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Dusty memories fill auditorium

By Sebastian Kitchen
Montgomery Advertiser

The auditorium in Montgomery's City Hall, once one of the city's main gathering points for major events, has for the past three decades only been used as storage space. Costly renovations for the facility are a subject of debate on the City Council.

Charles Carr remembers being in the city auditorium for a variety of events, including his commencement, concerts, boxing matches and the touching funeral of country superstar Hank Williams.

Carr, who was driving the 1952 Cadillac that Williams died in the back seat of in 1953, was on the second row for the biggest funeral in the city's history.

"It's unbelievable what has happened to it and what they have let happen to it," Carr said of the auditorium. "It was such a fine structure."

The stage where Hank Williams performed on several occasions is covered with shelves that are home to hundreds of boxes of documents and paperwork.

There are offices for the city's finance and housing codes departments where the seats were once located on the auditorium floor. Desks, broken chairs, an old water fountain and other items are strewn throughout the large auditorium, which was built in 1937.

"It's been a mystery to me why the city has not done something and allowed it to get into the state it is in today," Carr said.

Carr and many others want to see the historic auditorium renovated.

City officials disagree on whether the auditorium should be renovated. They believe renovations could cost as much as $4 million.

Councilwoman Janet May favors the renovation. She said the offices need to be moved out of the auditorium and city officials need to work with local and state historical societies to go through the thousands of documents.

May wants the front doors of City Hall unlocked and access to the once beautiful auditorium restored.

She said the current movement of several city offices, including the fire department to a building Madison Avenue, will allow those in the auditorium to be relocated.

"We can get everybody out of the auditorium and start to clean it out," May said.

She said they must also work to preserve whatever needs to be kept. May said cleaning out the paperwork will consume the most time.

"It is basically paperwork generated by bureaucracy," she said.

County music legend Hank Williams' funeral in Montgomery was held in the auditorium in January 1953. About 2,700 people packed into the auditorium and about 20,000 spilled into the streets.

After the room is cleaned out, she said they have three options for paying for a renovation. Among those options are borrowing, finding grant money and generating additional tax revenue.

"We have got many options," May said. "As the council, we're going to choose the most economical and most expedient route we can take to get this done."

May said the first step is to move the people out and dismantle the office space.

Mayor Bobby Bright said there is not money in the budget this year to renovate the auditorium.

"There are too many other needs in city government," he said.

Boxes are piled up on the stage of Montgomery's old auditorium in City Hall. Built in 1937, the city is considering reviving the facility. Costs for the renovations, which could take millions, have been a road block to the work.

Bright said there is not revenue coming in to help fund the renovation.

Carr said the auditorium should be included in the push to refurbish downtown.

Williams's funeral was held in the auditorium in January 1953. About 2,700 people packed into the auditorium and about 20,000 spilled into the streets outside and listened to the service on the public announcement system.

Country stars who attended the service included Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, June Carter, Bill Monroe and Red Foley, who sang "Peace in the Valley."

Carr drove several family members away from the funeral in a limousine. He said people there were people lining the streets for several blocks.

The crowd was said to be the largest since Jefferson Davis' 1861 inauguration as president of the Confederacy.