Alabama History & Culture News: February 10 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

“A discussion of slavery in Alabama,” An APR news special for Black History Month-- Part one Alabama Public Radio The Alabama Public Radio news team was recently invited to take part in a ... “So I was taking a class in African and African American history, ...

Alabama Radio Moments: The Birmingham Black Radio Museum - YouTube YouTube Each month through the run of the exhibit, speakers will explore the history and influence of radio in Alabama. The Alabama Radio Moments lecture ...

Preserving Alabama's History | Black Belt News | selmasun.com Selma Sun Alabama recently watched as devastating tornadoes pummeled our state yet again, claiming lives and destroying homes, churches, and businesses.

Historic building destroyed by fire in Mentone | News | waaytv.com WAAY-TV The Hitching Post, a historic century-old building in Downtown Mentone was destroyed by a fire Thursday night. DeKalb County Fire & Rescue along ...

Historical TAB issues now available to view online | The Alabama Baptist The Alabama Baptist Working together. Taylor worked with Lonette Berg of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission and TAB's Jennifer Davis Rash to determine the scope of ...

Why Historic Bethel Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, Needs Saving Now - Veranda Veranda Why Historic Bethel Baptist Church Needs Saving Now. This Birmingham, Alabama, church is the birthplace of the modern civil rights movement—and ...

Alabama's Hidden History: February 2023 honorees - WVUA 23 WVUA 23 Alabama's Hidden History: February 2023 honorees ... WVUA 23 and the Murphy African American Museum are honoring Alabamians who have made a difference ...

Bellevue bandit Rube Burrow's story almost lost to history - Times Record News Times Record News The train crew dumped Rube at his father's feet. His small gravestone at a tiny and remote Alabama cemetery has been chipped away by souvenir seekers ...

JSU to dedicate historical marker honoring first Black student, Barbara Curry-Story Alabama News Center (Nik Layman / Alabama Power's Powergrams). Jacksonville State University (JSU) kicks off Black History Month on Feb. 1 by unveiling a historical ...

Jackson, Mitchell recall making history at Alabama - Southeastern Conference Southeastern Conference Jackson, Mitchell recall making history at Alabama. Wilbur Jackson and teammate John Mitchell join The Paul Finebaum Show and reflect on being the ...

Bad Day on the Bayou by Mark Johnson | Alabama Public Radio Alabama Public Radio It's time for another book review by Don Noble. This week, Don Reviews "Bad Day on the Bayou" by Mark Johnson.

'Nightmare on the Scottie' makes bestsellers list - WSU Insider WSU Insider - Washington State University The book tells the true story of Orsini and his friend Jack's venture from Mobile, Alabama, to the Pacific Northwest aboard a new king crabber in ...

Daughter of legendary Birmingham attorney recalls her upbringing on 'Dynamite Hill' Alabama News Center Marjorie White of the Birmingham Historical Society and Barbara Shores worked together on a new book about Birmingham's "Dynamite Hill.

UAB Paintings at the Hilton Hotel

Recently I happened to visit the Hilton Hotel just off the UAB campus below Five Points. In the lobby are the two paintings below which depict fanciful views of iconic UAB buildings and scenes. 

I found it appropriate that in one painting a crane towers over the landscape. When I began working at UAB in 1983, I remarked to someone that a lot of construction was taking place on campus. He said to get used to it, it never stops. And the building continued until I retired in 2015 and based on my regular visits to campus since construction goes on unabated.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find information on the artist. If you can provide any, leave it in the comments! 

Source: Hilton Hotel website

Alabama History & Culture News: January 30 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Dr. Wayne Flynt talks Harper Lee during library speaker's series - Valley Times-News Valley Times-News Monroeville, Alabama was the place she was born, grew up and died. ... the place where she became famous for her bestselling book and where she ...

Central Baptist in Phenix City celebrates 100th anniversary - The Alabama Baptist The Alabama Baptist Calvin Milford of the Alabama Baptist Historical Commission presented a certificate, and Mayor Eddie Lowe presented a proclamation. “We're excited to ...

Sequoyah's words, and a very rare snail, live harmoniously in an Alabama cave | Culture Cherokee Phoenix Caves are, by nature, mysterious subterranean portals to another world. Manitou Cave – a historical gem, a cultural phenom, a conservational ...

Alabama officials: New I-10 project means less toll avoidance through historic Africatown AL.com A Welcome Center, across from the Old Plateau Cemetery – where many of the survivors of the Clotilda, and their descendants are buried – is also ...

NewSouth Books: Prattville to Honor Randall Williams and Suzanne La Rosa at Dinner March 4 Elmore-Autauga News Suzanne, NewSouth's publisher, relocated to Alabama in 1997 from New York. Suzanne's early career included editorial positions at Good ...

Alabama State comic book artist doing “super” things - WSFA WSFA Alabama State comic book artist doing “super” things. Alabama State University sophomore Ronald Martin taking his passion for art to a superhero.

12 Quirky Facts About Alabama That Sound Made Up, But Are 100% Accurate Only In Your State 6. Cherokee, Alabama is home to the Coon Dog Cemetery, which was established in 1937. There's no other cemetery in the world like it.

Selma Cemetery Department gives update on repairing tornado-damaged cemeteries Selma Sun Cemetery Director Reginald Wells has released an update on the Old and New Live Oak cemeteries after they were damaged in the Jan. 12 tornado.

'Huey' helicopter to soar above Alabama veterans park as permanent display Stars and Stripes Cullman's Veterans Memorial Park will soon be home to the first new piece of full-scale military memorabilia it has added in nearly a decade: A ...

'My Selma' tells kids what it was like to grow up Black in 1960's South | Here & Now - WBUR WBUR Willie Mae Brown at a book launch event for "My Selma." (Luana Maria Şeu). When Selma, Alabama, was recently torn apart by that tornado, it was ...

Hazel Green girls on brink of AHSAA history after 85th straight victory - AL.com AL.com The Hazel Green girls' basketball team is one victory away from Alabama High School Athletic Association history after beating Bob Jones 48-36 at ...

The Way It Was: Skipper's New Book Tells Story of Integration of Alabama's Football Team Over the Mountain Journal The next season, Jackson and Mitchell, a defensive end and junior college transfer, became the first black players in Alabama football history and ...

13 artists who came to Alabama to record at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio - CBS 42 CBS 42 News 19 has compiled a list of several artists who spent time spinning some tracks and making history in Sheffield. R.B. Greaves, “Take a Letter Maria ...

How a group of Cuban immigrants took over a prison in Alabama : White Lies - NPR

NPR

A photograph from 1991 of a prison takeover in rural Alabama. ... News/Donated by Alabama Media Group /Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Damage assessments ongoing in Selma's historic district - WSFA WSFA Selma has the largest contiguous historic district on the national register in the state of Alabama. You can visit historicselma.org to donate.

Fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refuses to give up her seat on a segregated bus

history.com

... before the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, ... https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/claudette-colvin-refuses-to ...

Living history crew drill at Battleship Memorial Park brings history to life - WPMI WPMI Interact with historical WWII re-enactors aboard the USS ALABAMA and the USS DRUM. These historical re-enactors, dressed in WWII period Navy ...

Black History Month: The History Lowry House | | waaytv.com WAAY-TV Huntsville Historian and Storyteller, Bobby Hayden and Jane Tippett sat down with Anchor Nakell Williams to tell the story of the Historic Lowry House ...

Report: 11 Alabama institutions hold Native American remains - Montgomery Advertiser Montgomery Advertiser The Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday July. "Repatriation of Native American Ancestors, their burial ...

Last Streetcar Run in Gadsden in 1934

Once upon a time many cities of any size ran a form of transportation called street cars, also known as trolleys or as trams in Europe. You may have heard of them. Once ubiquitous, street cars have largely disappeared from North America. Toronto still operates its extensive line, and a few other cities operate smaller ones or lines meant largely for tourists. The only one I've ever ridden is the St. Charles Streetcar Line in New Orleans, which opened in 1835 and is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world. 

I was roaming through Samford University's digital collections recently and came across the photograph below documenting the last streetcar run in Gadsden. A little more research turned up two newspaper articles giving some details here and here and written by local historians Danny Crownover and Mike Goodson. 

Crownover's piece notes that electric streetcars had begun in the Gadsden area in the 1890s; in an earlier article he traced the history of horse-drawn and steam locomotive lines. The photograph below was taken on the final run along the Cansler Avenue line from the Republic Steel plant, stopping at Fourth and Broad Streets. The date was January 23, 1934; the article includes the names of the last crew and passengers.

That same car had made the final streetcar runs earlier on lines in Tuscumbia, Florence and Sheffield. The next morning, Crescent Motors, Inc., began operating five buses in the Gadsden and Atalla area. 

Source: Samford University Library, Special Collection

Alabama History & Culture News: January 22 edition

 

Here's the latest batch of links to just-published Alabama history and culture articles. Most of these items are from newspapers, with others from magazines and TV and radio station websites. Some articles may be behind a paywall. Enjoy!

Saturn 1B, a landmark welcoming all to Alabama, will soon be history - WZDX WZDX The iconic Saturn 1B rocket, which has stood over the Alabama Welcome Center in ... Soon, it will come down, and pass into Alabama history.

Alabama's Hank Williams trail stops at singer's greatest hits - St. Louis Post-Dispatch St. Louis Post-Dispatch (According to Tee Tot's gravestone, in Lincoln Cemetery in Montgomery, Lillie “fed him in exchange for guitar lessons” for her son.).

Alabama Historical Association to Hold 75th Annual Meeting in Prattville, April 13-15 Elmore-Autauga News FROM THE ALABAMA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION The Alabama Historical Association will hold its 75th Annual Meeting in Prattville on April 13-15, ...

Actress Octavia Spencer says LA is more racist than her Alabama hometown - KATV KATV Maron then drilled in further on the racist history of Alabama, citing a history of racial events that have taken place there in the past.

Archeological dig on Redstone Arsenal unearths history - WHNT.com WHNT.com Isham J. Fennell was one of the wealthiest planters in Madison County. He owned thousands of acres throughout Alabama, and bought the plantation in ...

Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church one of 34 historic Black churches receiving ... CBS 42 Administrators of a trust fund established to preserve historic Black ... includes 16th Street Baptist Church Inc. in Birmingham, Alabama, ...

Alston Fitts III - The Selma Times‑Journal The Selma Times‑Journal He received a B.A. in English literature at the University of Alabama, ... His years of Saturdays poring over microfiche, letters and cemetery ...

Spirit of Alabama: Historian helps families find long-buried details - WVUA 23 WVUA 23 When you walk through any of the four cemeteries in which Bryce Hospital once buried its dead, you won't see many graves.

Alabama Has Connections to Most Iconic Moments in NFL Playoffs - Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated Former Crimson Tide players are remembered for their time at Alabama, but a few had some big ... if not the best, playoff moment in NFL history.

'Building Birmingham: The Sloss Story' to premiere on Alabama Public Television

Alabama NewsCenter

James Withers Sloss helped move the railroad to a fledgling Alabama ... Setting the stage: what made 1963 a pivotal year in Birmingham's history.

From mystic societies to costume trains, here's a look at Mardi Gras in Mobile, Alabama WWNO Mobile, Alabama has long claimed to be the site of the first American Mardi Gras, but what's the story behind this historic carnival – and what ...

Plans Created for Historic Giddens Cemetery | Alabama River Heritage Spot On Alabama COM OPELIKA - Following a string of disputes and resolutions last year, the George and Addie Giddens Cemetery now has plans to be preserved and ...

Biggest snowfalls recorded in Alabama history | State | selmasun.com Selma Sun Stacker compiled a list of the biggest 1-day snowfalls in Alabama using data from the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Famed Tuskegee Airman Harold Brown 'takes final flight' - The Beacon | Port Clinton The Beacon | Port Clinton Young Harold Brown graduated from the segregated pilot training program at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama in 1944 and was commissioned an officer ...

"No Stone Unturned: Preserving Slave Cemeteries in Alabama." An APR news series Alabama Public Radio Len Strozier, of Omega Mapping Services, scans the Old Prewett Slave Cemetery in Northport, Alabama. Part 1 — "The 40 unmarked graves"

Two Alabama Doctors in Trouble

In one of my recent wanderings through the Internet Archive Scholar database, I happened to come across the two notices below about a pair of Alabama physicians. Let's investigate. 

The 1913 item describes the shooting death of Dr. Frank Walton on August 18 at the hands of Gid Weaver, an electrician working for the Woodward Iron Company. "Domestic trouble is said to be the cause" of the killing, which took place in Weaver's home in Mulga in front of his wife. I've written about a similar case in Birmingham in 1901 in which a doctor named John Payne was murdered by James Cook, presumably a jealous husband. 

Walton was a 38 year old Virginia native who worked as a mining company physician, possibly also for Woodward, a huge supplier of pig iron from 1881 until 1971. In 1899 he graduated from Vanderbilt Medical School in Nashville and was licensed by the Alabama state medical board. At the time of his death he was a member of the American Medical Association. 

As the two brief newspaper articles note, Weaver was arrested, made bond, and in October was indicted for second degree murder. I did not find the results of a presumed trial. Weaver lived until 1943 and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. I was unable to find more information on Walton.

See below for something about the second physician, Dr. G.R. Norman.

,

Source: Southern Medical Journal 1913, vol. 6, no. 10, page 701

Birmingham Age-Herald 24 August 1913

Source: Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Source: Birmingham Age-Herald 10 October 1913

Library of Congress, Chronicling America

According to the Alabama Deaths and Burials Index, 1881-1974 via Ancestry.com, Weaver was a grocer living in Homewood at the time of his death. His wife's name was Iva. 

Source: Find-A-Grave 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

This second note concerns Dr. G.R. Norman and his accomplice Kelly Adams, once a janitor at the State Capitol. The pair was accused in 1915 of stealing medical examination papers from the office of the State Health Officer, Dr. W.H. Sanders, in Montgomery and selling them to medical students to substitute during the annual examinations. 

A sting operation conducted by Dr. W. A. Avery, working for Sanders, paid Adams $25 to substitute correct exams for the originals. Adams originally wanted $100, but Avery talked the price down. Norman and Kelly had apparently worked a widespread fraud scheme at recent exam sessions.

As the first Age-Herald article below notes, nine "prominent" doctors from Birmingham and Montgomery were called by the prosecution to testify. These included William H. Sanders, prominent in medical education and public health in the state at this time. Two other physicians working in the state health department were also included. 

Norman and Adams were both found guilty. Norman was sentenced to six years imprisonment and Adams two. According to Alabama convict records, Norman's sentence took place June 8, 1915 & he was paroled April 23, 1918. He also received 30 and 60 day paroles in 1916 and 1917. I did not find Adams in those records. Sentences would have been to the Wetumpka State Penitentiary, which served the state until the original Kilby Prison opened in 1923

According to his Find-A-Grave listing, George R. Norman was born in Alabama on January 10, 1886. He attended Birmingham Medical College and graduated in 1911. His class photo can be seen here. Norman took the medical certification exam in Montgomery and passed. The Transactions of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama [p. 582], has him listed in 1913 as practicing in Arley, Winston County. That volume also notes he had moved that year to Jefferson County. 

I found George R. Norman in the U.S. Census for 1920 and Norman, his wife Helen and their two children in the 1930, and 1940 listings. In that first one Norman was living on Blackwells Island in Manhattan; the city hospital was located there and perhaps that was his place of work. The census notes that both his father and mother were born in Alabama. Norman was apparently living in a boarding house; the household had nine people of different last names. 

By 1930 his circumstances had changed. He was married to Helen, more than a decade younger, and they lived in a house they owned at 2529 Admiral Place in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Norman worked as a "material" doctor in private practice. Others in the household were children George R. Jr. and Charles A. Norman. A niece, Docia Stricklin, also lived with them. By the 1940 census Helen was listed as a registered nurse. 

The Normans remained in Tulsa, and he died on January 21, 1942, at the age of 56. He is buried in Rose Hill Memorial Park in Tulsa; his gravestone can be seen below. Helen died in 1963 and is also buried there, as is Charles who died in 2017 at age 83. I did not investigate George R. Jr. 

Other than the gravestone seen below, I have found nothing else on Kelly Adams. 

Source: Southern Medical Journal 1915, vol. 8, no. 4, page 337

Birmingham Age-Herald 4 March 1915

Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Columbia (Tenn.) Herald 12 March 1915

Source: Library of Congress, Chronicling America

Alabama Convict Records 1886-1952 via Ancestry.com

That symbol is a Masonic one. His wife Helen's marker shows the symbol of the Order of the Eastern Star, a Masonic group open to both men and women. 

Source: Find-A-Grave

This marker may be that of Kelly Adams and his wife. The stone is located in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery.

Source: Find-A-Grave