Showing posts with label Huntsville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Huntsville. Show all posts

Friday, January 26, 2024

A Quick Visit to the Huntsville Courthouse Square

While I was in Huntsville back in October, I met Dr. Jack Ellis at The Poppy & Parliament pub on the courthouse square for lunch. Jack is a scholar and gentleman who taught at UAH for a number of years. We have a mutual interest--the history of black physicians in Alabama. That topic occupied much of our conversation over a great lunch.

As we finished, Jack suggested a walk around the square and down to Big Spring Park. So off we went...

I only discuss a few of the many sights and history below that you can see in downtown Huntsville. 



First, we walked down to Big Spring. Here are the "ugliest ducks in the park" as Jack put it, posing beside the Indian Creek Canal, the first in the state according to this marker. That canal was developed to move cotton all the way to the Tennessee River.

Actually, there is a canal in Gulf Shores that's a bit older.

Archaeologists Dig Up 1,400-Year-Old Native American Canal in Alabama
The nearly mile-long structure allowed inhabitants to paddle to rich fishing grounds and access trade routes http://tinyurl.com/23twwnhu



The We Are Huntsville web site has the story of the Little Lion:

"Sitting near the actual spring in Big Spring Park is an often over-looked Huntsville landmark. The Little Lion of Big Spring Park was gifted to the city by J.F. Hummel for the opening of Big Spring Park in 1900.

The marble lion was meant to stay in the park “as long as children play in the park”. Sadly, the statue was defaced and damaged in the 1960’s but the Historic Huntsville Foundation refurbished and restored the little lion to the park in 1995."










Holger Toftoy was instrumental in bringing German V-2 rockets and parts back to the U.S. in the immediate aftermath of World War II. He was also involved in  Operation Paperclip which brought scientists here as well. He directed the Ordnance Missile Laboratories at Redstone Arsenal from 1952 until 1958. 



Holger Toftoy [1902-1967]

Source: Wikipedia







The Alabama Territory was officially established on December 10, 1817, so this bank had been operating in the Mississippi Territory since chartered. As noted, the bank operated until February 1825, more than five years after Alabama became a state. 






This building opened in 1836 and served as a bank until 2010, when Regions moved its branch there to another location. The structure was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. The architect was George Steele, who also designed the building for the Huntsville Female College. I've written about that institution here.




Harrison Brothers Hardware is always worth a visit. Lots of goodies inside!






A postcard view of Big Spring Park, ca. 1950










Thursday, May 18, 2023

Grand Theater in Huntsville

Recently my brother Richard and I were going through some papers at mom's house in Huntsville, and we found this piece torn from a newspaper many years ago. Mom saved an item on the other side, but this side gives the source and date and includes an advertisement for a movie showing at the Grand Theater. Neither Richard nor I remembered the Grand even though we both grew up in Huntsville. So naturally I decided to investigate.

I found some information on the Cinema Treasures site and a page devoted to Huntsville movie theaters. The Grand first opened in April 1920 on Jefferson Street, but that original movie house burned in December 1924. Its replacement opened the following year and featured a Robert Morton theater organ. The Theater closed on May 25, 1960.

As the ad below notes, the theater featured the final local showings that day of The Bridge On the River Kwai, a classic World War II film released on December 14, 1957, in the United States. I suspect the Grand was a second-run theater at the time of this ad, since the film is showing there six months after its U.S. release.

Can't beat those ticket prices, though! 











Thursday, April 13, 2023

My Visit to Huntsville Hospital in 1958

The newspaper item below turned up recently when my brother Richard and I were going through some papers at mom's house in Huntsville. I'm glad I can now pin down pretty much the exact date and place of my tonsillectomy at Huntsville Hospital, June 9, 1958, when I was 6 years and 3 months old. The physician might have been Thomas E. Dilworth, our family physician for many years. 

I remember Dr. Dilworth very well. I have a vague memory of him making a house call when I was pretty young and sick in bed, probably at the Cloverdale house noted in the article. At one point when I was 10 or 12, I was out riding my bicycle and bitten by a dog that chased me. We couldn't find the dog, so Dr. Dilworth recommended a series of rabies shots--one a day for 14 days. He started off giving them in the abdomen, but when that area became too sore he switched to the buttocks. The final two were given one in each arm. Mom didn't drive at that time, so dad drove me to the doctor's office each day including Saturday and Sunday. 

You can read more about Dr. Dilworth in the 1985 book Medicine Bags and Bumpy Roads, a history of medicine in Madison County by Jewell S. Goldsmith and Helen D. Fulton. A profile and a photo appear on pp 295-6. The book notes that Dilworth practiced at Fifth Avenue Hospital after his partner and cousin, Dr. J. E. Whitaker, opened that facility in 1954. So I can't be certain Dilworth did the surgery, but perhaps he also had privileges at Huntsville Hospital. He and his wife Jessie are both buried in Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville. 

In this newspaper listing my address is given as 142 Cloverdale Drive. Sometime during the year after my tonsillectomy the address became 4220. I discuss this change in a blog post, "Cloverdale Drive, 'Jack and Jill' and Me."

Medical topics have been covered by newspapers for decades, but the nature of that coverage has changed over time. New techniques such as the spinal anesthetics described below were considered newsworthy at the time these two articles were published in 1909 and 1931. But when was the last time you saw a spinal anesthesia covered in the news? 

Spectacular achievements--transplants, gene therapy, robot surgery, new drugs--always get coverage until they become common or don't fulfill the initial enthusiasm. Other coverage is often devoted to children, adult local residents or various stripes of celebrities fighting cancer, etc. 

I don't know when the Huntsville Times began including these lists, or how long they lasted. Today this publication would contain many violations of HIPAA and general privacy concerns unless the patients or parents gave permission for such use. Perhaps the hospital did obtain such permission then. 

At the end of the Huntsville Hospital listing "Discharged" patients are four designated as "Colored". Presumably the facility was still segregated in 1958, with a ward or floor for black patients. That practice pretty much ended nationwide in 1965 when the law creating MEDICARE required hospitals to end racial discrimination in order to receive federal funds. 




Huntsville Times 10 June 1958



Huntsville Hospital opened June 8, 1926; this postcard is from the 1930s. Two new wings were added in 1956-57. The book by Goldsmith and Fulton mentioned above has an extensive history of this hospital. 




Here I am in the yard at Cloverdale Drive probably in 1957. From the look on my face, I may be worrying about that tonsillectomy already. 





Mom, younger brother Richard and I in front of the house. My blog post on the great February 1958 snowfall is here




The house on Cloverdale Drive in July 2018














Thursday, March 9, 2023

Carolyn Shores Wright, 1929-2023

I've done several posts on this blog about my mother Carolyn Shores Wright and her activities. One item covered her high school modeling stint for Avondale Mills. Her career as a professional artist, mostly in watercolor, lasted almost fifty years. I've written about the time she heard George Washington Carver speak in Camp Hill when she was seven years old. I've also covered the 1950 Auburn football game my parents attended soon after their wedding, and a bit about the Jefferson County town where she was born, Powhatan

Mom died on January 17, so I wanted to do a tribute to her on this blog. I've included the text of her obituary, since it covers the highlights. Also in this post are some photos of her and family and some images of her art to give an idea of the variety of subjects she painted. 

More comments are below some of the photos and images. 


Carolyn Shores Wright December 28, 1929-January 17, 2023 


Carolyn Shores Wright, 93, of Huntsville, AL passed away peacefully at home Tuesday, January 17. She was born in Powhatan, a west Jefferson County coal mining town that no longer exists. Carolyn and her siblings were the children of  long-time Methodist minister John Miller Shores, and they lived in various towns including Camp Hill, Florence, Sylacauga, Alex City, and Montevallo. One of her vivid memories from childhood was hearing George Washington Carver speak in Camp Hill when she was about 7 years old. During high school, Carolyn was a model for Avondale Mills. She attended college at Montevallo and Auburn, where she met her husband  of 52 years, A.J. The passions of her adult life were family, her church and her painting. She and A.J. were founding members of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Huntsville. For about fifty years Carolyn was a very prolific artist, first in oils, then acrylics, and finally “her medium” as she described it, watercolors. During those years she created hundreds of works that featured hummingbirds and many other birds, flowers, still lifes, landscapes, people and a series of humorous and whimsical bird paintings she called “Bird Life.” Carolyn was preceded in death by husband Amos Jasper Wright, Jr.; her mother Tempe Flowers Shores and father John Miller Shores; step-mother Edith Shores; sister Hethie Shores Kuehlthau; sister Marjorie Shores Pike; and brother John Miller Shores, Jr. She is survived by her sons Amos Jasper Wright III [Dianne] and Richard Ashley Wright [Lucy]; brother Max Shores [Cindy]; grandchildren Amos Jasper Wright IV [Kim], Ashley T. Wright [Jessica], Becca Wright; and Miller S. Wright [Kathyrn]; and great-grandchildren Ann Collins Wright, Ashley McDonald Wright, and Ezra Jasper Leon. Also surviving are two special nieces Charlotte Shores Ryder [Curtis] and Cindi Shores Sherrill, as well as many other nieces and nephews. Visitation will be held Saturday, February 4, at 11 A.M. at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Huntsville, with service to follow at noon. Internment will be in Maple Hill Cemetery in a private family service. In lieu of flowers memorials to Aldersgate United Methodist Church (Honduran Mission) or the Alabama Sheriffs Youth Ranches would be appreciated.



Mom is between sisters Marjorie and Hethie and with brother John.


Mom again in the middle between Marjorie and Hethie many years earlier. 

My grandmother Tempe Flowers Shores and her children. Hethie is standing, then Marjorie, mom and John. 




Mom and dad are flanking my paternal grandparents at their house on Chandler Street in Gadsden. Richard and I are on the floor. I'm really excited over the white socks I'm wearing. The occasion was the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Rosa Mae and Amos Wright; they were married on Halloween 1915. 





Dad and mom on a Christmas trip to Gatlinburg. 



Mom's parents and siblings are in this photo; mom wasn't around yet. Her father John Miller Shores was a minister in the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church for several decades. 



Dad and mom and the wedding cake at the First Methodist Church in Haleyville, 10 September 1950. 


Mom and my children, Becca and Amos



Mom with my younger brother Richard and his sons Ashley and Miller. Mom was in her red hair phase; the red hat phase came later. 



A formal family portrait in the late 1950's. Mom always wanted me to digitize this photo and take her out; she was not fond of the hairdo. 






Yours truly, mom and brother Richard on the steps of our house on Cloverdale Drive in Huntsville in the mid-1950s. The three of us revisited the house in July 2018. 



Richard and mom walking toward dad's grave in Maple Hill Cemetery. That spring 2022 visit was the last time we took her there. 








"Spring Fantasy"


"Fancy Flight"




"A Brother's Trick"
Mom said this painting was suggested by her brother John--he would roller skate really fast up to his sisters and turn away just in time...






"Holiday Cruise"

Mom did a number of paintings in what she called her "Bird Life" series that featured birds in human situations. You can see more of them here.




You can see many more of her paintings at her Etsy and Fine Art America shops. 






Thursday, December 8, 2022

Hermes Guided Missile in Huntsville

If you've ever driven Memorial Parkway through Huntsville, you may have noticed the small missile standing at the intersection with Airport Road. This A-1 rocket was part of Project Hermes, the second missile program of the U.S. Army which operated from November 1944 until December 1954. White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico was the Army's test site, where U.S. missile research was combined with parts for 100 V-2 rockets and scientists such as Werner Von Braun, all captured in Germany. 

General Electric was the American contractor for the program; development of the A-1 began in 1946. The Hermes A-1 was similar to the  German anti-aircraft Missile Wasserfall, which was about a fourth the size of a V-2. Five were launched at White Sands between May 1950 and April 1951.

As the Wikipedia entry notes, "None of the Hermes missiles became operational, but did provide experience in the design, construction, and handling of large-scale missiles and rocket engines." An historical marker near this missile explains that this particular Program Hermes rocket was the first American guided missile put on public display on May 13, 1953. The marker itself was erected by the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce in 1956. 

This relic has stood near the old airport site while the city around it has grown tremendously. A 1951 color film about Project Hermes can be watched on YouTube. GE's final report on the project can be read at the Internet Archive. 







Source: Historical Markers Database. The entry there has more photos, including one of a Hermes display at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. 


Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Trail of Tears Route in Huntsville

OK, here we go with another of those "history in unexpected places" items.

I was in Huntsville visiting mom recently and made a trip to the South Huntsville Library, a new facility close to her house that replaced two older, smaller branch libraries in that part of the city. This new library has a bookstore and nice coffee shop, and I often go by to donate books. On this visit, for the first time, I noticed the small sign seen below. 

For decades in the early 19th century the relationship between an ever-expanding white population in the southeastern U.S. and the native tribes grew more problematic. Natives tried various means of accommodation, and whites became increasingly hostile. In 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, and  President Andrew Jackson signed it. Both the federal and state governments were involved. A good overview is Sarah H. Hill's "Cherokee Indian Removal" article in the Encyclopedia of Alabama. 

By 1838 forced removal of the Cherokees from the Southeast had begun. The U.S. military and state militias rounded up 15,000 in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Five military posts were established in north Alabama as part of a network in that state and Georgia and Tennessee. These forts held troops which moved the natives into detention camps where they remained until heading west to Indian Territory, what is now Oklahoma. Between the camp conditions and the march, some one fourth died of diseases or malnourishment. The removal, which began on May 26, 1838 ended in November when the final groups left Tennessee.

Hill's article describes the forts and routes in north Alabama. "At least 33 military posts and camps were established for Cherokee removal: six in North Carolina, fourteen in Georgia, eight in Tennessee, and five in Alabama. The Alabama posts were Ft. Payne in Rawlingsville (now Fort Payne in DeKalb County), Ft. Morrow at Gunter's Landing (now Guntersville), Ft. Likens in Broomtown Valley, Ft. Lovell at Cedar Bluffs near Turkey Town, and Bellefont, which was a mustering and supply depot....Several routes followed the Tennessee River through Alabama, passing Bellefont in Jackson CountyHuntsville in Madison County, Gunter's Landing in Marshall CountyTuscumbia in Colbert County, and Waterloo in Lauderdale County."

That sign below is located at the base of Blevins Gap Road where it runs into Bailey Cove. The road originated as a trail used by natives as a way to come across Green Mountain into the Tennessee River Valley from the east. As white settlers entered that area in the early 1800s, the road connected them with other old roads such as Owens Cross Roads and Big Cove. 

Blevins Gap Road came down Green Mountain at the site of the old Grissom High School on Bailey Cove, where the new library sits, and connected to an another old valley road, Four Mile Post, also still in use today. John and William Blevins began purchasing land in the area in 1809 and over the next decade became prominent residents.

A good history can be found in Nancy Rohr's article, "Blevins Gap: A Road Less Traveled" published in the Historic Huntsville Quarterly V14N4, summer 1988, pp 3-15. A PDF of the issue is available here. Several illustrations of the old road are included. She doesn't discuss the Trail of Tears, but Blevins Gap may have been a route used to move the natives west from Gunter's Landing or Bellefonte. 

You can read more about Alabama's place in the Trail of Tears story herehere and here



This Trail of Tears marker is on Blevins Gap Road, just as you turn off Bailey Cove Road in southeast Huntsville. Part of the South Huntsville Library is visible on your right after turning. 



The new South Huntsville Public Library is a pretty nice place. You can only see part of the north side here. 



Blevins Gap Road is the one to the east outlined on this map. The road now leads to the Blevins Gap Nature Preserve, a 1086-acre natural area with numerous trails in south Huntsville. 





This marker is located on Highway 72 East near the intersection with Brock Road and Madison County High School east of Huntsville.