In 1873, Cullmann negotiated an agreement to act as agent for a 349,000 acres (1,410 km2) tract of land owned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Company, on which he established a colony for German immigrants.
Five German families moved to the area in March 1873; in 1874, the town was incorporated and named after Colonel Cullmann.
Ave Maria Grotto, in Cullman, Alabama, is a landscaped, 4-acre park in an old quarry on the grounds of St. Bernard Abbey, providing a garden setting for 125 miniature reproductions of some of the most famous religious structures of the world.
The stone and concrete models are the work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, a Benedictine monk of St. Bernard's, who devoted some 50 years to the project, the last three decades (1932 to 1961) almost without interruption. They incorporate discarded building supplies, bricks, marbles, tiles, pipes, sea shells, marbles, plastic animals, costume jewelry, toilet bowl floats and cold cream jars.
Born in 1878 in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Brother Joseph was maimed in an accident that gave him a hunchback. He immigrated to the United States as a teenager, settling in northern Alabama. Soon afterward he began studying at the newly founded Benedictine monastery of St. Bernard’s, where he took his vows in 1897. He ran the monastery’s power plant and was, even by a monk's standards, a withdrawn, quiet man. Until his death in 1961, Brother Joeseph rarely left Alabama.
On April 27, 2011, a powerful tornado outbreak struck downtown Cullman. Rated an EF4, it destroyed many buildings in downtown and in a residential area on the east side of Cullman. There were no deaths in the city limits, although there were 2 reported for the county.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Discovery Special - Cullman, AL from Jason Jasper on Vimeo.
