Tuscumbia

Tuscumbia, city, seat (1870) of Colbert county, northwestern Alabama, U.S. It is situated in the Muscle Shoals area on the Tennessee River, about 65 miles (105 km) west of Huntsville, and forms with Florence, Sheffield, and the city of Muscle Shoals a four-city metropolitan area. Founded in 1817 as Ococoposa (from a Chickasaw-Choctaw word meaning “cold water,” referring to a local creek), it was renamed Tuscumbia (1822) for Tashka Ambi, a Cherokee chief.

Major manufactures in the Tuscumbia area include flooring, aluminum, and lumber. Tuscumbia was the birthplace (at Ivy Green, the Keller family home) of Helen Keller, the internationally known blind and deaf author and educator. William Gibson’s play The Miracle Worker (1959), portraying her childhood efforts under the tutelage of Anne Sullivan to overcome her handicaps, is staged there each summer, and the Helen Keller Festival honouring her life is held in June. Pickwick Lake, Wilson Lake, and Joe Wheeler State Park are all nearby, and Natchez Trace Parkway traverses the region to the northwest. The Alabama Music Hall of Fame, honouring the state’s musicians, is in the city; to the southwest is the Key Underwood Coon Dog Memorial Graveyard (1937), which hosts a Labor Day celebration. Inc. town, 1820; city, 1865. Pop. (2000) 7,856; (2010) 8,423.