Family ownership

200 YEARS OF SETTLING AMERICA’S WESTERN FRONTIERS

The history of CGH ’s family owners has been closely connected with The South ever since John Oldham Connally (1783 to 1845) arrived in the Tennessee Valley from Virginia 1815 to build the Green Bottom Equestrian Resort. His siblings and their collective descendants, as well as his slaves and indentured servants, would spell their names variously as Connelly, Conley, and Connally. When Alabama achieved statehood in 1819, the Conley Family was already there, and thus, one of the ‘First Families’ of Alabama.

John Connally’s son born out-of-wedlock, James Conley, managed daily operations at The Green Bottom Resort. His wife and children formed the primary staff. Green Bottom would become a premiere holiday destination of the Antebellum Era (1815 to 1860) hosting U.S. Presidents Monroe, Jackson, and Polk, as well as a string of VIPs. In this era, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama were considered the ‘Western Frontier’.

After The South was largely settled, the Conley penchant for adventure continued, with family members playing large and small roles in the settlement of the Midwest. The Conley name can be found in the early histories of Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, which were then simply known as ‘Indian Territory’.

Several family members became frontiersmen, after the Spanish-American War and Indian Wars. Some played more visible roles in settling the Rocky Mountain Region with New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana.

Today, the ancestral family seat, The Tennessee Valley is one of America’s most economically successful regions.