Based on references from local newspapers, the name “Honey Hole” doesn’t appear to have been a common reference to the community until the early 1950s. Local anecdotal information suggests that the name Honey Hole became a common moniker for the area then because the locals often mused “that one could go down in that hole to get some honey.”

This community grew into one of the most ill-kept and disease-laden communities in Huntsville and became known as a “slum” and the worst among all the blighted areas in the city.  Newspapers articles during the 1940s and 1950s also indicate that the community was a high crime area, particularly along Depot Street, an extension of Washington Street.

  The Honey Hole community was demolished as part of the Winston Street Urban Renewal Project approved by the federal government on July 10, 1957.  The government also authorized at that time a $1,343,723 loan at 3.75% interest for the urban renewal project.  The 40-acre, Winston Street area demolished was “bounded by Yarbrough Avenue on the west; by a drainage canal and Patton Street on the north; by the Southern Railroad tracks, Josephine Street and a line west of Meridian Street on the east and by Washington Street and the Southern Railway tracks on the south.” Families were moved out of the neighborhood and the Huntsville Housing Authority began burning the houses down in the Honey Hole community on December 16, 1958.

In 1961, Josephine Street was improved and paved as part of the Lincoln Park housing project.  In this same year, work began on extending and turning Washington Street into four lanes beginning at the Southern Railway tracks in the former Honey Hole community running northward through Ray Street and the Lincoln Park housing project to Hoover Street.