Friday, June 2, 2017

Alabama Highway Map Cover from 1973

I've done a lot of map posts on this blog, and there's a reason for that--I love maps! Back in March I did a couple of posts on "Some Alabama Highway Map Covers" using mostly official maps from the state highway department in my collection. Those are the free maps you can pick up at state welcome centers and rest stops. 

The oldest one in my collection was an example from 1976. Recently I explored a consignment shop here in Pelham and came across this one from 1973. I thought I'd post it here.

The map has a theme of "Alabama Has It All", something Governor George Wallace explains in his message on the back cover. There's also a quaint template for a stamp and address; I guess the highway and tourist departments would mail them on request and not have to use an envelope.

I wonder when the earliest of these maps was issued. If you know, leave that information in the comments!

This map was modestly priced, but I didn't buy it. Can't collect everything, you know. 









Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Yes, There's a Booth for That Art

For more than 50 years my mother, Carolyn Shores Wright, has been painting, mostly in watercolor. Her subjects have ranged from many types of birds including hummingbirds to landscapes, flowers, and still lifes. She's also had a long-running series "Bird Life" featuring birds in humorous--and human--situations. You can see many examples on Pinterest. You can follow her on Twitter too: @CShoresInc 

Mom's had success selling both originals and licensing rights, so her art appears on many things from prints to greeting cards, coasters, pillows, sun catchers, Franklin Mint plates, bookmarks, and mugs and much else. As I noted in a recent post, we found one of her licensed pieces in a shop in Manitou Springs, Colorado. In 1994 we took the kids to Disney World. The first shop we entered at Disney Marketplace had several prints of mom's art hanging on the walls. These encounters have been frequent over the years.

A few years ago we opened a shop for mom's work on ArtFire, and subsequently on Etsy, two online sites for the sale of arts and crafts. Dianne also sells her original jewelry on the ArtFire site. 

Recently we've opened two physical locations in Pelham, Alabama, at Encore Resales and Vintage Interiors. These are reminiscent of the booths mom operated at art shows for many years across the Southeast. However, these booths last longer than just a weekend!

The booths feature prints and other licensed items with mom's work and Dianne's jewelry. Just recently we've added some work by my nephew Ashley Wright, a Birmingham attorney. 

More comments are below the photos.


NOTE 19 August 2021

The Vintage Interiors booth is no longer operating. 




Here's the booth as it currently looks at Encore. 



Those two oyster prints are Ashley's. 




Here's the booth at Vintage which gives us lots of room for hanging items. We also have space for some non-art items and furniture.



Ashley's oysters are also available here, both framed and unframed. 



For years mom did the painting and matting, and dad made the frames. 






And here's mom at an art show booth in Huntsville in November 1991. For some years she did a weekend show in late January at Brookwood Village mall in the Birmingham area, and I remember taking the kids to see her on Friday night or Saturday. 

Friday, May 26, 2017

Alabama Author: Garrard Harris


Garrard Harris is one of many now forgotten authors who were not state natives but have some other connection to Alabama. Let's investigate.

He was born close to us, in Columbus, Georgia, on May 14, 1875, the son of James and Gertrude Harris. He attended the University of Georgia and North Georgia Agricultural College before earning a law degree from Millsap College, located in Jackson, Mississippi, and founded by Methodists in 1890. He remained in the state capital practicing law for about a decade before embarking on a career of government service. While in Jackson he married Mary Lou Sykes in November, 1906.


Harris was a special agent with the U.S. Department of Commerce to Latin America from 1914 until 1917; a specialist and editor at the Federal Board of Vocational Education in Washington, 1918-1919; and finally a commissioner at the U.S. Department of Commerce during 1919 and 1920. Several of his publications reflect his government work: Central America as an Export Field [1915], Redemption of the Disabled [1919] and Elements of Conservation [1924].


Harris had an interest in writing fiction which began at an early age. As the list below indicates, he published a short piece in the magazine Short Stories in November 1893. He continued publishing short stories until his death.

He also wrote three novels during his years with the federal government: Joe the Book Farmer [1914], Trail of the Pearl [1917], and Treasure of the Land [1917]. All three were published by Harper and Brothers, an American publisher founded in 1817 and adopting that name from 1833 until 1962. The global firm is known as HarperCollins today.

Joe the Book Farmer and Treasure of the Land depict the programs developed by state and local governments to bring modern farming methods to rural America. The optimistic young people who are attracted to these efforts reflect the beliefs of the author and many others in government trying to address rural poverty. Trail of the Pearl follows young orphan Buckner Allen as he tries to educated himself and escape the poverty and moonshine culture of the mountain people around him.

 After those years in government, Harris and Mary settled in Birmingham, where he worked for the Birmingham News from 1920 until his death in March 1927. Mary apparently never remarried and was living with her mother in Ashville, North Carolina, at the time of her death in 1944. She is buried alongside Garrard in Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham. The couple had four children, Louise, Frank, Frances and Garrard II, who died in 1979


Further comments follow some of the items below.








This novel was serialized in four issues of American Boy in 1911. Joe Weston is the son of a sharecropper. Joe, his father and the landowner Mr. Somerville enter into an agreement that allows Joe and the landowner to work four of his father's acres for a year according to the progressive methods taught in books about modern farming and lectures by men from the state and federal governments. Joe's father Tom is dismissive of such ideas, but gives permission since Mr. Somerville has offered to erase his $160 debt.  

Source: Internet Archive



Source: Google Books





Source: Google Books












This digitized The Treasure of the Land originated with a print copy at the University of Illinois library. At the time of digitization, the book had only been checked out once--over ten years after Harris' death.








Harris is buried in Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery, along with his wife Mary.

Source: Find-A-Grave



Source: Find-A-Grave


Fictionmags Index for Garrard Harris as of April 2017. There may be other published stories not yet indexed in the FMI.



Friday, May 19, 2017

Where is Arkadelphia & What Does It Mean?

Last year brother Richard and I made one of our trips exploring Alabama and family history that took us through Bessemer, Jasper, Bug Tussle, Colony, and Hartselle. We also went through Arkadelphia, which is about halfway between Bug Tussle and Colony on Alabama Highway 91. I failed to take any photos there, but recently returned and did so. This post is the result. 

Virginia Foscue's Place Names in Alabama notes that a post office was established in Arkadelphia in 1854. She also discusses the origin of the name. "One proposed explanation is that the name was that of the wife of John A. Donaldson, the first postmaster. However, it may be a combination of Ark, the name of an early nearby settlement and PO in Winston Co., and -adelphia, a pseudo-Greek combination meaning 'brother-place,' probably taken from Philadelphia."

There is a much larger Arkadelphia, the seat of Clark County, in Arkansas. According to the U.S. Geological Survey's Geographic Names Information System, only two towns in the U.S. have that name. Also according to the GNIS, the Alabama town once had an elementary school, and Cullman County also has an Arkadelphia Mine and Arkadelphia Mountain. 

Because of shifting boundaries, Arkadelphia has been located in three Alabama counties: Walker beginning in 1820, Blount in 1850 and finally Cullman in 1901. The community was a stagecoach stop on the Huntsville to Tuscaloosa road and once included a tavern and blacksmith shop. The post office closed in December 1968. 

Arkadelphia's first school was built before 1900, and several different buildings housed the facility over the years. In 1962 the school was consolidated with one in Hanceville. In 1921-22 the town had a four-teacher school with 117 students in grades 1-7 and 20 in grades 8-12. By 1959 that elementary school had 59 students and three teachers. 

Arkadelphia is not listed in the 2000 or 2010 U.S. Census cities and towns in Alabama. The Wikipedia article linked above gives an 1880 U.S. Census population of 195. In 1950 the Cullman County voting precinct 7, Arkadelphia, had 944 people, according to the Alabama Almanac and Book of Facts 1955-1956. 

Unless otherwise noted, much of this information came from Margaret Jean Jones' 1972 book, Combing Cullman County. On page 106 she has a photograph of a house built by Jeff Calloway in Arkadelphia in 1820. She also describes a 12-room house built in 1884 by Dr. Charles Drennen that included a clinic and hospital. Those facilities closed soon after 1900 and the house eventually became an apartment building. At the time Jones wrote, the house was still standing in Arkadelphia. 

Various comments are below the photos. All photos are mine unless otherwise noted. 



Many times I've passed this exit on I-20/59 in Birmingham and wondered where or what is Arkadelphia?

Source: AA Roads




There is another United Methodist Church on Arkadelphia Road near Birmingham Southern College. This church also serves the community of Bremen. Both churches are in the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church.



A Methodist church was first organized in the community in 1867.



Here's a view of Highway 91 toward the Arkadelphia cemetery. 



I think Swann's operated until fairly recently; the store below is a reminder of much older days in the community. 



In her book Jones notes, "The local trade area now has only two general stores..." Even that has changed since she wrote it in 1972.



The community center applied to the state as a non-profit entity in September 1991. 



For some strange reason, although I stopped right in front of it, I did not photograph the church itself!



The cemetery is large, well maintained and still active. According to an inventory available here, graves date to the early 1800's.







This 1902 "Official Map of Cullman County, Alabama" shows Arkadelphia in the extreme southern portion of the county. The community remains on official state highway maps, such as these recent ones below.





Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Singer Marilyn McCoo's Alabama Connections

Marilyn McCoo has been a very successful singer and actress since the 1960's. She was born in New Jersey to Waymon and Mary McCoo, both physicians who graduated from Meharry Medical College in Nashville in 1938. By the mid-1950's the family had moved to Los Angeles, and McCoo began modelling before graduating from high school. 

She apparently inherited her father's singing talents; before medical school he had toured the country with the Jones Boys trio and Fletcher Henderson's orchestra. In the first half of the 1960's Marilyn toured with the Hi-Fis, a group that often opened concerts for Ray Charles. In 1966 she met future husband and founder of the 5th Dimension, Billy Davis, Jr. The group, with McCoo singing lead, had tremendous success including several massive hits such as "Up, Up, and Away," "Stoned Soul Picnic" and "Wedding Bell Blues."

Married in 1969, McCoo and Davis left the group in 1975 and found success as a duo. On her own McCoo hosted the Solid Gold television music series through much of the 1980's and toured nightclub and concert venues. McCoo and Davis continue to perform and wrote about their lives in the 2004 book Up, Up and Away. 

So, just what are McCoo's Alabama connections? 

To begin with, her father Waymon was born in Eufaula on May 9, 1909. After earning a bachelor's degree from Talladega College, he left for New York City to pursue that singing career noted above. He then had a long and prominent medical career in Los Angeles before his death in 2003. The Eufaula paper noted his death at age 94: “Dr. McCoo, 94, dies in L.A. ; Eufaula native and father of superstar Marilyn McCoo, Dr. Waymon McCoo, died Friday in Los Angeles . He was 94.” [Eufaula Tribune 20 October 2003].

Another of her state connections is her grandparents, Thomas and Gertrude McCoo. Born in 1883, Thomas graduated from Selma University and then Leonard Medical School at Shaw University in Raleigh, N.C., in 1906. He was certified to practice medicine in Alabama by the Barbour County medical board in 1907. Thomas married Gertrude Coffee, daughter of a Methodist minister, in 1908. Thomas spent most of his medical career in Eufaula. 

 “Not only was Dr. McCoo a competent physician who rendered invaluable service to the suffering, but equally as important he was a dedicated civic and religious leader for many years…Eufaulians of both races have lost a friend,” wrote editor Joel Smith in the Eufaula Tribune after Thomas McCoo’s death in 1967. "’Eufaulians of both races’ loved Dr. McCoo. Throughout his life, Dr. T.V. McCoo was a friend to both white and black Eufaulians—often at times when that was difficult to do.” 

Before integration, a high school for blacks, T.V. McCoo High School, now a municipal center, was named after him. His portrait hangs in the McCoo Branch of the Carnegie Library in Chattahoochee Courts in Eufaula. Son Waymon returned to Eufaula in 1988 for the dedication of this portrait. Dr. T.V. McCoo Boulevard in the town is also named after him. 

For more information, see an article by Patrick Johnston, "Eufaulians of both races' loved Dr. McCoo." Eufaula Tribune, February 7, 2002. This article cites a book, Robert Flewellen, Along Broad Street: A History of Eufaula, Alabama, 1823-1984 published in 1991.



Marilyn McCoo



McCoo's father and grandparents are buried in Haven of Rest Cemetery in Barbour County. 

Source: Find-A-Grave





T.V. McCoo [1883-1967]

(SOURCE: Eufaula Tribune 7 Feb 2002)





Tuesday, May 9, 2017

The Alabama Apartments in NYC in 1909

Here's another one of those "I was looking for something else and found this" posts.


In 1908 the G.C. Hesselgren Publishing Company of New York published Apartment Houses of the Metropolis; the following year it issued a Supplement. In that supplement is a photo of "The Alabama", an apartment building at the northeast corner of Riverside Drive and 127th Street. That location is in Harlem, a large neighborhood in northern Manhattan. The area's history dates back to the Dutch in the 17th century. 

Also below are a photograph of the complex from 1910 and a contemporary view. I have no idea why the building was called "The Alabama".

Under the supplement photograph we read:

"Built by the Riverside Viaduct Realty Company 1908-09

"George F. Pelham, Architect

"Apartments in suites of 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 rooms and servants' toilets and baths for six and seven room suites."

I have been unable so far to find anything about the realty company other than a few newspaper mentions related to other buildings. Pelham was a prominent New York architect who designed many city buildings in his long career. He apparently has no state connection, since he was born in Canada. 

The complex seems to have been pretty upscale!



Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections








550 Riverside Drive at the corner of 127th Street. The Alabama Apartment House.

Taken by the Wurts brothers, ca. 1910




Here's the Google Street View of the building today.