My Beard Has Never Been this Long

I first grew a beard while an undergraduate at Auburn University in the early 1970's. Later in that decade I had to shave it off temporarily. In the emergency room after a car wreck in Oneonta, a nurse shaved some of it so the doctor could sew up places on my face. Once home, I shaved it all off. However, as soon as my face healed up, I let the beard start growing again.

Most people who know me now have never seen me without a beard except in old photographs. That includes wife Dianne and kids Becca and Amos. I guess mom remembers me back in the day, and younger brother Richard might. He has a beard, too, by the way.

At various periods over the years I've let the beard get somewhat long, but nothing like Mr. James Copeland of Morgan County before he died in 1888. I recently stumbled across his story in a couple of places on the web; two brief, similar newspaper accounts are below. I've reproduced them as found; I do not know if errors were in the originals or the transcriptions. But we get the drift. Read these items and then I'll discuss what I've discovered so far about Mr. Copeland. 


James Copeland, a well-to-do farmer, died at Flint, Morgan County, Alabama at the age of 88. When the south seceded on 1861, Copeland took an oath that he would never shave again until the southern confederacy established it’s independence. He kept his oath, and his beard, at the time of his death, was nearly seven feet in length.
Marion County Patriot no. 25, 22 June 1888, p. 2


July 5 1888
KEPT HIS OATH
JAMES COPELAND a well to do farmer died in Flint Morgan County, June 17 at the age of 88. When the south seceded on 1864 COPELAND took an oath that he would never shave again untill the southern confederacy established it’s independence. He kept his oath and his beard at the time of his death was nearly seven feet in length.  [Crossville Chronicle]
Source: http://tngenweb.org/morgan/tag/copeland/


Just as we have to do with media today, some skepticism is the best way to approach many stories in old newspapers. Mr. Copeland was apparently a real resident of Morgan County, however. 

Although he was born in South Carolina in 1800, Copeland and wife Margaret were living in Tennessee according to the 1850 U.S. Census. By 1860 they had moved to Morgan County, Alabama. I also located him in the 1870 and 1880 federal censuses. Copeland is buried in the cemetery of the Forrest Chapel United Methodist Church in Hartselle. The Find-A-Grave site link below gives directions. One day I'll have to go by the cemetery and try to find his grave. 

The Marion County Patriot was published in Georgia from 1886 until 1968. The Crossville Chronicle was published in Tennessee. The "Flint" named in Copeland's obituaries is presumably now one of the Flint neighborhoods in Decatur. 

Source: Both photos from Find-A-Grave

The Drake-Samford House in Auburn 1850-1978

Recently during one of my periodic paper reduction efforts, I found the February 12, 1978 issue of the Auburn Bulletin from which the last three items below were scanned. Before I talk about those, let me put them into context. 

For many years the Drake-Samford House stood at 449 North Gay Street on the corner with East Drake Avenue in Auburn. The magnificent home was built in the 1850's. By 1857 John Drake, Sr., lived there. His son, John Drake, Jr., became a physician and served the college for many years.

In October 1865 Caroline Drake and lawyer and future governor William J. Samford were married in the house. Auburn University's iconic Samford Hall is named after him. 

The first two black and white photographs below of the house were taken by W.N. Manning on April 2 and 3, 1934. Manning was a professional photographer in Auburn then working for the Historic American Building Survey program. The second one shows the wonderful mahogany staircase.

Now, as to the scanned items. They show before and after photos as the house was torn down in February 1978. A developer who owned the property intended to put an apartment complex there, but never did. The site is now a grassy lot. 

Some details here were taken from the 2012 book Lost Auburn by Ralph Draughon, Jr., et al. 

William J. Samford [1844-1901]

Source: Encyclopedia of Alabama

This caption implies that Steve & I formerly rented the house itself. No, not quite. We rented the two-rooms-and-a-bathroom shack behind the mansion; we are standing at the door. That place was the site of the Great Toilet Explosion while we lived there, but that's another story

A Visit to Tallassee, Alabama

On May 5, 2016, a "suspicious fire" destroyed what was left of an historic textile mill in Tallassee. In 1841 the mill known as the Tallassee Falls Manufacturing Company was the first to open in town and the second in Alabama. The facility produced cotton at first, then wool. During the Civil War the mill produced cotton for uniforms and later served as a carbine shop. 

That armory was the only Confederate one not destroyed by the end of the war. The mill resumed civilian operations and in the late 1890's became part of the huge Mount Vernon Mills complex in Tallassee which operated until 2005. At the time it closed Tallassee's mill was the oldest operating textile mill in the world. 

Tallassee's history seems jinxed; the iconic Hotel Talisi burned in an arson fire in 2009. Like so many Auburn students over the decades, I made a few trips there for the wonderful Sunday lunch back in the 1970's. 

The historic mill had been listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2010. In that same year the Alabama Historical Commission listed cotton mills statewide in its annual "Places in Peril". Over the past decade or more efforts were made to save the historic mill in Tallassee, but none of them worked. 

By the end of World War II one in five jobs in the state were in cotton mills. At least Lowe Mill in Huntsville, once a cotton mill and then a shoe factory, has been successfully developed for another use. Lowe Mill is now the largest privately owned arts facility in the United States. 

As history would have it, my brother Richard and I were in Tallassee last July on one of our annual family and state history tours. The first seven photos below were taken at the huge Mount Vernon mill constructed in the late 1890's. The final six were taken at the historic first mill. I've made comments and added further information below a few of the photos.   

You can learn more about Tallasee in William E. Goss and Karren Pell's Tallassee [Images of America series], Arcadia Pubishing, 2008. Also of interest is Linda Peal White's article, "One Night at the Hotel Talisi" in the Oxford American May/June 1995 pp 40-42.

I wonder how many times employees passed through this turnstile over the years.

Mount Vernon Mills continues to operate facilities in several states, but no longer in Alabama.

Tallassee Armory

Only Confederate armory not destroyed by Federal forces. Colonel Gorgas (Conf. Flag) ordnance chief, had carbine shop moved here into Tallassee Manufacturing Company mill in spring 1864 as war threatened Richmond, Virginia armory. War ended before plant neared goal of 6,000 carbines per year. In 1864 Rousseau's raid bypassed it-1865: forces under General Wilson (U.S. Flag) misled by faulty map, marched 10 miles east; threat of Forrest (Conf. Flag) barred their return. 
[Before 1965: Barnett Blvd at E.B. Payne Drive near river on Hwy 14, Tallassee 35.53501 N   65.89107 W ]

Source: Alabama Historical Association Historical Markers Program
http://www.alabamahistory.net/elmore-historical-markers.html

The REAL First Movie World Premiere in Birmingham

Well, maybe, at least until I find another one.

In a recent blog post I discussed a film premier in Birmingham that was described as the first, a showing of Steel Town at the Alabama Theater in March 1952. In some even more recent file cleaning, I came across the article below. Seems we can push back Birmingham's first movie world premier to at least November 1947. 

This article details the work of actress Mary Anderson, who was scheduled to appear in the city at an event on November 23. She realized that her visit would come at the same time as the annual football game played at Legion Field to benefit the Crippled Children's Clinic. Senior high school players from around the state, picked by coaches, played in the all-star game held from 1935 until 1969, when the clinic closed. 

I have covered Mary Anderson's career in another blog post. Whispering City was a thriller set in Quebec City, Canada, and filmed on location there. The movie came about midway in her film career; she continued acting steadily for more than a decade afterward. Her career began in 1939; her first credited film role was Maybelle Merriwether in Gone with the Wind. Before she died in 2014 at the age of 96, she was one of three remaining credited actors from that film still living. 

The postcard below features the Crippled Children's Clinic on 19th Street South. No date is given, but the facility must be the one for which the movie premier was raising money. Groundbreaking was held in June 1949 and the clinic opened in November 1951. Today UAB's Spain-Wallace Building occupies the location; Jefferson Tower is across 19th Street.  

The article below was written by Lily May Caldwell, "Drama, Radio, Music Editor." She began working for the Birmingham News in 1921 and retired as its long-time entertainment editor in 1966. She died in 1980. Why she identified the 1952 film premier as the city's "first" is anybody's guess. 

Birmingham News 9 November 1947

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

The Empire Theater in 1937 heavily promoting the film Lost Horizon. The theater was located on 3rd Avenue North. 

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections

Source: CardCow.com

Description on the back of the card: 

The Crippled Children's Clinic and Hospital, at 620 South 19th Street, was established in 1929 for the orthopedic treatment of underprivileged children. It has provided help for the care of thousands of needy children from 65 counties in Alabama. Much of the money used in erection of this outstanding modern clinic was raised through the realm of sports. Proceeds of an annual football game added considerably to the necessary financing.

Finding Alabama in Oklahoma

Recently Dianne and I helped our daughter Becca and son-in-law Matt move from Tuscaloosa to Edmond, Oklahoma, where he has accepted a faculty position at the University of Central Oklahoma. Matt and his father took the U-Haul; Dianne and his mother drove one of their cars; and Becca and I drove the other one, the one with their two dogs. We left Tuscaloosa around 6:30 am and arrived in Edmond about 13 hours later. 

As we made our way across Oklahoma on I-40, Becca and I noticed something familiar. We passed an exit for "Eufaula." Some miles further on we passed an exit for "Wetumpka." This Twilight Zone feeling quickly passed as we realized why there are towns in Oklahoma with names so familiar to us in Alabama.

Those Alabama towns of Eufaula and Wetumpka carry names associated with settlements of various Muscogee/Creek tribes in the state. Several towns by those names were identified by early European traders and settlers in the area. For an in-depth look at such matters, see Amos J. Wright, Jr.'s 2003 book, Historic Indian Towns in Alabama, 1540-1838.

In the 1830's the Creeks---along with Choctaws, Cherokees, Chickasaws and Seminoles---were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeast to the Indian Territory in the west. Naturally, some of their town names went with them. Another such name was Tuskegee, now an Oklahoma ghost town. 

Below are three maps. The first one shows the locations of the two towns south of I-40. Downtown Wetumka [without the P] is shown on the second map. There we can see some specifics that would not be out of place in its Alabama counterpart: a Diary Queen, a Dollar General, Wetumka Elementary and High Schools. Oh, wait---that Cowkickers Smokin Barbeque gives it away. You seldom see a barbeque place in Alabama that doesn't use Bar-B-Que in it's name. 

If you look at the water near Eufaula on the third map, you'll see Lake Eufaula there in the middle of the Canadian River. It's a reservoir created by a dam. Gee, isn't there one of those in Alabama, too?

These names are not limited to Alabama and Oklahoma. There is an unincorporated Wetumpka in Florida. A town of Tuskegee in Tennessee associated with the Cherokee and the birthplace of Sequoyah was covered by water in the 1970's after the construction of Tellico Dam. Alabama actually had several settlements by that name; see the book cited above. 

On our trip we also passed an exit for "Prague." And yes, the town was settled in the early 1890's by--wait for it--Czech immigrants. 





That Night Movie Fans "Besieged" the Alabama Theater

No, I'm not referring to a showing of Gone with the Wind. That film first appeared in Birmingham on January 31, 1940, at the Ritz Theatre.

In March 1952 Birmingham saw its first actual Hollywood movie premiere. Birmingham News amusement editor Lila May Caldwell wrote two articles about the film Steel Town and the stars who also appeared in the city that month. See the articles below; links are provided where you can find more readable copies.

Her second article notes that an estimated 7000 people saw three showings of the film on March 20, and 7000 more jammed the streets as the stars arrived for the 9 pm show. Fans "shrieked welcome" to Ann Sheridan, John Lund, and Howard Duff.

Steel Town was filmed at a factory in California, but local businessmen urged Alabama Theater manager Norris Hadaway to convince Universal-International executives to hold the premiere in Birmingham. He did, and the "first picture ever to dramatize the making of steel" and its stars came to the Magic City.

The story follows a mill owner's son who has gone to work in the facility to learn the ropes. He's also living incognito with a steelworker's family; the daughter just happens to be played by Ann Sheridan. Her boyfriend played by Howard Duff  and the son played by John Lund vie for her affections as the steel is made.

I haven't seen this Technicolor film, but will now have to search it out. The Internet Movie Database identifies the film's tagline as "Men of steel! Women of flesh!" What more could a movie fan want?

 This article appeared in the Birmingham News on March 9, 1952.

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections



A second article appeared in the Birmingham News on March 21.

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections



Birmingham Photo of the Day (47): Ladies of the Club

The photo below can be found in the digital collections of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The description there reads, "'Miss Bland Tomlinson, Miss Mary Munger and Mrs. Henry Howze at the Country Club.' From the rotogravure section of the Birmingham Age-Herald, Sunday, October 31, 1915." From June 1942 until September 1945 Henry R. Howze served as Probate Judge of Jefferson County. He was also an early trustee of the Birmingham Historical Society. I did not find a Mary Munger in Birmingham in the 1910 U.S. Census, but I did find a Mary "Manger" who was 16 at the time. No one named Bland Tomlinson or anything similar turned up in the 1910 census. A photo of the Country Club as it looked in 1915 can also be seen below. The history of the organization can be found at the BhamWiki site. Rotogravure is a type of printing process developed in the late nineteenth century. Reproduction of art and photographs benefited from this method. The Age-Herald apparently ran a Sunday feature of such reproductions. You can read some history of women's golf attire here.