Photo by Emily Featherston.
Shirts like this one were inspired by a vintage car tag Cahaba Heights residents wanted to resurrect. Sales from the shirts will benefit the community.
The roughly two square miles that make up the Cahaba Heights neighborhood have a rich history.
The community grew out of a settlement that, over the years, has gone by several names, including one that many have known, even if they don’t know its origin: Mudtown.
There are varying reports on how the area that was once a trading outpost got the name, though most agree the area was originally settled by the Creek tribe, and its proximity to the Cahaba River and the landscape led to the descriptive name.
Some feel it may not be the most flattering title. Others, such as Mudtown Clothing Company, have fully embraced it.
Resident and entrepreneur Jeff Leonard said once he heard it, he couldn’t get it out of his mind.
“The name just stuck with me,” he said.
Leonard has been in the custom apparel business for 15 years, and he has worked on both the sales and production sides of designing clothing.
“I always had this itch that I wanted to scratch to start a clothing line,” he said, but his previous attempts never seemed to pan out.
After contemplating the former name of his home, however, his creative side took over and the apparel business was born.
“It was one of those moments as a graphic artist, where the name came about and the logo just kind of happened,” he said.
Leonard said he sat on the logo for nearly a year, showing it to others in the industry and trying to decide what to do with it.
Then, he said he saw a post in a community Facebook forum of an old Cahaba Heights car plate and residents wondering how they could get T-shirts made.
He said he already had that design saved in his “ideas folder,” and had the resources to get the shirts up online to sell.
“I feel that we got a pretty good response,” he said, with several residents ordering the shirts after he posted the link to the website.
Right now, only the T-shirts are available, but Leonard said he hopes the brand will grow into more types of apparel.
“I think people are looking for diamonds in the rough to support, and that’s what we feel like this community is,” he said.
Sales from the license plate shirts, which allow the wearer to show how much they think Cahaba Heights is “A good place to live,” will benefit the Cahaba Heights Community Foundation, the 501(c)3 organization formed in 2015.
And he said that going forward, he is definitely open to the idea of using Mudtown designs to support worthwhile charities.
From here, Leonard said, he wants to let the business grow organically, but he hopes it will spread to other iconic areas in Birmingham and beyond.
“There are all these unique pockets of Birmingham, and the Southeast for that matter, that carry such great stories, great community feel,” he said.
With areas such as Avondale, Woodlawn and others already seeing revitalization, he said he would love to provide apparel that reinforces that idea.
He said he is also interested in bringing back more iconic signs like the Cahaba Heights plate, such as the old Eastwood Mall sign and the Alabama Farmers Market sign, and making them part of the Mudtown brand.
“Who knows where that will go? I would love to see it expand into a greater brand,” Leonard said, although he added he will let demand dictate the direction.
Overall, he said he hopes Mudtown Clothing Company will embody the small-town, trading post feel that the area had so many years ago.
“We want this to be a brand of the community — so that people will want to be involved in making it grow,” he said.
Information about Mudtown Clothing Company and available apparel can be found at the company’s Facebook page, as well as online at mudtownclothingcompany.itemorder.com.
