Something about Fairhope & Fort Morgan ca. 1950

The items in this post are taken from a scrapbook at mom's and probably come from the honeymoon they took after their wedding in Haleyville on September 10, 1950. Both were students at Auburn and would not have had either time or money for an extensive trip. Apparently they did make it to the Fairhope and Fort Morgan areas of Alabama. 

In that period Gulf Shores and Orange Beach were not much of a thing in tourism. Until completion of the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway in 1937,  Gulf Shores was largely inaccessible beach and wetlands. A poor road led to the first beach hotel,, opened in the early 1940's and the first post office in 1947. The town was incorporated in 1958. Orange Beach had a similar development. The first hotel appeared in 1923, a paved road came in 1947, electricity the following year and telephone service in 1958. Some vacation cottages were also built in both towns.

Gulf State Park opened in 1939 and by this time organized tourism efforts began to appear in printed pamphlets and Mobile newspaper articles. World War II brought civilian workers and military personnel to the coast from Mobile to Panama City. After the war the tourist trade picked up and continues today. An excellent history of this area is Harvey Jackson's 2012 book, The Rise and Decline of the Redneck Riviera: An Insider's History of the Florida-Alabama Coast. 

Mom and dad apparently chose a more developed place, Fairhope. I would imagine dad's interest in history led them to Fort Morgan. By that time the Dixie Graves Parkway had been built out to Fort Morgan, so roads were pretty good to both places.

I have so far been unable to find any information on the businesses noted below where mom and dad must have eaten and stayed. More information on two individuals named here is at the end of the post. 

If you have information about these places, leave a note in the comments. 

I wonder what's on this spot today. I can find the intersection of South Church Street and Fairhope Avenue on Google Maps or Earth, but with no address I don't know which of the four corners was the one. 

A Robert K. Summersell turns up in Mobile in the 1930 U.S. Census working as a punchman; in the 1940 census he was a salesman. His Find-A-Grave entry is here.

Ras Crenshaw in the 1938 Murphy High School yearbook

Source: Ancestry.com 

According to his Society Security record, Captain Ras Crenshaw was Erastus Sylvester Crenshaw, Jr., born on October 11, 1920, in Bayou La Batre. He died on August 30, 1993.

From a "Welcome to Gulf Shores, Alabama" postcard packet ca. 1960

Source: Alabama Dept. of Archives and History Digital Collecitons

What's Coming to the Blog in 2020?

What's coming to the blog in 2020 you ask? Beats me, I answer....

For several years now I've posted this sort of item on January 1 listing subjects I hope to cover in the coming year. You can read the 2019 post below; it contains links to 2018 and earlier years.

In 2019 I wrote 110 posts, the most of any year since I began the blog in 2014. That number, though, is inflated by the "Alabama History & Culture News" posts I started adding to the blog in July. This post makes a total of 550 on the blog. 

How many posts from the 2019 list did I manage to write?? Well, other than the ongoing ones--some family history stuff, films with state connections, etc--the only one was "A Legacy and Justice Visit to Montgomery". Seems I'm falling further and further behind... 

The "what's coming" posts are really wishin' and hopin' lists. I have a long list of topics I'd like to write about and naturally, no matter how many I write, it keeps growing. New topics just keep forcing themselves into my consciousness. 

So here are some wishes and hopes for 2020.



-The USS Birmingham & Early Flight

-Tallulah Does Birmingham

-Posts on visits to Scottsboro, Arab, Clanton, Calera, etc

-Alabama Actors R.G. Armstrong & Harry Townes [This one was on the 2019 list also; maybe I'll get it done this year! Of course, that goes for all the unwritten posts on these lists...]

 

-The Strange Writing Career of Clement Wood

-Movies with Alabama connections: The Fountainhead, The Dragon Painter, Stars in My Crown, Bright Road, Rebel in Town

-I've wanted to do "Did Mobile's Florence Maybrick Murder Her English Husband in 1889?" for a long time, and I really must get to it this year. Such a juicy story!

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

What's Coming to the Blog in 2019?

Once again I want to start the new blog year at AlabamaYesterdays with a review of past efforts and a list of posts I hope--hope being the operative word--to do in 2019. I note that from the 2018 list, only the posts on Carnegie libraries and P.T. Barnum were actually completed. So all the others remain in the ongoing wish list. That 2018 post includes the lists from previous years as well. There are still a lot of topics waiting patiently for their turn. 

First, let's do the numbers:

2018-74

2017-80

2016-99

2015-91

2014-95

A total of 439 posts so far....sheesh....makes me tired just thinking about that...

2019 possible posts:

-Alabama's "Weird Tales" Connections

-Shelby County's Silent Movie Star: Henry Walthall

-Some Old Alabama Postcards (2) [I've acquired a number of new goodies for this post]

-Harriet Martineau Visits Alabama in 1835

-There's a Ticket Stub for That [a journey through 30 or so years of movies, concerts, etc.]. I've actually begun some organizational work behind the scenes on this one, which was also on last year's list. 

-Alabama Actors R.G. Armstrong & Harry Townes [You probably know their faces, since both men had very active film and television careers]

-A Legacy & Justice Visit to Montgomery

-New entries in ongoing series, such as films with Alabama connections

-Family history stuff, such as "A Memory Tour of Huntsville" & "Some Alabamians in New Orleans (2)" [That latter one may become a regular feature as long as our son Amos is living there!]

-The usual crop of posts on "let's connect [fill in the blank] to Alabama!"

-The usual crop of stuff I haven't even thought of yet

I guess I better get to work..

Alabama History & Culture News: December 31 edition

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

Alabama's 200 years in 200 images: To the moon and back al.com Tasked with bringing America to the forefront of that race was Dr. Wehrner von Braun, a technological genius who came to Alabama after developing ...

Book highlighting beauty, stories of historic Auburn structures to be released on Jan. 15

Opelika Observer

Auburn is well known as a college town and as a historic Southern village in central Alabama. The architecture that presently constitutes Auburn's built ...

New species of fossil shark named for beloved Birmingham volunteer Alabama NewsCenter A new species of fossil shark from southern Alabama has been discovered, a team of scientists led by Jun Ebersole, director of Collections at the ...

Author Tim Dorsey to speak at New Smyrna Beach Regional Liubrary Headline Surfer The new book is set for release on Jan. 7. A former newspaper reporter and editor in Alabama and Florida, Dorsey has published 21 humorous crime ... [Dorsey attended AU & edited the university newspaper, also worked for the Montgomery Advertiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Dorsey]

The year's most memorable book-to-film releases Texarkana Gazette The movie: Much like the book, the bulk of the adaptation directed by Destin Daniel Cretton ("Short Term 12") centers on Alabama death row inmate ...

Alabama's 200 years in 200 images: Freedom fighting from Iwo Jima to Selma al.com ... class of African American pilots in history of the United States to get their wings at the advanced fly school on March 7, 1942 at Tuskegee, Alabama.

A decade of women's history in Alabama al.com The 2010s brought historic gains for women in Alabama, including the Equal Pay Act. 2018 was deemed the “Year of the Woman,” by many national ...

Alabama's population: 1800 to the modern era

al.com

Alabama was a sparsely populated wilderness by the time the first census was taken ... Only one Alabama locale of 1830 — the town of Mobile — qualifies as .... and was collected by the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

“I NEVER FELT LIKE QUITTING” SAYS 80-YEAR-OLD WHO BECOMES ALABAMA A&M ... Black Star News In early December 2019, Donzella Washington made history at Alabama A&M University by becoming the oldest person to graduate from the school.

Meet the new ancient shark species found in southern Alabama Bham Now The Red Mountain Expressway's exposed rock showcases 190 million years of history, more than any other road cut in America! You can find fossils ...

'Just Mercy': An Earnest, Effective Legal Drama NPR It tells the true story of Stevenson's efforts to free a poor black man in Alabama, Walter McMillian, who spent six years on death ... of the original case, but writer-director Destin Daniel Cretton (adapting the book with co-writer Andrew ...

Gardendale resident amasses 40000 postcards of Birmingham, Jeffco

Alabama NewsCenter

“I bought a book for a dollar, and it had a postcard. ... Avenue North and 18th Street, showing the Lyric Theatre before the Alabama Theatre was built.

'Chasing The Bear' is worth your time Sports Illustrated It was both fun and interesting for me to read Lars Anderson's newest book Chasing ... This book is a fun, interesting, entertaining and informative read. ... of the Year Bruce Arians told about his first tenure at Alabama under Bryant.

Longtime Walker College leader dies at 98 Daily Mountain Eagle ... he received a master's degree from the University of Alabama in 1951. ... Services will follow at noon at the church with burial at Oak Hill Cemetery.

BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY To Ring In 2020 At Falcon Theatre Broadway World The play is a brutally honest and candid examination of an array of issues--including race, gender, sexuality, and cultural intolerance--in the historical ...

UA sculpture professor influences future generations Tuscaloosa News The ceramics foundry on the University of Alabama campus is the hottest place to be most days as UA faculty and students use fire to sculpt and cast ...

Quilters sew, share Underground Railroad history Longview News-Journal She found the tattered quilt in Montgomery, Alabama, while killing time and was somehow drawn to the familiar pattern she had seen before.

'Just Mercy' Review: Echoes of Jim Crow on Alabama's Death Row The New York Times Bryan Stevenson's “Just Mercy” is a painful, beautiful, revelatory book, the kind of reading experience that can permanently alter your understanding of ...

When Alabama's Mardi Gras was a New Year's celebration al.com Alabama Department of Archives and History. The grave of Michael Krafft, founder of the nation's first Mardi Gras mystic society, in Magnolia Cemetery ...

Checking out cemetery 'grave shelters' Gadsden Times If it hadn't been for several internet writings, I would never have learned about Alabama's “graveyard” history and grave shelters in particular

A Grapico from Gadsden

On our annual pilgrimages to St. George Island, Florida, we usually spend at least part of one day in Apalachicola. The small town is a working seaport with lots of history and charm. Most of the commercial and residential buildings date from the 19th or early 20th centuries. Naturally, the place is also full of shops and galleries, a bookstore, a brewery and such. 

On our most recent visit the week of Thanksgiving, we made our trip into town on Black Friday so our grandson Ezra could see Santa arrive by shrimp boat. Before that we did some shopping at various places including the Apalachicola Sponge Company. There I found the Grapico bottle. 

The drink was first developed and sold by J. Grossman's Sons in New Orleans in 1914. In 1917 a businessman in Birmingham, Raymond R. Rochell, purchased the soft drink's syrup from Grossman's Sons and began distribution in Alabama. By 1929 Rochell had expanded the business beyond Alabama to Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. He also began distributing Orange Crush in 1926 and 7-Up in 1933. Birmingham's independent Pepsi bottler Buffalo Rock purchased the company in 1981 and continues to distribute Grapico in the southeastern U.S. A Diet Grapico was added to the product line in 2005. 

More comments are below. You can read about some of Birmingham's other early soft drinks here. 

I bought this bottle for $8. Too bad it wasn't a little less; I'd have bought the one from Birmingham also.

Rochell's company became the Orange Crush-Grapico Bottling Company by 1953. The name was shortened to the Orange Grapico Company in July 1957, so this bottle appeared before then at a bottling operation in Gadsden.

The town has special meaning for me since I was born there. My dad was also born there, and we used to visit often until my grandmother died in 1997. 

The Orange Crush, 7-Up and Grapico bottling company in Birmingham in the 1940's. 

Photo by O.V. Hunt

Source: Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections 

"Older than dirt but a whole lot sweeter" says the company's web site. 

Alabama History & Culture News: December 23 edition

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

Claretta Humphrey's New Book “Front Porch Love From The House That Built Me” Is a Touching ... PR Web (press release) Claretta Humphrey, an Alabama septuagenarian, has completed her new book “Front Porch Love From The House That Built Me”: a story of the ...

There's Nothing Festive About a “Plantation Christmas” Slate Magazine Earlier this month, a coalition of Alabama activists sent a letter to officials of the Alabama Historical Commission, protesting a “Plantation Christmas” ..

The Echoes of 'Just Mercy' in Montgomery, Alabama – and Beyond Yahoo Entertainment Walking down a moonlit main street in Montgomery, Alabama, a sign beside a ... Montgomery is small but holds a powerful place in American history.

DON NOBLE: History book contains much food for thought

Tuscaloosa News

There are recipes in “The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods,” even one for Sunday school punch, which is iced tea, muscatel and rum, but this not a ...

Remember When: Historic postcards from the Three Notch Museum collection

Andalusia Star-News

With the Alabama Bicentennial celebration (1819-2019) now over, I hope that you ... This bustling new metropolis on the banks of the Alabama River soon ... is included in a 1977 book, “Dead Towns of Alabama” by W. Stuart Harris, ...

Take a look at every way the Alabama Humanities Foundation helped our state this year + what's in ...

Bham Now

Alabama History Day (AHD) training and curriculum assistance during free summer workshops in Montgomery, Huntsville, Birmingham, Livingston, ...

Pinson Council approves 2019 audit, recognizes historic status of PHCC, breaks ground on storm ...

Trussvilletribune

21, 2019. Sanders presented Palmerdale Homesteads Community Center President Barry Wilson with a copy of the letter from the Alabama Historical ...

Local author Lisa Worthey Smith pens third faith-based book Hartselle Enquirer Local author Lisa Worthey Smith pens third faith-based book ... After publishing her first book, Smith said she began to network and joined ... She attended conferences and then became president of Word Weavers North Alabama.

Auditions set for 'Alabama Story' Jacksonville Journal-Courier “Alabama Story” tells the story of Alabama state librarian Emily Wheelock Reed defending a 1958 children's book called “The Rabbits' Wedding.

Lincoln Presidential Library announces January auditions for 'Alabama Story' The Edwardsville Intelligencer It tells the story of Alabama State Librarian Emily Wheelock Reed defending a 1958 children's book called “The Rabbits' Wedding.” A local senator ...

“Bay Boy: Stories of a Childhood in Point Clear, Alabama” By: Watt Key Alabama Public Radio In that book we explore this geographically near but hard-to-access piece of nature and some of the odd folks who make it their home or their hide-out.

6 ways to become an Alabama native plant champion like Julia Tutwiler Bham Now Did you know that Julia Tutwiler, one of the most famous women in Alabama history, discovered a native plant found nowhere else on earth?

Many attend historical tour of downtown Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle Many attend historical tour of downtown Jasper ... Tour participants visited seven historical sites in Jasper to celebrate Alabama's 200th Birthday.

Community gathers to celebrate commemorative historical marker for Crabb-Stewart-Key-Dotson ... Hartselle Enquirer Members of the Tennessee Valley Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution help to unveil the Alabama Historical Commission historical marker ...

75 million-year-old sea turtle fossil discovery is a new genus and species that sheds light on the ... The Mix ... of James F. Parham, former curator of Paleontology at the Alabama Museum of Natural History, for his many contributions to Alabama paleontology.

Andrew Jackson statues in Jackson County to detail history as slave owner KSHB "I was really impressed with Montgomery, Alabama. Their history is awful, but they own it," Peters Baker said. "And I thought, 'Well if they can do that, ...

“The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods” By: Emily Blejwas

Alabama Public Radio

“The Story of Alabama in Fourteen Foods” By: Emily Blejwas ... to talk about a bit of Alabama history or the contributions of a particular Alabamian, or to ...

Jamie Foxx Celebrates Birthday with Cast of “Just Mercy,” Michael B. Jordan Says: “This is the ... Showbiz411 The movie is based on his book about rescuing Walter McMillan from Alabama's death row. Jordan plays Stevenson in the movie, a young Harvard ...

New bicentennial park kicks off Alabama's third century Alabama NewsCenter The morning began with a parade of more than 70 marching bands, city floats and living history on wheels. It concluded with a performance of the ...

Alabama tornadoes in December

WVTM13

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. —. Alabama has a deadly history when it comes to December tornadoes. 138 tornadoes hit the state between 1950 and 2018.

Alabama's 200 years in 200 images: Creek War, Civil War, and the KKK

al.com

In honor of Alabama's bicentennial, this is the first of four pieces compiling 200 notable images telling the story of our state's history -- good, bad and ...

'Alabama Creates' journeys through 200 years of Alabama artists al.com In “Alabama Creates,” Andrews unpacks the distinction and burden of the state's history. It's an upfront and honest primer, explaining that while ...

Alabama celebrates past 200 years, looks to its future Montgomery Advertiser More: The defeated: A brief history of Alabama's first 200 years. The future is important, Gov. Kay Ivey said in her comments before the monuments ...