The ground around the Chappell House . . . at 1020 Maxwell Boulevard (nee Bell Street) is more interesting than the structure itself. An Alabama Indian town existed on this site as late as 1775. In 1819 this dirt was part of the Alabama Town which joined New Philadelphia to become the Town of Montgomery, but activity soon shifted to the East and the this area became vacant. The land was then acquired by planter/brick-maker James Chappell, who in 1845 built this rather undistinguished 1-story house. In the late 1930s the Chappell Plantation was used to accommodate the large emergency housing development built to support the adjacent Maxwell Field and its buildup for WW II. The Montgomery Housing Authority grew out of that development, and it used this old house as its offices for fifty years. The only redeeming feature of the building seems to be its age and the small Greek Revival front porch, but even those attributes are nullified by the mismatched-brick addition along the West (left) side, placed there by the Housing Authority. So now, as a final blow, the conversion of Bell Street into Maxwell Boulevard has taken what little was left of a front setback, and made poor Chappell House curbside. Such is progress.

This building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2016 (https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/pdfs/16000445.pdf) The link provides much greater detail of the house including history and current photographs.

-Charles Humphries