The Last Man Hanged In Tuscaloosa

Doc Bigham was a handsome man known as notorious outlaw, moonshiner and murderer. He was also the last man legally hanged in Tuscaloosa County on June 27, 1919.

The West Alabama Breeze wrote that Doc Bigham “was one of the most notorious criminals ever produced in West Alabama.”

Born in 1869, Doc was “raised in a part of Tuscaloosa County where making of booze was the calling of a good many men until prohibition sentiment grew to such an extent that wildcat stills were largely exterminated,” according to the Breeze.

Bigham lived a life fraught with lawlessness but it all came to an end on August 15, 1918.

The Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum writes: 'Sheriff Palmer M. Watts, Deputies Verner Robertson and Nick Hamner, and special revenue officers J.H. Smith and J.H. Draper had raided two stills in northern Tuscaloosa County and had one more to go. As the sheriff made his way down a ravine to a third still, a shot rang out and the sheriff pitched forward on his face, instantly dead. A deputy fired a shot at the shooter identified as Doc Bigham.'

A jury found Bigham guilty of murder on September 20, 1918 and after the Supreme Court denied an appeal Doc Bigham paid the penalty for the murder of Sheriff Palmer Watts on June (pictured below) 27, 1919.

Doc Bigham is buried in the Macedonia Cemetery courtesy of the onlookers who passed hats to take up a collection for his burial.