for Dr. J. P. Amerine of Troy to organize the 57th Alabama Infantry Regiment in Troy in 1863. Dr. Amerine was appointed the regiment's first commander with the rank of colonel. He was not with the 57th when it was destroyed as a fighting force at the Battle of Peachtree Creek before Atlanta July 20, 1864.
Troy was spared from the ravages of the war, except that its sons were dying on battlefields throughout the South. However, on April 26, 1865, a brigade of Union cavalry under the command of General Benjamin Henry Grierson camped outside of Troy. These soldiers moved on to Louisville, Clayton and Eufaula the next day without incident.
Troy's growth was happenstance and agricultural after the war until Urban Louis Jones, almost by himself, brought the Mobile and Girard Railway to Troy in 1870. Jones, Troy's first recorded mayor, broke himself financially in the process, but Troy became the terminus for the Mobile and Girard Railway (later Central of Georgia) for 22 years and had rail transportation all the way to Columbus, Georgia and then on to Savannah, Georgia. In a round about manner, the Mobile and Girard went to Montgomery as a spur connected Columbus to Opelika which had tracks to the Alabama capital city.
The railroad's impact was not immediate. When its economic good times did arrive, they were not in time to save Jones' fortune, which he had mortgaged to finance construction. He lost everything, but Troy had a railroad. In 1870, Troy’s population was 1,000. At the end of the decade, Troy's population was more than 3,000. This is still the greatest leap in population during any decade of Troy's existence.
More importantly, the Mobile Girard Railway brought the Henderson family to Troy as Jeremiah Augustus Henderson moved his operational base and family from Henderson to Troy in 1869, even before the railroad was finished. Before his death, he established the largest financial fortune found in the area. His family then became the most influential in the history of the town until the modern era. One of his sons, Charles Henderson, became governor of Alabama.
In 1887, a group of local educators and prominent citizens of Troy joined to acquire a state normal school (teacher training school ) for Troy. Thanks mostly to the efforts of Ariosto Appling Wiley, a powerful state senator who was born in Troy, Troy won the education prize over Lowndesboro, which had also wanted the school. The school was eventually constructed in downtown Troy on a four-acre campus
This school, which went on to become Troy University, had a stormy early history and was lucky to have survived on its cramped downtown location. Its survival was assured when the third president of the college, Edward Madison Shackelford, led the movement from downtown to its present site starting in 1924. Troy University has had many name changes since it moved, but its enrollment growth has seen a steady increase through the years, and it has grown to be the most important economic factor in Troy's modern existence.
In 1892, the second railway to come to Troy, the Alabama Midland Railway (later Atlantic Coast Line and then CSX ), completed tracks from Bainbridge, Georgia through Troy on its way to Montgomery. This brought direct passenger and freight rail traffic between Montgomery and Troy and another economic stimulus for Troy. It also motivated the Mobile and Girard to extend its tracks toward Mobile, its ultimate destination out of Troy. Until 1983, Troy was then served by two railroads. These two railroads led to the development of industry in Troy by local people. This tradition is maintained today as most of the industrial jobs in Troy have been furnished by locally-developed industry.
Charles Henderson's contributions to Troy were many, but his greatest occurred while he was mayor. Mayor Henderson not only proposed that Troy acquire electric lights but that it form its own electric company to produce the new phenomenon. In his first term, he established an electric company in Troy's government May 7, 1891, and his wife, Laura Montgomery Henderson, cut the lights on that evening for the first time. Down through the years, Troy has produced its own power, or bought power from the Pea River Power Company (a Charles Henderson enterprise), the Rural Electric Cooperative and is currently buying power from the Alabama Power Company. Today, Troy Utilities is the only department within the city that produces a profit, and it currently contributes $3 million to the operating budget of Troy.
In 1906, Charles Henderson built his home on College Street adjacent to his family home. Within a 100-yard distance on this street lived, at one time or the other, two United States congressmen and brothers, Oilver Cicero Wiley and Ariosto Appling Wiley; one chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Lucien Gardner; the man who established Liberty National Life Insurance Company as one of the foremost insurance companies in the nation, Frank Park Samford; the founder of Golden Flake Potato Chip Company, Sloan Bashinsky; and the adjutant general of the Alabama National Guard under Governor Henderson, Graph Hubbard. It’s hard to imagine another community street in Alabama that generated this much influence.
Even though establishing the electric business in Troy was Charles Henderson’s most influential act for the city, his most famous contribution was the trust he established to foster education in Pike County and Troy. After his death in 1937, his will directed that a trust be established with the Troy Bank and Trust Company as trustee of $1 million of his wealth. After 20 years of accumulating income, the trust was to be used to foster education in Pike County and Troy by building and equipping schools "as may be needed." Then the trust was directed to build and operate a cripple children's hospital in Troy.
Since Charles Henderson was thinking of the effects of polio and did not know that this disease would be eradicated by the Salk vaccine after his death, the courts were needed to clarify his will and trust as a cripple children's hospital was no longer needed. In point of fact, there is not one in Alabama today. The net result is that the Charles Henderson Child Health Care Center in Troy was built in lieu of a hospital. There is currently $41 million in the trust to operate the clinic, and the trust continues to grow every year.
TRANSITION
It seems today that it was a natural transition for Troy to go from a rail transportation center to a host for a major highway artery. Construction was started in 1954 on U.S. Highway 231 to four lane the federal highway. This project was not completed until 1978 when the last leg of the Troy Bypass was finished near Philley's Crossing (where U.S. Highway 29 crosses U.S. 231 ). This established four-lane traffic between Montgomery, Alabama through Troy to the Florida border south of Dothan. This traffic has grown in volume beyond anyone’s comprehension who was around when construction of the highway first started. The end results is the retail explosion Troy is currently enjoying, and the fact that the highway has become Troy's number-one employer.
It also led to the establishment of many trucking firms along the 231 corridor. Wiley Sanders started one of these companies. His trucking company eventually grew to 600 trucks and 1,600 trailers and led to the growth of a business that operated in every state of the Union except Hawaii.
Wiley Sanders established the second of his companies in Troy in 1970 when he incorporated Sanders Lead Company. His purpose was to recycle the lead plates extracted from batteries and provide a product his trucks could haul back to Troy after completing freight deliveries. This business proved to be ultra successful and led to many expansions, the foremost of which was the establishment by Sanders and Kenny Campbell of KW Plastics.
KW ultimately became the largest recycler of high density plastic polyethylene (HDPE) within the United States. The pellets KW gains from its manufacturing process with the HDPE plastic it attains from throughout the United States is sold to other companies for manufacturing into plastic containers.
Sanders and Campbell vertically integrated their business when they opened a paint can and lid manufacturing facility in 2005. They use recycled polypropylene plastic secured from the battery casings of the batteries they were bringing to Troy to manufacture the paint lids and covers. Today, all the Sanders Companies employ 1,600 people and 1,350 in Troy.
About the time Wiley Sanders started his industries, social issues became the first-page news in Troy. In 1965, the Civil Rights Era started in Troy when voluntary school integration was offered by the Troy City School Board. At the time, jobs for blacks was the foremost objective of those involved in the local movement. This movement was led by Johnny Mae Warren, Johnny Mae Money, George Grubbs, Juanita Money, Elder Paul, Charley Terry, Mattie Curry, Annie Lee Lewis and James Bell. All schools were eventually integrated when it was mandated by Alabama Federal Middle District Judge Frank Johnson in 1971.
Alphonso Byrd became one of the first black teachers at Charles Henderson High School and went on to become the first black representative, with Johnnie Mae Warren, on the Troy City Council in 1985.That year, Troy changed from a commission form of government to a mayor-council form to avoid being sued by Dejerilyn King Henderson in federal court. She contended that Troy's commission style of government kept blacks from being elected to serve. The city eventually agreed with her.
The year 1985 also marked the beginning of Mayor Jimmy Lunsford influence in government as he was elected to the old city commission in 1983 and elected again as mayor when the mayor-council government was formed. He has been serving as Troy's mayor since.
One of Lunsford's first acts was to lead the city council in selling Edge Hospital and establishing a trust fund with $14 million of the proceeds. This trust has since grown to nearly $16 million. It will continue to grow as 10 percent of its annual income is returned to the fund's principal each year. Selling the hospital also eliminated a sizable annual donation to it by the city to maintain the medical facility. This allowed Troy to complete a reconstruction of the city's governmental infrastructure along with the expansion of Troy's Recreational Department to include the construction of a state of the art recreation center and the addition of lighting by the Troy Utility Department along U.S. 231 through Troy.
The most recent addition to the city's complex is the Holman and Ethel Johnson Cultural Art Center which was developed in the old post office by private and governmental funds. Sizable contributions were made to the art center by Manley Johnson and his wife Mary Lois, who pledged $500,000, and Corley Chapman, Jr, and Claudia Crosby, who gave $100,000 each. The center will be a showplace for local, state and national art.
The next major development by the city of Troy will be the development of a new public library on the site of old Troy High School. Plans are being made for the expansion of the Troy Municipal Airport to include a new entrance, visitor lounge and center and an extension of one of the runways.
TROY UNIVERSITY
Except for post World War II growth, Troy University is currently experiencing its most rapid growth ever locally, statewide and internationally. Student enrollment in Troy was 6,300 students in the fall of 2008. Total state and international enrollment exceeded 25,000 this same period. After combining enrollment at all four of its state campuses, Troy University becomes the third largest college campus in Alabama in student population and the fourth largest in state appropriations. As more classrooms are added, Troy's enrollment will be allowed to grow with the expansions as applications for enrollment exceed current capacity by 32 percent.
There has been a phenomenal expansion of the college's infrastructure and beautification projects under current chancellor Jack Hawkins to include the purchase of 26 acres of the Baptist Children’s Home campus and its buildings. The Home buildings were converted to sorority houses and the ROTC training center was recently moved to this part of the campus. A modern recreational and gym facility was built on the old Home campus along with a new softball complex for the girl's softball team. Next door, 12 new lighted tennis courts were developed and a tennis pro shop was added. Troy helped in the construction and the tennis complex was opened to Troy citizens as long as there wasn’t a tennis tournament ongoing. The complex was named for Mayor Jimmy Lunsford.
Other developments during Chancellor Hawkins' tenure have been the addition of a new science building, hall of honor, administrative building, four new dormitories, the rebuild and beautification of Clements Hall, the refurbishment of Shackelford Hall and a new classroom building which will be expanded further when McCartha Hall is razed and a new classroom and administrative facility is added on its site. This new facility will connect with the unnamed classroom and will further enhance the beauty already created by effects of the Bibb Graves Quad project.
Athletic facilities' improvements have been highlighted by a complete rebuild and expansion of the football stadium to 30,000 seats along with the addition of a six-story press box that runs the length of the football field. A new soccer field, running track and soccer and track grandstands have been added near the new athletic administration building. Sartain Hall, the current basketball complex, secured seating expansion, air conditioning and was expanded to accommodate the men's and women's basketball offices. Riddle-Pace Baseball Field was rebuilt and the Jerry Lott Baseball Field House and adjoining batting and pitching complex were added along with a state of the art artificial field and fencing that provides a big-time baseball look. Future athletic plans call for the construction of a new basketball center somewhere on the golf course near the athletic department.
The beauty of the back side of the Troy campus has been enhanced by the addition of a book store. Two new buildings have been added to the physical plant during Hawkins' time in command, and a bus system for students has been added.
It is obvious that the expansion of the Troy University campus will be a never-ending endeavor. This has led to massive apartment construction projects in Troy which will be used for student housing.
TROJANS
Troy has produced its share of famous people. The foremost of whom are Charles Henderson, governor of Alabama during the World War One era; Douglas Edwards, CBS television news' first anchor person; Mary Harmon Black Bryant, Coach Paul Bryant's wife; Admiral Henry Wiley, chief operational officer and highest ranking officer in the United States Navy in the late 1930's; Clarence "Pinetop" Smith, the inventor of boogie woogie music; Patricia "Sister" Schubert Barnes, the originator of Sister Schubert rolls; Bobby Marlow, an All-American football player at the University of Alabama; Keith Watkins, current federal judge for the Middle District of Alabama; Nall Hollis, an artist of renown; Ralph Adams, Troy University's first chancellor, who was also a George Wallace aide and confidant, major general in the Alabama Air National Guard and member of the President Gerald Ford Clemency Commission; and Johnny Long, the developer of the Sound of the South Band.
The population of Troy was estimated to exceed 14,000 by the United States Census Bureau in July 2006. The town has always had the look of a larger town than it decade census tabulation has shown. This is due to out-of-town college students not being counted in census figures.
- History of Troy as provided by Bill Rice, Sr.