he Old Howard 100 is a ride through Alabama's historic Black Belt sponsored by Samford University's Howard College of Arts and Sciences. Proceeds from the ride will benefit Sowing Seeds of Hope, a partnership between Perry County and Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship that seeks to improve the quality of life and work in Perry County through improved educational opportunities, health care, tourism, transportation and economic development.
View Dave Baird's "Take Pride" segment on the Old Howard at the ABC33/40 website
The 4th Annual Old Howard 100 is scheduled for April 19, 2008.
- Ride begins and ends at Judson College
- On-site registration and package pick-up begin at 8 a.m.
- Mass start at 9 a.m.
- Hot dogs and other refreshments provided by Sowing Seeds of Hope beginning at noon
- Dinner served from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
- Showers available
Directions to Marion (printer friendly version, view map)
From Birmingham take I-59 South (or take I-459 and then I-59) towards Tuscaloosa (about 30 minutes) to Exit 97 (West Blocton) and turn left onto Hwy. 11/5. Just under 3 miles, turn left at People's Bank onto Hwy. 5. Go 44 miles and at the Judson College sign, turn right onto Lafayette Street; watch for Old Howard signs for parking on campus.
Route subject to change; please check back for updates
*Routes of approximately 30, 50, 70 and 100 miles are available.
Five SAG stops at historic sites.
Riders will assemble on the grounds of Judson College and ride through downtown Marion past Marion Military Institute, former home of Howard College. Riders will head west for 15 miles through the Perry County countryside to Newbern, a community of historic churches and structures, including a Rural Studio project headquarters of Auburn University. Thirty-mile riders will return to Marion by the same route.
Proceeding north on back roads of Hale County, riders reach the outer city limits of Greensboro, where a sign marking the original site of the Alabama Baptist Convention stands at a busy intersection. Riders then pass through downtown on the broad, tree-lined Main Street with its many homes of distinctive architecture--Greek Revival, Federal, Victorian, Gothic Revival--and onto the grounds of Magnolia Grove, built c.1838 and the ancestral home of Admiral Richmond Hobson, hero of the Spanish-American War. Half-century riders will return to Marion by the same route.
Century and 70-mile riders proceed northeastward into the rolling hills of the Talladega National Forest, where early settlers lived and traded with Indians of the bottomlands below. The route includes Mt. Hermon Methodist Church, whose cemetery holds many Revolutionary War soldiers and picturesque tombstones. Back in Perry County, the route continues southward through pine forests to Holmestead in Folsom. Riders continue southeastward, past imposing antebellum mansions, through the downtown historic district of Marion and across the Cahaba River for the final 30-mile loop through the Perry Lakes wetlands region of southeastern Perry County.
| Early registration (no later than April 11) | $30 |
| Late registration | $40 |
| *Student rate | $15 |
| *Perry and Hale County resident rate | $ 5 |
Print registration form . Online registration has closed. Please register on site at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday morning.
*Special rates not available for online registration. For more information or to be placed on our mailing list, please contact Bridget Rose.
The Old Howard 100 is only the most recent Samford University initiative to promote awareness of and appreciation for Alabama's Black Belt. The University was born there as Howard College, in the town of Marion, in 1841. The Baptist college, which took its name from the 18th century English prison reformer John Howard, thrived in Marion thanks in large measure to the generosity of the town's citizens.
The magnificent antebellum homes still standing in Marion and throughout the Black Belt bear witness to the region's great wealth and cultural importance at the time of Howard's founding. But, after the Civil War, the region suddenly found itself in an economic freefall from which it has never fully recovered.
As the Black Belt's fortunes waned, boosters from Birmingham, Marion's new industrial neighbor to the north, offered generous incentives for Howard's relocation to the East Lake community near the booming city. The Alabama State Baptist Convention accepted Birmingham's offer and moved the college to East Lake in 1887.
The college relocated to its current home in Shades Valley in 1957 and became Samford University in 1965. Howard College of Arts and Sciences remains at the heart of Samford, and in recent years, the University has sought to repay the kindness and generosity that sustained the college in its early decades.
Old Howard survived fires, wars, financial and cultural upheaval, relocations, and renaming to become one of the top universities in the Southeastern United States. Now, it returns to its birthplace with volunteer tutors, health-care workers and community boosters. Now, it returns with its cycling friends, who will find there natural beauty, rich history, cause for both concern and hope, and above all, a warm welcome.
The Old Howard 100 would like to thank the following for their support:
- Howard College of Arts and Sciences
- Birmingham Bicycle Club
- Cahaba Cycles
- John Higgins and the Pell City Ham Radio Operators
- VitaminWater
- Samford Greek Life
- Samford University's Perry County Advisory Council
- Judson College
- Scott Camp
- Samford Bookstore
- Mountain Brook Baptist Church
- Auburn Rural Studios
- Magnolia Grove
- Greensboro Baptist Church
- Mt. Hermon United Methodist Church
- Charles and Jenny Holmes
- Suttle Volunteer Fire Department
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