Toomer's Corner is a street corner located at the intersection of Magnolia Avenue and College Street, and marks the northeastern-most reach of the campus of
Auburn University, and the beginning of downtown
Auburn, Alabama
Auburn is a city in Lee County, Alabama, United States. It is the largest city in eastern Alabama, with a 2020 population of 76,143. It is a principal city of the Auburn-Opelika Metropolitan Area. The Auburn-Opelika, AL MSA with a population o ...
. Two landmarks are located on Toomer's Corner, the Bank of Auburn (now a branch of
PNC Bank
The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. (stylized as PNC) is an American bank holding company and financial services corporation based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its banking subsidiary, PNC Bank, operates in 27 states and the Distric ...
) and Toomer's Drugs
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the science and practice of discovering, producing, preparing, dispensing, reviewing and monitoring medications, aiming to ensure the safe, effective, and affordable use of medication, medicines. It is a miscellaneous science as it ...
, which was the first establishment in the city with a
telegraph
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas ...
, and the intersection is patterned in bricks forming the paw print logo of the
Auburn Tigers
The Auburn Tigers are the athletic teams representing Auburn University, a public four-year coeducational university located in Auburn, Alabama, United States. The Auburn Tigers compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Assoc ...
athletic teams (it was formerly painted on regular concrete).
The employees at Toomer's Drugs Pharmacy, after discovering that
Auburn had won a football game before the team broadcast away games on radio, would throw the
ticker tape
Ticker tape was the earliest electrical dedicated financial communications medium, transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines, in use from around 1870 through 1970. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called ...
from their telegraph onto the power lines.
The area's primary source of popularity comes from an Auburn tradition that arose over a century ago and has not ceased over the years in bringing people nearby to the landmark.
History and tradition

Toomer's Corner is named after businessman and former State Senator Sheldon Toomer, a former halfback for the first
Auburn squad in 1892.
Toomer founded Toomer's Drugs in 1896, which was started with a $500 loan from John Reese, and Toomer later founded the Bank of Auburn on the corner of Magnolia Avenue and College Street in 1907.
The pharmacy was later sold in 1952 by Toomer to Mac and Elizabeth Lipscomb, who chose against renaming the pharmacy. In 1962 Auburn fans and students began to celebrate the games by covering the power lines outside of the pharmacy and the trees directly opposite with
toilet paper
Toilet paper (sometimes called toilet tissue or bathroom tissue) is a tissue paper product primarily used to clean the anus and surrounding anal region of feces after defecation, and to clean the perineal area and external genitalia of ...
.
There is much controversy over when "rolling the corner" became a celebration for all things Auburn. It is theorized by David Housel that it began in 1972 when #9 Auburn scored an upset in the
Iron Bowl
The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Confe ...
against #2
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = " Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County
, LargestMetro = Greater Birmingham
, area_total_km2 = 135,7 ...
, a game remembered by the title "
Punt Bama Punt".
The rolling of the corner was initially set off by the employees that worked at Toomer's Drugs pharmacy using an inventive way to signal a victory for Auburn while playing away games; they would throw the ticker tape from their telegraph onto the power lines outside of the store.
In 1984, the drug store was sold to Mark Morgan.
Five years after the store was sold to Morgan, the
Iron Bowl
The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Confe ...
made its first stop in Auburn and was one of the first times Toomer's Corner was covered with endless rolls of toilet paper.
The store has been resold a couple of times in the 1990s but the tradition that Toomer's Corner sparked has remained. The power lines have since been relocated under the ground but Auburn's tradition of rolling the trees on the southeast part of the corner never slowed. As of 2019, Toomer's Corner continues to bring fans, residents, and even visitors of Auburn around the historic corner.
Vandalism


The oak trees used to celebrate have been vandalized on multiple occasions. In 2010, the trees were poisoned using a herbicide called
Spike 80DF
Tebuthiuron is a nonselective broad spectrum herbicide of the urea class. It is used in a number of herbicides manufactured by Dow AgroSciences, and is sold under several trade names, depending on the formulation. It is used to control weeds, wo ...
. Two months later, on January 27, 2011, the perpetrator called the
Paul Finebaum
Paul Finebaum is an American sports author, former columnist, and television-radio personality. His primary focus is sports, particularly those in the Southeast. After many years as a reporter, columnist, and sports-talk radio host in the Birmin ...
sports radio talk show to confess the actions, which were presumed to have been driven by Alabama's loss the previous week in the
Iron Bowl
The Alabama–Auburn football rivalry, better known as the Iron Bowl, is an American college football rivalry game between the Auburn University Tigers and University of Alabama Crimson Tide, both charter members of the Southeastern Confe ...
against Auburn in 2010.
The phone call was tracked and the perpetrator, Harvey Updyke, was arrested. Updyke, formerly of Dadeville, Alabama, was sentenced to pay a fine and spend time in jail, after which time he would be placed on probation. After the trees were poisoned, efforts to save them were unsuccessful. The corner was eventually restored with untainted soil and replanted with two new fully grown southern live oak trees.
While the soil and trees were replaced, people were restricted from rolling the trees with paper until they acclimated to their environment.
In 2016, the trees were replaced a second time after they were set on fire by Jochen Wiest following Auburn’s win over
Louisiana State University
Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 near ...
. Attempts were made to save the trees, but the trees were determined unlikely to survive. The other tree bordering College Street was not affected by the fire, but had failed to grow properly for unknown reasons. In February 2017, two fully grown trees were planted to replace the tree that had failed and the tree that had been lit ablaze.
References
{{Reflist
Auburn, Alabama
Streets in Alabama