Ain’t no mountain – or wall – high enough: High Point opens at Lincoln Mill

HUNTSVILLE – North Alabama is not home to Mount Everest, K2 or even a Swiss Alp, but if you didn’t know rock climbing was a thing in this area, High Point Climbing and Fitness opening its second location in Huntsville should “peak” your interest.

John O’Brien and partner John Wiygul cut the ribbon recently on their newest rock-climbing gym at the renovated, historic Lincoln Mill on Meridian Street.

It is the company’s seventh location in the Southeast.

“It became necessary to open a second location in Huntsville because the facility at MidCity stays so busy, it is beginning to get overcrowded,” said O’Brien. “This will relieve a lot of that overflow and new climbers as well.”

The two rock climbers met at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. Wiygul came up with the idea for a gym concept that included rock-climbing walls.

When High Point Climbing and Fitness opened in downtown Chattanooga 11 years ago, it was a unique concept. The facility was called the “coolest gym in the country” and one of the 10 most innovative gyms in the world.

“We were looking to build High Point facilities in Birmingham and Memphis when Shane Davis, (Huntsville’s director of Urban and Economic Development) approached us about coming to Huntsville,” O’Brien said. “Shane’s daughter had recently climbed at our facility in Chattanooga, and he felt it was something that would be successful in Huntsville.”

High Point Climbing was one of the first new businesses to open at MidCity in 2019, just prior to the pandemic.

“We looked at Lincoln Mill back then and loved it, but after the pandemic and with the MidCity location always crazy busy, we looked again at Lincoln Mill,” said Wiygul. “A lot of new businesses were moving in, and we thought it to be great for a second location to serve the growing demand of the growing rock-climbing community in Huntsville.”

O’Brien said they couldn’t have done it without Huntsville commercial realtor, Wesley Crunkleton’s creative flare.

“We were told Wesley Crunkleton was a visionary and had developed some great projects for Huntsville,” O’Brien said. “He did an amazing job taking a modern business concept and making it work in a historic venue.”

Richard Bigoney, membership account representative at the Huntsville/Madison Countuy Chamber, shared a personal story about the old textile mill.

“In 1958, my dad worked here at Lincoln Mill when it was a textile manufacturing facility,” he said. “Later, it became the Huntsville Industrial Complex housing a number of companies that were responsible for putting men on the moon.

“Thank you for helping us repurpose it.”