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Killen is a prosperous and growing town east of Florence. It,
no doubt, is an outgrowth of early Masonville which was located a
few miles to the east and Brush Creek located a few miles to the
west. When Huntsville Road (U.S. Highway 72) was re-routed into
Florence, the small community of Brush Creek gradually
disappeared. About the same time an up-to-date business district
began to form alongside the new thoroughfare, with stores carrying
the names of Cox. Liles, and McPeters. Reinforced by the
government work on the canal, and nearby Lock Six and Kingman,
a town began to emerge that became Killen. The late Professor
Joshua Nicholas Winn III, in his book, Muscle Shoals Canal ... Life
With The Canalers, says that "Killen, according to old-timers, when
a smaller community a long time ago. had no name." However, it
became necessary for it to have a name when a post office was
located here on August 22, 1896. James S. Killen became its first
postmaster; hence, the town was named for him. He was
descended from James and Ann Nancy McDougal Killen, early
settlers from North Carolina. Family sources say the earliest
Killens in America migrated from Ireland, and the name was
years later. A short time prior to Matthew's death, his land was sold
to Father Houser of the Catholic Church who had been responsible
for bringing Catholic colonies to nearby Lawrenceburg, Loretto,
Saint Joseph, and Saint Marys. In May, 1873, John Wilson's heirs
sold the remaining part of his plantation to Father Houser. Thus,
begins the story of the founding of Saint Florian in the early 1870's.
Father Houser laid out the Wilson lands in lots as small as
two acres and in farms from forty to eighty acres. These parcels
were then sold to German Catholic families for prices ranging from
$8.00 to $15.00 per acre. These people came from Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, New York, and other states.
The first of these colonists to arrive were the families of Florian
Rasch, John Kasmeier, Senior, Frank Breidainger, Adam Zulauf,
and Theodor Woltering. According to local historians, the town was
named for Florian Rasch who donated the first bell to be placed on
the church. Others who arrived soon afterwards included the
Grossheims, Lockers, Bufflers, Schmildkofers, lagners, Stumpes,
Meckes, Eckls, Ecks, Schauts, Bernaeurs, Gusmuses, Kriegers,
Speckers, and numbers of others who came even later.
Stories have been handed down about how the neighbors
felt sorry for these German settlers who were trying to make a living
on worn-out red clay land that had been almost washed away by
large gullies. However, before long it became obvious that these
hard working and ingenious people had not only built up the land,
but had become seemingly more prosperous than their neighbors.
One old-timer said that his father knew he had found the answer to
their success when he observed that these German farmers always
went to town with full wagons and came back with empty ones;
here as, their Protestant neighbors would go to town in empty
wagons and return home with their vehicles loaded with all kinds of
store bought supplies."
Excerpt from A Walk Through The Past by William Lindsey McDonald 2003
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