Sweetwater Mansion is also known as the home of Governor Robert Patton, one of the post-Civil War Governors of Alabama who helped restore Alabama financially after the war, as well as rebuilding The University of Alabama when it was destroyed by Union soldiers, Patton also worked with the railroads after he served as Governor. His sons were influential members in Florence,Alabama, and his family, including the Weedens gave so much money, time, and donations to schools and other areas of interest in our city.

The home was designed by John Brahan, a veteran of the War of 1812, who knew figures such as Meriwether Lewis and Thomas Jefferson, he and his wife, the daughter of a Tennessee Congressman, are buried on property and their graves have been desecrated.

This home is clearly not only important to the history of Florence, Alabama but also to the history of the state of Alabama and the United States itself. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. However, recent and past owners of this gorgeous antebellum home have let her fall to neglect and squalor. 
The Sweetwater Place Foundation has been working to get this home back to its former glory.

The new owners of this home are wanting to place a hotel where it currently stands and in the words of our director "The owner truly believes that no one wants the house or cares, and they went to the city when they purchased the property and got no help so they told me to do whatever I could to restore it and that is what I and the Foundation have been doing there are over 500 members. And Sweetwater needs all of us.." 

Florence City government has been notorious translucent on their standings of not caring what happens to this piece of history we have just rotting away behind a Chinese restaurant, gas station, and hotel, holding their hands up in defeat. Even some members of the cities Historical Society talk about Sweetwater but do nothing to save her. We are tired of just talk and Florence ignoring the home of a Governor of Alabama sitting there where it could be utilized for tourism not only historically, but if we restore the gardens around it, as a botanical gardens. 

If things stay the way they are, we may see all our work put into the home, the cemetery, and the land around it, destroyed and another hotel either built where it stands or around it, destroying hundreds of years of history, artifacts, and the possible desecration of graves of people who lived and provided so much to this community and the state.

Our Foundation wishes to bring attention to Governor Ivey, and any higher government official to this gross injustice to the former home of an Alabama governor. This a piece of Alabama history where generations of a family lived, whose basement was used as a Civil War hospital, and once provided a dairy, water, and other basic goods to the city of Florence. 

If you share the same sentiments as our Foundation, and wish to see Sweetwater restored and opened as a museum space for local history, tours for schools, and lovers of history to have a place to explore the past and learn, then please sign our petition to help get Sweetwater back to what it was, and out of the hands of a hotel business venture!

Sweetwater Place Foundation is working hard to clean the home up and get it to where we may preserve and make the home a place for educators, students, and historians alike to come and hear the stories of the real people who lived there, people who made an impression on not only this historically significant home, but also on our city, and our community. 

UPDATE AS OF Nov. 22nd: we had the Mayor of Florence out for a few seconds, we are unsure of his opinion or what his appearance means.

We've also had our first school field trip to the property. 

Several emails have been sent to Governor Ivey's office, some with no response.