Photo by Tim Stephens
Former Vestavia Hills Mayor Sara Wuska, greets longtime city attorney Pat Boone after Boone spoke about key moments in the city's history at a forum hosted by the Vestavia Hills Historical Society on April 21, 2025.
They told Pat Boone he had unlimited time. So he used it.
For more than two hours and 20 minutes on Monday afternoon, Boone stood at the front of the Vestavia Hills City Council chambers, offering what was billed as a presentation on the city’s history. What the audience got was something closer to a one-man show — unscripted, personal and at times, deeply emotional.
The forum, hosted by the Vestavia Hills Historical Society, gave Boone, who has served as the city attorney, city councilman and longtime attorney for the Vestavia Hills Board of Education, an open floor to share the stories he knows better than just about anyone. Over the past five decades, Boone has been in the room — or often at the table — for many of the city’s most important decisions. On Monday, he recounted them from memory, often with a smile and always with sharp recollection.
Here are just a few of the moments Boone shared:
Boone began by taking listeners back to 1949, before there was a city, when the fight for a decent school was already underway. The Jefferson County Board of Education agreed to build what became East Elementary, a project that represented much more than a new building.
“The new East School cost $63,000 to build. And it opened on Sept. 12, 1949,” Boone said.
That new school would become the first chapter in a much bigger story.
As Boone pointed out with a smile, Vestavia may be one of the few places where the country club came before the city itself. Developer Charles Byrd and the Vestavia Land Co. offered membership at the club as part of a real estate investment program — a program Boone’s father joined. “That’s how I got exposed to Vestavia — coming up the mountain and meeting the kids up here,” he said.
The official beginning of Vestavia Hills as a municipality came on Nov. 8, 1950, two weeks after fewer than 100 residents cast their votes to incorporate the town. “147 of us signed the petition. Ninety-six voted — 88 in favor, 8 against. That’s how we became the Town of Vestavia Hills. Population? Six hundred and seven,” Boone recalled.
For its first few years, Vestavia Hills was a ridge-top community with little access beyond Old Montgomery Highway, a winding mountain road. That changed with the construction of U.S. 31 South, which Boone called the spark that truly opened the city for growth. “One of the most important things that happened was the government starting Highway 31 South. That’s when things began to cook,” he said.
By 1957, just three years after the highway’s completion, the city’s population had grown from 607 to 2,995 — enough to automatically change its status from a town to a city under Alabama law.
Boone also recounted one of the most challenging and defining chapters of the city’s story: its place in the desegregation battles of the 1970s. Vestavia Hills Schools had not yet opened its doors when the federal court placed the district under a desegregation injunction as part of the Linda Stout case. Boone, along with attorney Bob Vance and other city leaders, worked for more than three decades to ensure the system complied fully with federal oversight.
For 34 years, Boone personally delivered the board’s compliance reports to the Department of Justice. That long journey ended in 2007, when Vestavia Hills Schools were officially declared unitary — the legal term meaning the district had met its obligations, the injunction was lifted, and the case was dismissed.
Boone shared the words spoken in court that day by Norman Chachkin, counsel for the plaintiffs: “You’ve done it right. We agree to your plan.”
Boone also pointed to the annexations of Liberty Park in 1992 and Cahaba Heights in 2002 as critical turning points in the city’s growth, helping to expand the population, school system footprint and tax base while maintaining the identity and standards that have long defined the Vestavia community.
As the afternoon drew to a close, Boone’s stories circled back to the people who helped him shape the city — especially Sara Wuska, Vestavia Hills’ first female mayor and one of the founding members of the city’s school board.
Boone, speaking directly to Wuska from the front of the room, didn’t hold back his appreciation.
“Sara, this is the hardest job. I salute you. I can’t brag on you enough. You did the lifting — you and your other former members,” Boone said.
Then, after a pause, he added: “Sara was good, and you did great. And none of this would have ever happened without that first vote.”
Boone and Wuska shook hands and shared a smile after the talk, a fitting image for two civic leaders who have walked much of this journey side by side.
More coverage of Boone’s talk, along with stories from Vestavia’s 75th anniversary celebration, will appear throughout the year at VestaviaVoice.com and in the pages of Vestavia Voice.
