Pelham As We Knew It in 1985

We moved to our first house in Pelham in 1985, and as you might expect I've written several postings on this blog related to the city or Shelby County. Historian Bobby Joe Seales and his wife Diane are currently working on Pelham Memories: A Pictorial History that will be available in November 2018. This forthcoming book made me think about the ways Pelham has changed since we moved here and what relics of that time are still around. So I made the rounds one day and photographed some places that were here in 1985 and how they look today.

Pelham is actually very old as towns in Alabama go. The town was established as the first seat of Shelby County in 1818 by the Alabama Territorial legislature. In 1826 county government was moved to Columbiana. Originally known as Shelbyville, the place changed its name to Pelham to honor John Pelham sometime in the 1870's. The population remained small for many decades even though the community was located on US Highway 31 and incorporated in 1964. By 1970 just 931 people lived in Pelham.

During that decade the suburbs of northern Shelby County began to boom, and in 1980 Pelham reached a population of 6759. In 1990 it was 9765. The 2016 estimate was 23,050 people. So when we moved here in 1985 there were probably around 8000.

Despite its long history, Pelham has few buildings that are very old. The Fungo Hollow area along Shelby County 35 has some older houses and other such residences are scattered around the city. Very few commercial buildings predate the 1970's, however.

More comments are below the photos.

This goal post in the trees is very close to the house we moved to in 1995 and currently occupy. Someone told Dianne not long after we arrived in the neighborhood that the owners of this property once had a son who was a kicker on the Pelham High School football team. 

A Food World operated here from January 1974 until a few years ago. Son Amos worked there for a while in high school. That Food World, once part of the Bruno's chain, was owned by Southern Family Markets when it closed in November 2010. 

When we first moved to Pelham the town had few restaurants. None of the many eating places now at the I-65 and Alabama 119 interchange and elsewhere were available then. Sometime in the late 1980's China One opened in the Food World Plaza. We ate there many times when the kids were young. The restaurant has been known as China Cafe for some time; we haven't eaten there in years. Tao long ago became our go-to Asian place in Pelham. 

A Winn-Dixie was located here on U.S. 31 when we moved to Pelham in 1985. This commercial strip, which also houses Cozumel restaurant, is very close to where we used to live. The store closed a few years later, but one reappeared in another place in town as noted below.

Now an Italian restaurant, this building housed a Shoney's when we moved to Pelham. At that time one of the few restaurants in town, the Shoney's moved near the I-65 and Alabama 119 interchange when it began to develop. That location eventually closed; the building was demolished sometime before 2010, and a Burger King is located there now. The Shoney's sign on I-65 did not come down until late 2013. 

We used to really enjoy the breakfast buffets at Shoney's. 

When this commercial strip on U.S. 31 was built, Winn-Dixie was the anchor store where Gold's Gym is now. The grocery store closed a few years ago. 

This building on U.S. 31 near the IHOP has been Riverchase Carpet and Flooring since 1995. Yet it began life in the early 1950's as a Pan American Oil Company gas station. That arrangement didn't last long; although founded in 1916, Pan American had merged with Standard Oil in 1954 and became part of the Amoco brand.

The station was owned by the Acton family for many years. Built soon after U.S. 31 was widened to four lanes, the place offered a stop for travelers heading south from Birmingham. As seen in the photo below, the station had two service bays. The section on the left was a restaurant; the office was on the right.

At some point the station closed and an RV business operated there for a while. I seem to remember that place. When Clyde Pearce bought the building in 1995, it was dilapidated and part of the roof had caved in. Now it's a showplace, and I presume the oldest commercial building in Pelham.

Source: Shelby County Reporter 22 June 2011

This building On U.S. 31 was a bank when we first moved to Pelham, but I don't remember which one. 

This building sure looks like a former Waffle House or Omelette Shop. 

Until recently this building was Valley Elementary School. Our children Amos and Becca both went here and then on to Riverchase Middle School and Pelham High School. The Pelham school system has removed its identity, but the building remains. VES opened in 1964 and lasted until about 2016 with some expansion along the way.

This residence is known as the Lee home and sits on Lee Street near Donut Joe's and just across from the railroad tracks. Built in 1895, the house is one of the oldest structures left in Pelham. The photo above is taken from the Pelham City News, October/November 2010, page 5. That article gives more history of the house. At one time the tiny Pelham Depot was located across the street, but had no bathroom facilities. Passengers waiting for a train would instead come to the Lee home.

Pelham United Methodist Church originated on this spot at the corner of US31 and Shelby County 52. On November 19, 1898, the first sermon by Rev. Felix A. Vann was heard at the New Methodist Episcopal Church South. The church was the first to be located in the city. The sanctuary building was constructed in the 1940's. The Doc Martin Family Life Center behind it opened in 1988.

In October 2006 the church moved to new property on Shelby County 11. An auction of this site was held in April 2007. The sanctuary has been demolished and the photo below shows what remains today on the 4.5 acre site.

This Boggs Pottery business was located on US 31 across from the current Wal-Mart but closed a few years ago. The Boggs family began its pottery business in Prattville in the 1890's and continues today. They were among a number of folk potters active in the state well into the 20th century. The article "Boggs Pottery Shop Has Long History" by state folklorist Joey Brackner can be found in Alabama Folklife 5(1): 6-7, spring 1998.

This structure across US 31 from the old public library and City Hall probably originated as a residence in the 1950's or a bit later. The city has several such buildings from the 1960's and 1970's that have later been put to commercial use at one time or another. The city also has a number of houses in the Fungo Hollow area around Shelby County 35 and 72 that date from those decades. 

  

This location of the library closed on April 23 so that its contents could be moved to the new library at the city park. When we moved to Pelham the police department was located here; the library was on the first floor with the entrance around back.

A K-Mart was located here in 1985.

Pelham's original WalMart on US31 in the southern part of town is now the home of MasTec Network Solutions. 

Some other businesses in Pelham that I remember include Fran's Restaurant on U.S. 31. Oddly, even though the place opened in 1961 and operated until September 2013, we never ate there. The place was a popular spot, though. Owner Fran Driver passed away in February 2012. After Fran's closed, a couple of other eateries tried the location. The small commercial strip once housing Fran's was demolished earlier this year. The article "Remembering Fran Driver" can be found in the Pelham City News April 2012, page 7.

Another business was the Command Post, an Army surplus store owned by Jennifer and Nick Bondi who were from Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. Son Amos and I visited a couple of times when it was located behind Anthony's car wash. The store had opened in a first location in 1984, moved in 1996 and operated there until 2011. 

I also remember several visits with Dianne to the Gift Bag, a boutique with clothes, jewelry, purses and such. I remember the place on Belcher Drive vividly because it was small and so packed there was barely room to move around in it. Sarah Higginbotham opened the Gift Bag in March 1978 and operated it until November 2007. For more about the shop, see Jeremy Gray's article, "Failing Health Causes Boutique Owner to Close Shop after 29 Years" in the Birmingham News 7 November 2007. 

My Further Adventures with Jack & Jill

In 1960 we moved from a house on Cloverdale Drive in Huntsville to one on Lakeview Drive. The new house was located in the Lakewood subdivision in the northwestern part of the city just off Memorial Parkway. I've previously written about an anomaly in our Jack and Jill subscription at Cloverdale as well as a snowfall there in 1958 and a Sunday afternoon in 1959. Now it's time to take Jack and Jill to our next house on Lakeview Drive. 

Mom had saved most issues of Jack and Jill from a family subscription that lasted from 1953 until 1966. No doubt my younger brother and I had outgrown them by then. The magazine began publication in 1938 and continues today.

We moved to this house at 4606 Lakeview Drive in 1960 and were still living there when I went off to college at Auburn in the summer of 1970. In a blog post here I discussed some photos of a couple of visits by my paternal grandparents, one of them at Christmastime. 

These issues shown here date from the mid-1960's when I would have been 12-14 years old. I imagine only my brother Richard would be reading the subscription then; he's four-and-a-half years younger than I am.

By this time the magazine seems to have covered children's TV and movies in every issue. The 1966 movie And Now Miguel was based on a 1953 novel by Joseph Crumgold. 

I remember watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade as a kid and then a few times with our own kids. I haven't seen it in a long time, though. The parade was first held in 1924.

I also haven't seen the 1966 animated Grinch in a while, but we sure watched it a lot when I was a kid and then with our own kids. 

I vaguely remember the CBS television series Daktari which ran from 1966 until 1969. I also seem to remember the film upon which it's based, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion [1965]. Ah, those were the days....

Here's the back view of that Lakeview Drive house. The door on the lower left led to the basement. Dad would later build a small room off that door for garden tools and our future beagle Duchess. That previous post I mentioned at the beginning has a photo or two of her on top of the roof. Dad would also put in a patio in this backyard. I remember doing a lot of digging and moving rocks for that thing.

Our beagle Duchess surveys her realm

Some Alabamians in New Orleans

I've done a few posts on this blog devoted to topics with only slight connections to Alabama history or culture. One such was "Two Alabama Natives Visit the Garden of the Gods". Mostly they are excuses to show a few pretty pictures. That's basically what's going on here, although there will be some minor Alabama stuff before the end.

Son Amos moved to New Orleans last year from Baton Rouge, and in March we finally went down for a visit. I had been to the Big Easy a few times before, mainly for professional meetings, but I was glad to get back and see more of the city. Dianne had never been to New Orleans except for a quick trip through on I-10 years ago.

Amos lives in the Lower Garden District just a couple of blocks from St. Charles Avenue. Some of the sights we saw that weekend are noted below.

Of course, one of the main attractions of New Orleans is the food, and we did our best to experience some of it. On Friday night we ate dinner at Cochon on Tchopitoulas Street. The place was packed, our wait was long, but well worth it. This "contemporary Cajun" restaurant is located in a renovated warehouse. 

Saturday breakfast came courtesy of the Trolley Stop on St. Charles Avenue not far from Amos' apartment. The meal involved another wait, but the big French Special breakfast was excellent. We had lunch in the Quarter at the French Market Restaurant; the seafood kept us fueled for the afternoon. Dinner that night found us again on St. Charles Avenue, this time at the upscale Lula Restaurant Distillery. They distill vodka, rum and gin and claim to be the only restaurant-distillery in the southeastern U.S. I had the rum lacquered shrimp. 

For brunch on Sunday morning we walked down Magazine Street to the DeVille Coffee House and Creperie. We all had the smoked salmon crepes, and it was superb. The coffee was good, too. Our final meal together took us once again to St Charles Avenue and the St. Charles Tavern Restaurant and Bar. This place is low key, and the boudin balls and seafood special were great!

We can pause here to mention one of the Alabama connections in this post; this one centers on Magazine Street. In 2004 a movie called A Love Song for Bobby Long came out, directed by Shainee Gabel and based on the novel Off Magazine Street by Ronald Everett Capps. In the film John Travolta plays Bobby Long, once an English professor at Auburn University who now lives in New Orleans with one of his former graduate students, Lawson Pines [Gabriel Macht] and their female companion, jazz singer Lorraine. She dies, and their house is inherited by her high-school dropout daughter, Pursy, played by Scarlett Johanssen. Most of the film follows Long and Pines as they help Pursy learn enough to graduate and bring her into their circle of strange but loving friends.

The film trots out some usual Southern stereotypes and accents, but is filled with compelling characters and humor. Travolta, Macht and Johanssen are all surprisingly good. And we get to see Travolta in an Auburn t-shirt and make a trip back to the campus at one point. Oh, and a lot of great authors make appearances throughout via Long and Pines' ongoing battle of the literary quotes. 

I've yet to read Capps' only novel, but have a copy and plan to do so. He married an Auburn student, they both taught school in Brewton and have lived in Fairhope for some years. Their son is singer-songwriter Grayson Capps. 

Some additional comments about our trip are below the photos.   

In 1981 engineers noted that Paris' iconic Eiffel Tower was sagging and the cause was a restaurant placed on top of it. The 1937 addition was dismantled and efforts made to place it elsewhere in Paris were unsuccessful. 

An opportunity to buy it fell into the lap of American John Onorio. The 11,000 pieces were shipped to New Orleans, reassembled and reopened as a restaurant in 1986. The venue, located on St. Charles Avenue just outside the Garden District, currently operates as the Eiffel Society.  

Just down St. Mary's Street from my son's apartment are two houses permanently decorated for Mardi Gras. You can see a bit of the purple one to the left.

Since Dianne had never been to New Orleans, we spent Saturday afternoon in the French Quarter. One of the funniest sights was this little guy collecting dollar bills from passersby. He was totally cool and calm and obviously an old hand at his routine. 

One of the places we visited in the Quarter to show Dianne was the Hotel Monteleone with its revolving Carousel Bar and displays of books by authors who have stayed there over the years. Of course the bar was packed so we moved on. 

I recently read Jeff Weddle's 2007 book Bohemian New Orleans, which covers the city's literary scene primarily from the 1950's into the 1970's. However, writers throughout New Orleans' history also make appearances. The above plaque is on the wall near where son Amos and I are standing in the photo below in Pirate's Alley. 

William Faulkner lived in New Orleans in the 1920's and wrote his first novel A Soldier's Story in this building. Faulkner Books, well worth a visit itself, is on the ground floor now. In the background you can see the round sign of the Pirate's Alley Cafe and Absinthe Bar which provided us with a table and a few beers for an hour's worth of people watching. Just across the alley, out of the photo, is St. Louis Cathedral, seen further below.

That day in the French Quarter and Jackson Square was a beautiful Saturday with a mild temperature and bustling with tourists but not overcrowded. The street artists, poets and entertainers were out in full force, and we also got to see a couple of wedding parades. 

St. Louis Cathedral towers over Jackson Square in the French Quarter. The first church was constructed on the site in 1718 and raised to cathedral rank in 1793. The cathedral as seen here is the third church on the site and is the oldest Catholic cathedral in the United States. 

Amos has taken one of the cruises on this beauty and said it was well worth it.

Here's Amos on Sunday morning in the DeVille Coffee House and Creperie where we had those delicious smoked salmon crepes. And good coffee!

Dianne and Amos found a big tree root growing over the sidewalk near his apartment. The view below is looking down his street.

Classic street cars still rumble in New Orleans, and on Saturday we rode the Historic St. Charles Avenue Line into the French Quarter. The line has operated since 1893. The current cars were built in the early 1920's and refurbished between 1988 and 1994. In 1973 the line was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. That day it was a warm and crowded but fun ride!

Amos is an urban planner, and  he works for the city in this building.

Very close to where Amos works is the Eagle Saloon, currently empty. Efforts have been going on for some time to redevelop the historic property built in 1851. The saloon was once in the bustling African-American business district of the city, and was a frequent stop of early ragtime and jazz greats such as Buddy Bolden, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver and many others.  

Now we come to another Alabama portion of our story. Amos has these items above the door into his kitchen. 

On a wall in his kitchen a framed copy of this Sun Ra album is displayed. He was a jazz composer, musician and bandleader born in Birmingham. 

We did spot this product on the shelves at a local Wal-Mart; does that count?

Updating Pelham's Historical Marker

In conjunction with Alabama Bicentennial activities, new historical markers are going up all over the state. One was recently placed in Pelham in front of the City Hall building on U.S. 31. 

The new marker actually replaced an older one, which can also be seen below. I've written a blog post about the older marker. 

Over the life of this blog I've written a number of posts about Pelham; you can find a list here.

A few further comments are below. 

The name was changed from Shelbyville to Pelham sometime after the Civil War ended, although exactly when and by whom are not known. John Pelham was born in Jacksonville, Alabama, and is buried there. 

However, the name Pelham appears on an 1876 map of the state and in an 1880 city of Birmingham directory.

Current state highway maps distributed at welcome centers and rest stops along the Interstates include a community named Pelham in the northeastern corner of Choctaw County. I have been unable so far to locate any information about this place. Google Earth doesn't show much there but houses, trees and roads; perhaps I'll drive down one day and check it out.

Here's the original marker, which had the same text on both sides. The date of installation in the lower right is hard to read but appears to be 1976. 

Vestavia's Little Red Barn

One of our longtime friends is Druscilla Defalque, a fiber and mixed-media artist who lives in Hoover. She is a member of the Artists Incorporated Gallery on Morgan Road in Vestavia, just across from the Western Supermarket off Rocky Ridge Road. Each year she is one of the featured artists for a month, and I recently attended the opening reception for her month. The gallery is located in an interesting building, which is fodder for this blog post.

The place is known as the "little red barn" in keeping with its history. The area was once the Joe Beardon dairy farm; the barn was built in 1926. Once the structure ended its original use, various other businesses have operated there over the years, including the Jackie O'Neal School of Dance. The gallery opened in 1999, and features striking art in various media by a number of local artists.

I think I've read somewhere that the "barn" is the oldest remaining commercial structure in Vestavia. You can see a much older photograph on page 44 of Rebecca Walden''s 2014 book, Vestavia Hills. 

The gallery has recently opened a second location in the Shops at Grand River in Leeds. That location is not yet historic. 



UPDATE 9 February 2019

The Artists Incorporated gallery in the Little Red Barn has closed; the gallery is now located only in suite 114 of the Shops at Grand River. Good luck to them there!

Source: Artists Incorporated

A Sad Memorial at the Birmingham Airport

I've written several posts on this blog that might be classified under a "history in unexpected places" category---things like markers or plaques in very public places that most people pass by without noticing. One such post discussed the Hillman Hospital Annex cornerstone and another a plaque inside UAB's Jefferson Tower. I've also written one about a memorial plaque for Dr. Bernie Moore, an important figure in the founding of Crestwood Hospital in Huntsville.

I remember another such encounter vividly that took place a few years ago on our trip to Boston to visit son Amos. We stayed at a b&b in Cambridge, not far from his apartment, and each day he would meet us, and we walked several blocks to the nearest subway stop to begin our adventures. On our final day I noticed we had been walking right by a marker commemorating Watson's Corner, the site of an April 19, 1775, skirmish connected with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Who knows how many people walk past the marker and never see it, much less stop and read it. The Boston area is crowded with history, even along the sidewalks.

In the Birmingham airport recently I noticed just such an item on the ticketing and departure level---the plaque below, which is located on one end of that floor. This memorial acknowledges the death at that spot of Luke Bresette. The ten year-old, his two siblings and parents were passing through Birmingham on their way home to Kansas on March 22, 2013. After an extensive renovation the terminal had reopened only nine days earlier. The family happened to be in front of a free-standing arrival and departure board when the structure fell over. The father was uninjured, but Heather Bresette and her children were pinned under the sign that weighed several hundred pounds. 

The mother was taken to UAB Hospital and the youngsters to Children's. All survived except Luke, who died later that day. You can read about the incident in more detail and its aftermath here and here. You can see a photo of the cabinet that fell over taken the day the terminal reopened on the BhamWiki site. The plaque below is located on that portion of the wall behind it. 

Selma's Concordia College Closes

On April 28 Selma's Concordia College held its final graduation in the school's gymnasium. About 150 students received degrees in the 92nd graduation ceremony. Concordia had 445 students registered in the fall 2017 semester.

School funding had been in crisis for some years, and enrollment was falling. In February 2018 the decision to close was announced. The Selma campus was the only historically-black one in the Concordia University System of ten schools operated around the U.S. by the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. 

The school opened in 1922 as both a high school and college to train church workers. The college closed during the Depression. Eventually the college reopened, and the institution became known as the Alabama Lutheran College and Academy. The name was changed in 1981. In 1997 two 1928 buildings, Bakke Hall and the Dormitory, were listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage. In 2010 the campus had expanded from 22 to 57 acres. 

The school competed in several men's and women's sports, and fielded a football team from 2005 until 2015 when costs became prohibitive.

Alabama has 14 other historically-black universities, four-year colleges and community colleges currently operating. Daniel Payne College, opened in Birmingham in 1880, previously closed in 1977.