Residents honor Historic District with annual block party

Folks were dancing in the street in Troy’s historic neighborhood Saturday night.

“It was an old-fashioned good time and everybody said, ‘let’s do it again,’” said Carla Telfair, a Troy native and resident of College Street, which is one of five streets that make up Troy’s residential historic district.

Walnut, Pine, Cherry and Murphree streets are the other areas that make up the College Street Historic District that is listed on the Alabama and National registers of historic places.

“We want to protect the neighborhood and maintain its cohesiveness,” Telfair said. “We have two events that bring the residents of the College Street Historical District together. The Christmas party and now the block party.”

Telfair said that about 100 District residents attended the block party Saturday afternoon.

“We all had a great time,” she said. “The children and the adults. The children played and had a good time with sack races, ball tosses, hoola hoops, an inflatable slide, face painting and a lemonade stand.”

The adults danced, “visited’ and ate lots of barbecue.

“That’s the kind of fun we had,” Telfair said, laughing. “People didn’t seem to want to go home. We lit the tiki lights and stayed until after dark.”

Telfair said some of the houses in the College Street Historic District are listed individually on the Alabama and National registers of historic places. There are 18 College Street homes, located between the two churches, that have qualified.

“You have to apply for listing and there’s a good bit of paper work that has to be done,” Telfair said. “Some of the residents are very interested in getting their homes listed. And, there are homes that are nearing the age necessary to apply. So, we hope to have more homes listed before long.”

Telfair said that she has family attachments to College Street and is sentimental about the area.

“For many reasons, I don’t want to see anything happen to it,” she said. “We all want to preserve and protect this wonderful section of our city and the history that surrounds it.”