How did the Mineola community in Monroe County get its name?

George Turberville headstone.

Buffy Tucker from Uriah stopped by The Journal on Monday to conduct some business, and before she left we got into a discussion on the history of the Mineola community. Through the woods, I grew up about a dozen miles from Mineola, but as Mrs. Tucker and I talked, I realized how little I really knew about the Mineola community. After she left, I got the itch to delve into the subject a little deeper.

I first turned to one of my favorite reference books, “Place Names in Alabama” by Virginia O. Foscue. My hope was that this book would tell me how the community got its name and other facts. Unfortunately, between the entries for Mims Creek and Minter, there was no entry for Mineola to be found.

I then turned to sources provided by the University of Alabama’s Department of Geography, which said that the Mineola Post Office was in operation for a grand total of seven years. It opened in 1898 and closed in 1905. Back in those days, community post offices were almost always located inside the local country store with the store owner serving the dual role of postmaster.

Next, I turned to the trusty maps in my National Geographic Atlas to get a good fix on exactly where “downtown” Mineola is located. According to that source, “downtown” Mineola is located on County Road 2, between the Mineola Church Road and Manack Bridge Road intersections. This location is due north of Little River, a short distance through the woods from the Baldwin County line.

Prominent landmarks in the community today include the Mineola Methodist Church and the Mineola Baptist Church, which are across the road from each other on Mineola Church Road. Interestingly, these churches share the same cemetery, which is located beside the Methodist church. I have been to this large cemetery many times, and I would guess that it contains nearly 600 graves.

The oldest marked grave that I’ve found there belongs to an infant named George Lesesne Turberville. The son of Zachariah and Callie Turberville, George was born on March 16, 1901 and he died the next day. “Asleep in Jesus,” his small headstone reads.

Turning to old editions of The Monroe Journal, the oldest reference to the Mineola community that I could find was in a legal notice that was published in the Jan. 11, 1900 edition of the newspaper. That notice was a land claim filed by settler William M. Harris in the Montgomery Land Office. Witnesses to the fact that he had continuously lived and farmed on the land he was wanted to claim were George W. Melvin Jr., Alex A. Sizemore, Robert Melvin and George Nolen, all of Mineola.

In the old days, the bulk of the news in The Journal came from community columnists, who were often the owners of community stores as well as local postmasters. The first Mineola community news column I could find was published in the April 12, 1900 edition of the newspaper. Among other news, that unnamed columnist reported that Miss Cora Ferrell “was in our midst one day this week endeavoring to organize a school,” and that the “veteran turkey hunter Mr. Chas. Weatherford brought in a fine gobbler a few weeks ago.”

In the end, I am certain that there are readers in the audience who know far more about Mineola’s history than me. If anyone would like to send me more information about the community’s history, please don’t hesitate to do so. Send it to news@monroejournal.com, and I will be sure to pass it along at a later date.