Birmingham Photo [88]: Arms & Cycle Company

Our photograph this time shows the interior of the Birmingham Arms and Cycle Company taken before 1920. The entry for this photo at the Alabama Department of Archives and History credits the Grand Rapids Show Case Company and notes, "Among the items on display are bicycles, guns, knives, watches, safety razors, and boxing gloves."

The Grand Rapids Showcase Company was founded in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1901 and operated under that name until a 1926 merger. The firm's factory built furniture and other equipment--such as display cases-- for different kinds of retail stores.

The BhamWiki site has an article with some history of this establishment. According to that piece, the shop was founded by C.J. Chunn, a North Carolina native who had owned a gun store in Baltimore. He opened the Birmingham store in 1887 at 1904 2nd Avenue North. By 1895 Robert Baugh was co-owner and manager. Baugh was an active golfer who laid out the city's first course; he was also involved in local baseball.

As BhamWiki notes, the store was located at various locations on 2nd and 3rd Avenues North. The final one may have been at 2017 3rd Avenue as seen in the 1920 telephone directory excerpt below between the Birmingham Apothecary and the Birmingham Artificial Limb Company. Today that block includes First Horizon Bank and Jim Reed Books.

Birmingham Arms and Cycle Company before 1920

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives and History 

Birmingham White and Yellow Pages March 1920

Source: Library of Congress

Six Thousand Attend Birmingham Rally in 1935

For more than a year now my brother Richard and I have been conducting a deep dive into the massive amount of family memorabilia at mom's house in Huntsville. Much of it comes from dad's parents, Rosa Mae and Amos J. Wright, Sr., who lived in the Gadsden. I've previously written about my grandfather's World War I army training at Auburn and the contents of their daughter Beulah Vee's cedar chest. 

In a recent round of exploration, we've found a lot of material related to Amos Sr.'s years working for the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. According to an entry in one of Rosa Mae's journals, he began his employment with L&N on May 15, 1923, and retired September 1, 1962.He was a yard foreman for many of those thirty-nine years. 

One item we found was the October 1935 issue of the railroad's employee magazine. Inside was an article titled "Six Thousand Attend Birmingham Rally". So what was that all about?

On September 26, 1935, the L & N Railroad held its third in a series of rallies in cities along its rail system. The event took place at the Municipal Auditorium n Birmingham. Both Vice-President T.E. Brooks and President James B. Hill addressed the 6000 employees and family members in attendance. Brooks had served for many years as division superintendent in Birmingham.

The anonymous author noted that the purpose was primarily one of entertainment, but apparently Hill had some extensive remarks before the fun. He noted that the "railroads are almost completely regulated in everything they do" unlike competitive forms of transportation by road, air and water. Plus, almost 7.5% of gross earnings were paid in taxes. Remember that in 1935 the nation was in the depths of the Great Depression.

The article does include a portrait of the L & N Railroad both nationally and in Alabama at that time. President Hill noted in his remarks that L & N operated in 13 states with 26,000 employees, 5000 miles of track, 1000 locomotives, over 50,000 freight cars and more than 700 passenger cars. In Alabama 4700 people worked for L & N, which paid $776,000 in taxes to the state, $350,000 of which went to schools.

So what about that entertainment? "Talented members of the L & N family entertained the large audience with 17 acts that would have done credit to the best vaudeville circuit," wrote the author. Most of them were from Birmingham or Boyles, a community that no longer exists but was the site of L & N's Boyles Yard. Others came from Kentucky. The audience enjoyed a piano trio, tenor solos, a tap dance, and baritone solos. Two male employees "provided many laughs with their blackface act."

Black employees appeared in "Darktown Strutters" accompanied by a pianist. "The finale featured the  Southland Colored Ensemble and Quartette, fifty voices directed by Paul Cooper." the author wrote. "This chorus was composed of many colored employes [sic] at Boyles and members of their families. They rendered an enjoyable selection of spirituals and melodies."

I don't know if my grandparents from Gadsden attended this rally, but perhaps they did. 

My grandfather Amos J. Wright, Sr., is on the left posing with his crew in the Gadsden L&N railroad yard sometime in the 1930s. 

Birmingham's Municipal Auditorium ca. 1937. The facility was later renamed Boutwell Auditorium after Albert Boutwell who was mayor from 1963 until 1967. 

Source: BhamWiki

Birmingham Postcard: The Redmont Hotel

As its BhamWiki entry notes, the Redmont Hotel opened in May 1925 with 250 rooms in the 14-story building. The Redmont is the oldest hotel still operating in the city, and today is part of the Hilton Curio Collection. 

The back of this card tells us "The Redmont, Corner 5th Ave. and 21st St., Birmingham's newest hotel, 225 Rooms / 225 Baths, Circulating Ice Water. Direction / Dinkler Hotel Company, Dispensers of True-Southern Hospitality." Thus it was printed soon after the Redmont opened.

Louis Jacob Dinkler, a Nashville native, opened his first hotel in Macon, Georgia, in 1914. Other Dinkler hotels in Alabama included the original Tutwiler, opened in 1914 and which Dinkler was operating by 1926; and the Jefferson Davis in Montgomery. The Tutwiler was demolished in 1974. At one time the chain advertised it offered 3000 rooms around the South.

The BhamWiki resource has an extensive history of the Redmont, including the November 1, 1934, shootout between robbers and Birmingham police. On December 8, 1986, the Birmingham Post-Herald published an article by Mitch Mendelson about the first-class hotels for travelers in the city, the Redmont and the Wynfrey.

Hotel Redmont postcard ca. 1920

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History

Tennant S. McWilliams, PhD [1943-2023]

I wanted to note the passing on October 23 of UAB Professor Emeritus and historian Tennant S. McWilliams, who served as Dean of the School of Social Behavior and Sciences from 1990 until 2007. He graduated from Birmingham-Southern in 1965, then earned a master's at the University of Alabama in 1967 and a PhD from the University of Georgia in 1973. The following year he began his career at UAB, which lasted until retirement in 2010. During those years he had not only served as a dean, but in several other administrative posts at the university. 

He published several books; three of them are noted below. I've found the UAB history very useful.  

Published by the University of Alabama Press in September 2023

University of Alabama Press, 2008

University of Alabama Press, 1978

This pamphlet was published in 1978.

• Hannis Taylor: New Southerner as American. University of Alabama Press, 1978.
• The New South Faces the World: Foreign Affairs and the Southern Sense of Self. Louisiana State University Press, 1988. Paperback 2006.
• New Lights in the Valley: The Emergence of UAB. University of Alabama Press, 2008.
• The Chaplain’s Conflict: Good and Evil in a War Hospital. Texas A&M University Press, 2012.
• Dixie Heretic: The Civil Rights Odyssey of Renwick C. Kennedy. Forthcoming. University of Alabama Press, 2023.

Birmingham's Hillman Hospital Opens in 1903

In July 2014 I posted an item on this blog, "Hillman Hospital and How It Became UAB." I recently came across the article below published in the May 3, 1903, issue of the Birmingham Post-Herald just before Hillman opened. The piece is full of fascinating details about this early city hospital, which replaced a 100-bed facility that had burned in 1894. Various temporary quarters were used until Hillman opened for paying patients on June 16, 1903, the day after a reception for local visitors. 

Groundbreaking ceremonies had taken place on May 2, 1902; a year was required to build the facility. The article declares medical advances "make the hospital one of the great institutions of today...The charity hospital is in a class alone. No other philanthropic institution is comparable to it. The Hillman hospital is a charity hospital" and will be to Birmingham what Bellevue is in New York." Birmingham Medical College, which had opened a new building next door, provided most of the hospital's medical staff.

About $60,000 was spent to build the hospital, which was four stories high of red brick and white stone. The building was fireproof and heated by steam; it featured electrical elevators, gas and electricity lighting and steam heat. The interior finish was native pine, and the bathroom and operating room floors were Venetian mosaic. Hillman had room for about 98 patients. 

The basement held clinics, dispensary, physician offices, laboratories, the laundry, various storerooms, and the boiler and fuel room. On the first floor were the nurse superintendent and resident physician offices, reception room, six private rooms, and two large wards. Six more private rooms, two more adult wards and a large children's room with sunlight and toys were located on the second floor. 

On the third floor could be found the surgical amphitheater with seating for 80 students, a private operating room and sterilization and anesthesia rooms. Also located there were five more private rooms and two wards for surgical patients. The top floor had a kitchen with dumb waiter connection to the other floors. Also found there was a dining room, nurse's dormitory and six private rooms. 

The article includes extensive quotes from the newly-hired superintendent of nurses at Hillman, Miss Nannie Boyce Hamilton, "one of the best equipped young women in the profession. She has diplomas from the famous hospitals of the north, and to her experience and training she adds a wonderful executive and business ability. she is a very remarkable young woman."

Miss Hamilton praised the plainness of Hillman Hospital furnishing which mad cleanliness much easier, "affording no lurking place for dust." She notes the presence of a study and sitting room for nurses' use in their time free from patient care or classes. Hamilton hoped to establish a nurses' library, and pointed to the amphitheater, private operating rooms and large children's ward as important features. 

Hillman was a charity hospital, but did take paying patients who were the ones able to afford private rooms. Four graduate nurses and eight student nurses cared for those private patients. Hillman Training School for Nurses graduated seven students in 1903. 

All of these wonderful facilities and staff did not prevent financial problems that Hillman soon developed. By May 1907 Jefferson County agreed to assume the outstanding $9000 debt on the property, and under it's control the hospital continued to admit charity patients.

I did a bit of research on Annie Kendrick Walker and Nannie Boyce Hamilton, but found very little. Walker did publish two family histories, Memoirs of the Graham Family [1908] and Old Shorter Houses and Gardens [1911]. On March 24, 1900, she had published a profile of popular novelist Mary Johnston in the New York Times; Johnston lived for a period Birmingham. 

Hamilton did not remain at Hillman for too many years. The Holley book cited below notes that the nursing superintendent at Hillman, a different woman, remained in that position in 1907 when Jefferson County took over. 

Further Reading

Holley, Howard L. A History of Medicine in Alabama [1982]

Holmes, Jack D.L. A History of the University of Alabama Hospital [1974]

Wright AJ. Hillman Hospital. Hektoen International spring 2015

Source: Views of Birmingham, 1908

Birmingham Photo (86): Joiner Furniture Company

I stumbled across this photograph as I wandered around the Alabama Mosaic web site. As the site notes, "Alabama Mosaic is a repository of digital materials on Alabama's history, culture, places, and people. Its purpose is to make unique historical treasures from Alabama's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories electronically accessible to Alabama residents and to students, researchers, and the general public in other states and countries." I've certainly found a lot of goodies there over the years.

The bit of research I did on the Joiner Furniture Company produced very little information. According to the source of the photo, the Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections, it was taken in 1930 and shows the store at 1716 2nd Avenue North. According to BhamWiki, the six story structure is now known as the Jefferson Home Furniture building and was constructed in 1915. The J.E. Cain Furniture company operated there in the 1920's followed by Joiner. Duke Brothers Furniture took over in 1945 and then Jefferson Home, which remodeled it in the 1960s. More recent efforts to convert the building to lofts or self-storage were unsuccessful.

Below the photograph is a portion of the "Furniture" section of the 1945 Birmingham Yellow Pages. Ironically, Joiner's entry follows Jefferson's, its eventual replacement in the building. 

At the lower left in the picture can be seen the marquee of Joiner's neighbor, the Jefferson Theatre. Opened in 1900 as a vaudeville house, the theater closed in the Great Depression and was demolished for a parking lot in 1946. 

I can't make out the sign in the lower right of the photo. 

One final note: look at all those cool cars!

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Source: Birmingham Yellow Pages 1945

Birmingham Photos (85): St. Mary's on the Highlands

In September 2022 Dianne and I were in downtown Birmingham for a doctor's appointment at UAB and a visit to one of our favorite eating places, the Original Pancake House at Five Points South. I found a parking spot around the block on 12th Avenue South in front of St. Mary's on the Highlands Episcopal Church. Before walking down to meet Dianne for brunch, I snapped a few photos of this historic structure. 

As seen in the photo below, the church cornerstone was laid 13 August 1891. Another photo shows the cover of a centennial history published in 1987. Two postcards created early in the church's history are also included. 

This history begins with the founding of the parish in 1887 and was published in 1987. 

These postcards are from the Alabama Dept of Archives and History digital collections here and here. 

The Original Pancake House has been located in the Munger Building since 2000.  The chain has locations in a number of states; the one at Five Points is the only franchise in Alabama. The first location opened in Portland, Oregon, in 1953. I highly recommend a visit. 

Birmingham-Southern Student Handbook 1927-1928

The financial woes of Birmingham-Southern College have been in the news a lot lately. As I continue to downsize my book collection, I recently came across this BSC student handbook for the 1927-1928 school year. Funny how things work out sometimes....

Roots of the school date back to 1856. In its current form BSC has existed since 1918, when the Methodist Church merged two of its schools at the present location.  So this handbook gives us a snapshot of the institution and its students a decade later. 

This small handbook is 5" x 3" in size and has 112 pages, so it's meant to fit easily into a coat or shirt pocket or purse. My copy is in fairly good condition, but shows some use as well. Unfortunately its owner did not fill in the "This handbook is the property of" form on page 2. There are no markings in the entire book, actually.

I have some comments below many of the photos. 

A history of BSC's first century is Birmingham-Southern College, 1856-1956 by Joseph H. Parks and Oliver C. Weaver, Jr. [Parthenon Press, 1957]. 

If this 1927-28 handbook is volume six, then the first one was issued in the 1922-23 school year. 

Some of the neat things about this little publication are the vintage advertisements such as this one for Loveman, Joseph & Loeb. The Birmingham department store eventually became Loveman's, which had several stores around the state and operated from 1887 until 1980.

Comments from editor Clay Bailey in his "Foreword" welcome students and tell them what they can expect--"multiplied privileges of residence and study" which he lists, as well as "the companionship of scholars and gentlemen" who will introduce students to the "treasures of art, literature, religion and science."

The "Alma Mater" has been expanded since this version was published. 

Whiting's photo is the only one of an individual in the text of the book that's not an advertisement.

On the next page is an admonition to freshman to familiarize themselves with BSC's traditions and ideals so they can have the privilege of contributing to them.

I guess the "Football Song" has been replaced by the  "Fight Song". 

Apparently a number of fraternities were active at BSC in 1927. 

Football was an important activity at BSC during the 1920s. The two schools that Methodists consolidated in 1918, Southern University and Birmingham College, both fielded football teams beginning in 1904 and 1909 respectively. After the merger, BSC compiled an 87-80-16 record between 1918 and 1939, when the school dropped football until bringing it back in 2007. The school won Dixie Conference championships in 1932, 1934 and 1937. 

The handbook describes the prospect of a good season, touting two particular players and the number  returning from the 1926 team, However, in the fall of 1927 BSC had a 3-6 record under coach Harold Drew; that was his final of four years. As you can see from the schedule in the photos above and below, BSC only played two games at the Munger Bowl, their home field. Two games were played at Rickwood Field, including the final one against arch rival Howard College, now Samford University. 

The Alabama Theatre opened in December 1927 and became the premier venue in the city for Paramount Studios' theater division. The Strand had held that place until then. The Strand closed in 1962 and was demolished the next year; the Alabama thrives today. 

Louis Saks' store operated in downtown Birmingham from the 1880's until the 1920's. 

Protective was founded in Birmingham in 1907 by a former governor, William Jelks. In 2014 the company was sold to a Japanese firm, but continues to operate from Alabama. 

Frank Lollar opened his first camera shop in Birmingham in 1910; by 1965 a sixth store opened in Eastwood Mall. 

The Florsheim Shoes company was founded in Chicago in 1892 and continues to operate today. 

I've yet to discover the relationship between Louis and Herman Saks in Birmingham or any possible relationship to the chain founded by Andrew Saks. 

Birmingham Photo of the Day [84]: Gus Brown

Recently I've been roaming through Alabama Mosaic again, a place of infinite distraction, and here's the result this time. 

The document below can be found here and here at the Library of Congress' digital collection, "Federal Writers Project: Slave Narratives." The Federal Writers Project was a New Deal agency, and one of its efforts during the Great Depression of the 1930s involved interviewing former slaves. The Slave Narrative Collection contains over 2000 such interviews conducted in eleven states. Gus Brown was an interview subject in May 1937. 

He was interviewed in Birmingham by Alexander B. Johnson under the auspices of the Alabama Writers Project, a state component of the federal effort. The state archives has an extensive collection of this material. On the two state archives pages linked below Brown's photos, the photographer is identified as "Lollar's Birmingham, Alabama." That was presumably Frank Lollar, who opened a photography and camera shop in the city as early as 1910. The firm eventually operated at least six stores; one opened in Eastwood Mall in December 1965.

Because of his common name, I was unable to find anything on Johnson. At Ancestry.com, I did find an Alexander B. Johnson living in Birmingham who was counted in the 1920 census, age 7. He would have been 24 in 1937, so perhaps...

Like the slave narratives generally, Brown's life story is fascinating and poignant. He  grew up and thus enslaved on a plantation near Richmond, Virginia. Being his master's "body servant", Brown accompanied him into battle during the Civil War and remembered seeing Stonewall Jackson. After the war, Brown remained on William Brown's plantation until his former master died. Then he began work for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad and ended up in Birmingham, where he decided to stay.  Between 1900 and 1967 the Seaboard was a major railroad in the southern U.S. 

I have so far been unable to trace Brown any further. Be sure to read this entire interview, and especially he finally two paragraphs. 

A photo of Brown taken May 8, 1937

Source: Alabama Dept of Archives & History

Gus Brown, age 90

Source: Alabama Genealogy Trails

As my son Amos pointed out, the building behind Brown in the first photograph looks like the Jefferson County Courthouse.