Winston Home - Deshler High School

Standing at the heart of the Deshler High School campus, the William Winston Home is one of Tuscumbia’s most recognizable connections to its antebellum past.

Built in the nineteenth century and associated with the prominent Winston family, the stately brick home once stood at the center of the Winston property. Among the family members connected to the house was John Anthony Winston, who served as governor of Alabama from 1853 to 1857.

In 1948, the property was sold to the City of Tuscumbia. Rather than removing the historic home, the city built the new Deshler High School campus around it, and the school opened at the site in 1950. The result is something remarkable: generations of Deshler students have grown up with a nearly two-century-old piece of Tuscumbia history standing in the middle of their school grounds.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, the Winston Home remains a reminder that history does not always sit behind museum walls. Sometimes, a community simply grows around it.

The Winston Home preserves a place where two pieces of Tuscumbia’s story meet, the city’s early history and generations of students who have called Deshler home.