This episode is about the Shades Cahaba Underpass. Some of you may call it the tunnel, but from the time it was conceived in the early 1950s and for the next 40 or 50 years, it was called the underpass. I had forgotten it was called the underpass until a schoolmate reminded me on a social media post. No matter what you call it, it has been a favorite of Shades Cahaba students for close to 70 years.
If you can believe it, Independence Drive, formerly known as Montgomery Highway, was a sleepy country road at one time. Over the years, the city grew, and the cities over Shades Mountain grew, creating more and more traffic on Montgomery Highway.
More roads meant more traffic, so a “student underpass” was added to link the western access to Oxmoor Road with Shades Cahaba School.
