Montgomery in the 20th Century - Tradition & Change, 1880 - 2010

Thank you for your interest in this HPNbooks publication.
For more information about other HPNbooks publications, or information about
producing your own book with us, please visit www.hpnbooks.com.

MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Tradition & Change, 1880-2010
by Mary Ann Oglesby Neeley
Commissioned by the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery
HPNbooks
A division of Lammert Incorporated
San Antonio, Texas

CONTENTS
3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
4 PROLOGUE
7 CHAPTER I Montgomery, The 1880s to 1900
17 CHAPTER II the century turns, 1900-1920
31 CHAPTER III the tumultuous ’20s and the trying ’30s
45 CHAPTER IV war and rights: Montgomery in the 1940s and ’50s
59 CHAPTER V aftermath of the ’50s and the strident ’60s
71 CHAPTER VI change and the city: the 1970s and beyond
87 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
89 ENDNOTES
92 SHARING THE HERITAGE
138 SPONSORS
139 ABOUT THE AUTHOR
139 ABOUT THE COVER
Second Edition
Copyright © 2013 HPNbooks
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from
the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Historical Publishing Network, 11535 Galm Road, Suite 101, San Antonio, Texas, 78254. Phone (800) 749-9790.
ISBN: 978-1-939300-04-1
Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 2013931022
Montgomery in the 20th Century: Tradition & Change, 1880-2010
author: Mary Ann Oglesby Neeley
cover artists: Tom Conner, Beau Redmond
contributing writer for “Sharing the Heritage”: Eric Dabney
HPNbooks
president: Ron Lammert
project managers: Violet Caren, Larry Sunderland, Igor Patrushev
administration: Donna M. Mata, Melissa G. Quinn
book sales: Dee Steidle
production: Colin Hart, Evelyn Hart, Glenda Tarazon Krouse, Omar Wright,
Tony Quinn, Tim Lippard
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Voltaire said, in effect, that the person who tries to write an accurate history will find that some will be angry about what is in it and
the rest will be angry about what is left out. I fully expect that he will continue to be correct in this case as in all others. There are a
number of people who have helped me, and I plead with you, do not hold them responsible.
My friends and family have been more than supportive, patiently attending me with helpful suggestions, kindnesses and food. My
grandchildren—Carrie, Anna, Graham. Collier, Mary Ellen, Ian, and Lenore—have helped with photography (Graham), scanning,
running errands (Collier and Mary Ellen), and keeping me company (Carrie, Anna, Ian, and Lenore). I am grateful to them, their parents
and their grandfather who has long endured my benign neglect. My grandson, Kyle, has assisted in a very special way, helping us all
as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan. My friend, Doris Jean Peak, has read, corrected and offered excellent suggestions, and my friend
Edith Crook has listened, read and encouraged me throughout. As always, the people of Landmarks Foundation, Archives and History,
the Montgomery County Historical Society and many others have been ever ready to help when called upon. I am appreciative of
those who are supporting this book and of the publisher whose patience has been boundless.
I am overwhelmingly in debt to all historians who have written about Montgomery; each of
them has laid parts of the path that I have so gingerly trod.
I am happy that this book will be the debut of the late Andy Anderson’s paintings that
graphically depict early Montgomery scenes. Janice Anderson has been most generous in
allowing the use of these beautifully detailed images. I also appreciate Bill Stone’s introducing
me to them and to Bob Corley, publisher of Prime Magazine, who has shared his photographs
of the pictures.
This book is a collage of a one hundred and thirty-year period in the history of Montgomery,
Alabama, and, as such, it can only touch lightly on a few things, while vast numbers of
significant people and events are not mentioned. There is still much to tell, and I have
generously left all manner of things for the next writers to explore and annotate: amongst these
are current sports, city services, society, agencies that provide aid, the medical world, etc.
IN MEMORY OF TWO FRIENDS
As this book was in its final stages Alabama lost two of her very best friends—Wayne
Greenhaw and Kathryn Tucker Windham. These two shared not only their love and concern
for the state, but both were storytellers, journalists and writers with keen appreciation,
tolerance and love for their fellows on this earth.
Wayne wrote about politics, sports, history, people, his cat Zelda, and any other topic that
appealed to him. His last book, which came out just prior to his death, is about the Ku Klux
Klan. He treated all he wrote about with an even hand, with honesty, respect, and humor for
he was that kind of a person—life needed to be met with a twinkle in the eye.
Kathryn was first and foremost a storyteller—on the stage, in her writing, and in her own
small kitchen from whence came gallons of black-eyed peas and pounds of cornbread every
New Year’s Day. There were no invitations but word of mouth, and folks from near and far
packed the house from noon ‘til dark. Even though New Year’s was a special occasion, her
latch-string was out all year long. Kathryn’s warmth and appreciation for all the people she met
came pouring out in her stories, told in her inimitable southern accent, which always closed
with her urging us all to tell our stories, to write them down, and pass them on to the next
generations. We should do as we were told. We are grateful that she both told and wrote her
stories, and in that we, to quote her, are “twice blessed.”
Thank you Wayne and Kathryn, your lives have enriched us all.
As the book went to press, Dr. Wesley Newton, historian and friend, died. Wes’ death leaves
another gap in Alabama’s historical community, but he left us a legacy of superb research,
books and articles.
Above: Wayne Greenshaw.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF SALLY GREENHAW.
Below: Kathryn Tucker Windham.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
3

PROLOGUE
Montgomerians wait outside the telegraph
office awaiting news from the battle field.
PAINTING BY ANDY ANDERSON. COURTESY OF
JANICE ANDERSON.
In the midst of the Creek Indians’ former homelands, Montgomery, Alabama, traces its ancestry
back to the War of 1812 and the Industrial Revolution. The War of 1812 included its deep South
components, the bloody conflict of Creek versus Creek and the accompanying turmoil between
American settlers and the Creeks. These two short, though savage, wars saw the powerful Creeks
subjected to a humiliating defeat and the forced cession of millions of acres to the United States.
Most of the ceded land comprises a large part of present-day Alabama.
Following the surveying of the new territory, the U.S. began selling the land in August 1817 in
Georgia’s capital, Milledgeville. Notices were widely publicized in the older states through
newspapers, handbills, booklets and word of mouth. The land in the Big Bend of the Alabama
River, promoted as the best in the cession, was eagerly sought by speculators from nearby Georgia
and as far away as Maine and Massachusetts. Thus the War of 1812 was one of Montgomery’s
parents; the other was the Industrial Revolution.
In the eighteenth century the mechanization of spinning and weaving led to a worldwide demand
for cotton to feed the hungry mills of England, at first, then other European countries, and, by the
late eighteenth century, fledgling mills in New England. Considered almost a miracle fabric, durable
cotton was washable, “mendable,” comfortable in many climes, and expendable with its usage daily
expanding. The southern coastal regions produced a long-staple fiber, easily separated from its seed,
but its limited growth range prohibited production to meet the demand. Short-staple cotton grew
well inland in the Piedmont of Georgia and South Carolina, but its seeds and fiber were difficult to
separate, making it impractical and too expensive for general usage. However, in 1793-94, Eli
Whitney patented an “engine” (gin) which effectively separated the two elements. The Creek Indians
and early white adventurers had grown cotton on the land which had long been wanted by
Americans, especially that in the Big Bend of the Alabama River which met all the requirements for
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
4

producing massive amounts of the downy
crop. In addition, the River provided an
avenue to get it to clamoring mills and to bring
goods to settlers on its banks.
Land, climate, river, and cotton brought
bidders to Milledgeville to compete for the
bluffs above the Alabama River. A group of
Georgian speculators, led by General John
Scott, purchased land on the heights while
New Englander Andrew Dexter bought a
nearby quarter section located on a branch
of the Federal Road which offered a rough
overland route from Georgia and on to New
Orleans. The Scott settlers named their site
Alabama Town; Dexter and his financial
partner, John Falconer, christened their hamlet
New Philadelphia. When the Georgians
realized Dexter’s village was attracting
merchants and theirs virtually none, they
invested further, acquiring a quarter section
adjacent to Dexter’s, but their new purchase
had a river frontage which his did not. This
newer venture, named East Alabama Town,
and Dexter’s holdings challenged each other
until reality convinced them that cooperation
assured greater success than competition.
On December 3, 1819, the Alabama
Legislature incorporated East Alabama Town
and New Philadelphia as Montgomery in
memory of General Richard Montgomery of
Revolutionary fame. The town soon became
county seat of Montgomery County, named
for Major Lemuel Montgomery, a hero of the
Battle of Horseshoe Bend. In an expansion of
the corporate limits in 1837, Alabama Town
also became a part of Montgomery.
Born of war and Industrial Revolution, the
town flourished as a trade and transportation
center with cotton at the core of its economy.
In 1846 it rejoiced at finally winning the
battle for state capital and in 1861 reveled
for three months as the capital of the
Confederacy. Its surrender to Wilson’s Raiders
in April 1865 ushered in the nine-year
Reconstruction period which caused dramatic
changes in social, political, and economic life.
Military Reconstruction, the growth and
power of the Republican Party, and the
adjustment of blacks and whites to a new
relationship shaped much of the period.
Cotton continued its reign, this time produced
Left: William McIntosh was a Creek leader
in early Nineteenth Century.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
Below: The Lucas map details Alabama
in 1822.
COURTESY OF THE SOCIETY OF PIONEERS.
PROLOGUE
5

Top, left: The city bears General Richard
Montgomery’s name.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Top, middle: John Scott was a founder of
East Alabama Town.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Top, right: Andrew Dexter founded
New Philadelphia.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The Belshaw Building is on
the corner of Commerce Street and
Court Square.
PAINTING BY ANDY ANDERSON. COURTESY OF
JANICE ANDERSON.
by free hands, black and white, within a
sharecropping system that provided means of
survival for thousands of southerners, though
cursed by many for valid reasons.
On the political scene, against a troubled
background of contention and anger, the
1868 Constitution opened the polls to
black voters. Blacks’ elections to the state
legislature and town councils gave the
race an importance and stature never
before experienced, but one resented by
many whites. The same was true of many
reforms a Republican majority enacted on
the state level. There is still controversy
concerning the entire Reconstruction era, its
accomplishments and failures—and it is
generally conceded there were some of both.
POST
RECONSTRUCTION
With George Smith Houston’s election as
Alabama governor in 1874, Reconstruction
came to an end in the state; two years later,
with the national election of 1876, it drew
to an official close throughout the country.
In Alabama, Democrats gained control of the
state politically and hastened to take the reins
of power as they denounced and altered
much of the work of the Republicans.
Advocating, among varied issues,
adjustment of the state debt, a new
state constitution, ridding the state of
Republican initiatives, and wresting
control of the vote, the Democrats
also represented a return of pre-war
personalities and perquisites.
The passage of the 1875
Constitution abolished the 1868
Constitution and with it’s demise
most black opportunities at the polls
as well as in other areas. The
resolution of the state debt and a
limitation on taxation provided an
atmosphere of economic optimism
while throughout the nation progress
and prosperity promised a bright
future as the 1880s neared.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
6

C HAPTER
MONTGOMERY, THE 1880S TO1900
I
Montgomery’s population in 1880 was 16,713, with 9,931 blacks and 6,782 whites. This was
some 2,400 people more than when the Civil War began in 1861 with 8,430, a population
then more evenly divided between blacks and whites. The 1880 increase was attributed mainly
to the numbers of former enslaved individuals who had migrated into the city from outlying
regions, exercising their newly found freedom. Because of the housing shortage within the city,
communities grew up on the outskirts as people settled; these included New Town (north),
Madison Park (northeast), and Peacock’s Tract (west).
In the city proper, a developing black neighborhood, Centennial Hill, within a few blocks of the
Capitol, was the home of a number of rising black leaders. Others occupied older districts, often
near their former masters or owners, but segregated patterns were emerging.
Predominantly white neighborhoods were also overcrowded and as population increased,
a new feature appeared on the landscape—suburbs. Two of these, Highland Park east of town,
and the Clayton Plat on the western ridge, developed with the introduction of the street railroad
in the mid-1880s.
Tall lights brighten Court Square, c. 1886.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
URBANITY AND PROGRESS
As state capital, Montgomery stood at the center of economic and political power and eagerly
moved forward, putting much of the past twenty years behind except in cherishing its role as the
first capital of the Confederacy, remembering and vowing to preserve the glories of the “Lost
Cause.” In 1875, Mordecai Moses became mayor, the first democrat to hold the office since
Reconstruction. With his business acumen he encouraged a commercial community that ventured
forth with numerous entrepreneurial enterprises, introducing exciting new amenities which
quickly became necessities. Moses left office in 1880 and those who followed him had similar
philosophies and oversaw what has been referred to as the Second Urbanization of Montgomery.
The first had occurred when Montgomery became capital.
TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATION
As the decade of the 1880s dawned, the railroad and river provided the Capital City with
transportation of goods and people and along with the telegraph, communication. Rail lines were
CHAPTER I
7

increasing in number and services with links
connecting to most parts of the country.
Steamboats still plied the Alabama River, but
their dominance was slowly giving way to
swifter, more efficient trains. Revolutions in
technology continued to spur Montgomery’s
pace as they had since the 1820s, with
electricity now the power making many things
possible. Among a number of early developers
and inventors were Thomas Edison, Charles F.
Brush, and Charles Van de Poele; all made an
impact on Montgomery. Edison, synonymous
with electricity, influenced its use universally;
Charles Brush developed a small dynamo and
the arc light while Van de Poele installed the
electric streetcar in the Capital City.
In 1868 a young Hungarian emigrant,
Ignatius Pollak, opened Pollak’s Dollar
Store on Court Square. Apparently a very
successful businessman, Pollak built a small
Brush dynamo in 1883 which electrified
twenty-one street lights, the first recorded
“miracle” of this type in the city.
These Brush Arc lights, mounted on tall
poles around Court Square’s artesian basin,
gave a brilliant light. Soon a new enterprise,
the Electric Light Company, was providing
electricity to a few homes and businesses. In
1885, Edison’s incandescent bulb made its
first appearance in Montgomery at the Court
Square bar of A. Galetas.
STREET
RAILWAY
In 1885 the mule-drawn streetcar,
affectionately known as “Jingle Bells” because
of bells the little Texas mules wore around
their necks, went into service on the city’s
streets. Joseph A. Gaboury, superintendent of
the Capital City Street Railway, an engineer,
witnessed an electrically powered streetcar
in Toronto in late 1885. Finally receiving
permission from a reluctant city council to
convert the Montgomery railway to electricity,
Gaboury initiated the Lightning Route, with
its electrically powered cars running at the
astounding speed of six miles an hour, uphill
and down. A young electrical genius, Charles
Van de Poele, came to Montgomery to work
with Gaboury, and saw his work heartily
accepted. Success so swiftly followed this
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
8

venture that the next year, 1887, the company
converted the entire fifteen miles of street
railway to electricity. Montgomery became
the first city in the Western Hemisphere to
make such a bold move. Unfortunately, a
devastating fire in 1888 destroyed the steampowered
electrical generator and many of the
cars. The street railroad purchased more
mules and until 1892 there were no electrical
streetcar services.
TELEPHONES
The telephone, too, came in 1881, first to
businesses and then to private residences. A
local story is that banker James Farley was
the first businessman to call his house from
work, inquiring if dinner (in the middle of
the day) was ready; his wife assured him
that the biscuits were in the oven. Limited
communication became available between
Montgomery and neighboring towns by 1885.
WATER WORKS AND
CONSTRUCTION
Another indication of progress and the
times’ optimism was Montgomery’s contracting
with a Boston firm to install a city-wide water
system, the first to assure the residents of a
reliable supply for commercial, household, and
firefighting purposes. This 1886 improvement
encouraged the Lomax Volunteer Fire Company
to build the Scott Street Fire House, the first
“suburban” one, in 1887.
Building was going on all over town
with housing, commercial, religious, and
governmental projects. A new wing went up on
the Capitol and the county built a new jail on
Washington Street while the largest federal
governmental activity was a new post office
and courthouse on the corner of Dexter Avenue
and Lawrence Street. Another large project,
by private investors led by Moses Brothers,
bankers, and realtors, was the stylish Victorian,
seven-story Moses Building on Court Square,
touted as Alabama’s “first skyscraper.”
The city constructed a new school for
boys behind the Capitol and one for black
children, named Cemetery Hill School
because of its proximity to the town’s burying
ground. Religious houses of worship included
the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on the
corner of Decatur and Dexter, Although
the location disturbed some, the church,
designed by architect J. Pelham Anderson
and constructed by church member William
Watkins, rose one block from the Capitol,
THE COURT SQUARE
FOUNTAIN
On Court Square, the artesian basin,
according to the Montgomery Advertiser, had
become an eyesore and “the hog wallow in
the Square.” Finally taking heed, and with
recognition of the power of the press, the city
council and Mayor Warren Reese set about
Opposite, top: This 1886 drawing depicts
Montgomery’s Riverfront activities.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Opposite, middle: Trains take cotton to the
world from Montgomery warehouses.
Note the bank and river at this period.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Opposite, bottom: The steamboat Alabama
takes on cotton at Montgomery’s riverfront.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Above: “Jingle Bells” introduced the street
railway. This picture shows the 1886 flood
waters on Commerce Street.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The Pumping Station is part of 1886
water works. Adjacent to it are artesian
wells which supplied the city.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER I
9

Top, left: The demolition of the Belshaw
Building made way for the Moses Building
in 1887.
PAINTING BY ANDY ANDERSON. COURTESY OF
JANICE ANDERSON.
Top, right: Scott Street Fire Station was the
first suburban fire house. Lomax Volunteer
Fire Company built it in the late 1880s.
In 1898, all volunteer companies became
incorporated into the new Montgomery
Fire Department.
Below: The jailer and his family lived in the
county jail on the north side of Washington
Street, across from the courthouse.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
improving the heart of town with the
magnificent Court Square Fountain. The
T. L. Mott Iron Works of New York cast the
pedestal and statuary. A lady and a swan
originally topped it, but a year later the city
replaced that ornament with Hebe, goddess
of youth and cupbearer to the gods The
beloved Baroque embellishment has graced
Court Square since 1885.
While cotton processing, warehousing,
and shipping continued to undergird the
economy, other factors played significant roles
in fueling this progressive and prosperous
decade. Montgomery’s splendid location on
the Alabama River and the expanding
railroads placed her in position to serve as
a wholesale market for much of Central
Alabama. Other factors included bustling
real estate operations, financial houses and
banks. There were burgeoning efforts at
becoming a manufacture “Mecca,” while varied
agricultural pursuits included cattle and
stockyards. The construction trades boomed!
WOMEN IN THE LATE
NINETEENTH CENTURY
Women were beginning to move out from
the home, actively engaging in church work
and literary, social, and charitable groups.
While the stated missions were different, they
all brought women together, leading to a
broadening awareness of the extended roles
females could play within society.
The first designed for charitable purposes,
the Aid to Working Woman and the Helpless
Association organized, in 1880 to assist
impoverished women who had to support
themselves. The Association, under the
leadership of its first president, Mrs. Cornelia
Bethea Graham, purchased a large antebellum
house at the corner of Adams and Union
streets where they began providing rooms for
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
10

working women and their children. Through
the years, with contributions from the
community, the ladies built cottages on
the grounds and continued their housing
program until 1992. In 2011, although no
longer housing women, the Association
continues its services with grants to diverse
organizations that serve women and children.
Montgomery women founded other
organizations in the 1880s, ’90s and early
years of the twentieth century. Prominent
among these were the literary clubs that
provided both social and intellectual content
and contacts. Early ones were the No Name
Club and, in 1896, the Tintagel Club. These
groups proliferated and continue to thrive,
some changing their nature and purposes
through time. In 1895, literary clubs around
the state banded together as the Alabama
Federation of Women’s Clubs.
Some associations were specifically
history-based such as the Ladies Memorial
Association the United Daughters of the
Confederacy and the First White House
Association. In 1866 the Ladies Memorial
Association began efforts to re-bury and
remember fallen Confederates and became
the persuading power in the design and
construction of the Confederate Monument
on Capitol Hill.
The Sophie Bibb Chapter of the UDC,
organized in the early 1890s, welcomed the
other six local chapters from Alabama at the
first State UDC meeting at the Montgomery
City Hall, April 8-9, 1897. The First White
House Association came into being in 1901
with the mission of preserving the house in
which Jefferson Davis and his family lived in
1861 during the time Montgomery served as
the Confederate capital.
Black women were also organizing clubs
during the 1880s. One in Selma began in
1886 followed by Montgomery’s “The Tens” in
1888, and the Anna M. Duncan Club in 1892.
In 1899 the Alabama Association of Colored
Women’s Clubs organized. Based on the
national association, the state chapters
encouraged local groups to form and join in
programs that emphasized education, home
life, and, later, political issues. The local
chapter purchased the 1850s Jackson House
on Union Street as its headquarters in 1943
and has used it for community purposes since.
Politics, although still male dominated,
were also on women’s agendas. The two most
powerful issues involved temperance and the
vote. Perhaps not as combative as in other
towns, the Capital City had its proponents
and opponents of both prohibition and
women’s suffrage.
The Temperance Movement had male
adherents in Montgomery before the Civil
War but, by the 1880s, women were joining
in the fight to control, or abolish, alcohol
sales. After a speech by Frances Willard,
national leader of the Woman’s Christian
Top, left: Cotton made the world go ’round.
Buyers inspect cotton bales.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Above: Hebe serves as cupbearer to the gods
and as goddess of youth.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The Kettledrum Club, a ladies
group, meeting in Prattville.
COURTESY OF THE GRAHAM-COLLIER-
OGLESBY-COLLECTION.
CHAPTER I
11

Above: Woman’s Home was an early
charitable organization located in the
antebellum Moulton House.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The Alabama Association of Colored
Women’s Clubs bought the antebellum
Jackson House in 1943.The organization
has recently restored the historic house.
COURTESY OF THE JACKSON-COMMUNITY HOUSE.
Temperance Union, Montgomery women
formed a chapter of the WCTU in 1881. The
interest in prohibition waxed and waned
for several years, but in 1907, Governor
B. B. Comer signed a bill approving local
option sales of alcoholic drinks. This did
not end the controversy for in 1909 a
state referendum registered a vote against
prohibition of 72,272 and only 49,093 for it.
Although there had been efforts before
the Civil War for women’s right to vote, the
movement gained momentum later in the
century. While women around Alabama
expressed an interest, there was very little
enthusiasm before the turn of the century
on the part of Montgomery ladies to don
bloomers and march in the streets for the
right to cast a ballot. However, interest in
the work of the WCTU often carried over to
the suffrage movement as it grew in fervor.
While there were women devoting their time
to many reforms, educational and historical
activities, there were others who lived their lives
more dangerously as prostitutes, Reputedly,
they lived above the shops and businesses along
Monroe Street and along Pollard Street, closer
to the river and railroads.
The elegant Montgomery Theatre where
stage stars such as Joseph Jefferson, and Sarah
Bernhardt performed, had two reserved
galleries; one was for its black clientele and
the other for females euphemistically referred
to as “ladies of the evening.”
Alabama’s most famous madam, Louise
Wooster, the heroine of Birmingham’s 1873
cholera epidemic, stated in her autobiography
that before moving to Birmingham, she had
lived and worked in Montgomery, but there is
no record to state where in town she stayed.
Wooster and her “girls” nursed and buried
many victims of the dread disease that struck
Birmingham fiercely but spared Montgomery.
Many men were veterans or the sons of
Confederate soldiers and were sincere in their
loyalty to the “Lost Cause.” Their charitable
work was often through their fraternal
organizations, Masonic affiliations, military units
and the churches. Prohibition was a challenge
for them as was the Suffrage Movement.
In October 1887, President Grover
Cleveland visited Montgomery for a few hours
as the first democratic U.S. president since the
1860 election of Lincoln. The city, cleaned
and sparkling after weeks of preparation,
enthusiastically welcomed the head of state.
MONTGOMERY
THE
1890S
IN
The exhilaration of the 1880s lasted until the
Panic of 1893 almost brought the economy to
a standstill. During the same time, populism
was afoot with the controversies surrounding
the country’s having a gold or silver monetary
standard. As these debates raged, an English
financial institution, Baring Brothers, folded,
creating a world-wide crisis. In Montgomery,
there were many hardships, and the Moses family,
heavily involved in realty and banking, left the
city following its fortune’s stunning decline,
including the loss of the Moses Building. By 1894
a quicker than anticipated recovery brought the
return of optimism with teachers once again
being paid and shoppers eager to spend their
hard earned cash at Pollak’s and other shops.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
12

In 1895, Montgomery realized it had
aesthetic and practical problems if it wished
to participate in the “City Beautiful”
movement sweeping the country. A major
goal was improving Dexter Avenue. Trees
planted from Bainbridge down to Lawrence
Street created a pleasing approach to the
Capitol, but they had to be protected as the
City paved Dexter Avenue with vitrified brick.
The City received praise for the job until an
unusually heavy rain revealed that new storm
sewers were second rate, forcing their
replacement which damaged the new paving.
All was soon made right, but citizens
complained about old, neglected houses in
the blocks immediately in front of the Capitol.
Later new homes replaced the dilapidated
ones to the relief of many residents.
Paving continued in the Commerce Street
area where heavily loaded drays carried
goods to and from trains and riverboats.
Granite stones called Belgian, or Belgian
Block, made a strong covering for the
wholesale district roadways.
PLESSY
VS. FERGUSON
The year of 1896 was a momentous one
in which one of the defining moments in
post-Civil War America occurred as the
U.S. Supreme Court rendered the Plessy vs.
Ferguson decision formalizing the doctrine
of “separate but equal.” Based on a set-up
train arrest, this action by the Court
established a new day in race relation, and
eventually resulted in southern states
re-writing their constitutions. Jim Crow
brought disenfranchisement, discrimination,
segregation, boycotts, strikes, and, finally,
THE MAYORS
OF MONTGOMERY,
1875-1899
M. L. Moses 1875-1881
J. B. Gaston 1881-1885
Edward A. Graham 1889-1901
J. C. Crommelin 1891-1895
John H. Clisby 1895-1899
THE POPULATION
OF MONTGOMERY,
1880-1900
1880 16,713
1890 31,883
1900 30,346
Rosa Parks and Montgomery’s Bus Boycott.
That successful action by Montgomery’s black
citizens resulted in the 1956 Supreme Court
decision which declared segregation illegal
on public transportation. The multitude of
changes from those two Supreme Court
decisions are firmly imprinted on the
American scene and continue to impact
hundreds of thousands of lives.
YELLOW
FEVER
Since the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1873,
there had been no sign of the disease in
Montgomery, but its appearance in late 1897
broke the spell. Since the cause had not
been determined, city authorities extended a
quarantine on people’s entering and leaving
the city. As some of the more affluent citizens
of Montgomery had summer homes in the
country, or at Marbury, Mountain Creek, and
Verbena, the children and women of the
families were already accustomed to leaving
town for the summer, escaping the heat for
cooler climes. These villages, which had
come into existence along the L & N Railroad,
often sported large, commodious dwellings
while some were little more than log cabins
in the woods.
Because of railroad connections, the
men of the family could take the train up for
the weekend and return to town on Sunday
or Monday. During the yellow fever scare,
some of the men chose to camp out in the
vicinity of Taylor Road and rough it until
danger passed. This was the last epidemic
of “Yellow Jack” in Montgomery for soon,
Dr. Walter Reed and Alabama’s Dr. Josiah
Gorgas would lead the way in the discovery
of the cause and means of controlling
mosquito vectors.
CHAPTER I
13

emergency facility, the Pest House, for its
victims. The Catholic Sisters of Charity began
St. Margaret’s Hospital about 1902-03.
UNION
STATION
Above: Built by Jim Hale and his wife,
Ann, Hale’s Infirmary for blacks opened
around 1889.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Gulf Mobile and Ohio’s freight
terminal is at end of Water Street.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CITY
HEALTHCARE
Montgomery had concern for citizens’
health with early appointments of doctors to a
medical board, but there were no permanent
hospitals until the 1880s. The Montgomery
Infirmary had opened in the late 1880s for
whites and Hale’s Infirmary for blacks about
the same time. In 1895, Dr. I. L. Watkins
founded the Highland Park Sanitarium on
Forest Avenue as the eastern suburb grew.
Prior to these, the City opened emergency
hospitals for epidemics such as yellow fever
and smallpox. As late as 1897, an outbreak of
smallpox spurred the city to open an
In the 1890s there were several major
railroad lines coming into Montgomery with
passenger and freight trains entering and
leaving the city daily. In 1893, forty-four
passenger trains came through each day with
an increasing number every year. The original
line, the Montgomery and West Point, was
now the Western Railroad. Others included
the L & N, the Mobile and Montgomery,
Alabama Midland, the Central of Georgia, the
Seaboard Airline, and the Mobile and Ohio.
There were mergers, bankruptcies, and name
changes from year to year. During this decade,
a move to consolidate all passenger service
into one facility resulted in Union Station on
Water Street. Built by the L & N and designed
by B. B. Smith. an engineer and architect of
the company, the station, sited where an
earlier one had stood, and the Train Shed
received high acclaim. A parade and banquet
on May 6, 1898, celebrated the opening.
During the same period, a number of lines
built their own handsome freight terminals.
In 2011 the only terminal remaining is
that of the Western Railroad on Coosa Street,
now incorporated into the Biscuits Baseball
Riverwalk Stadium.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
14

THE SPANISH-
AMERICAN WAR
At the same time as the opening of Union
Station, the U.S. and Spain were verging on
war over Cuba. The new station served its first
wartime role as local boys, blacks and whites,
moved through it The former, members of the
Capital City Guards, became a part of the Third
Regiment, Alabama Volunteer Infantry, while
the latter served as the Second Regiment,
Alabama Volunteer Infantry. Neither saw action
in the short “Splendid Little War.”
PRESIDENTIAL
VISITS
President William McKinley made a short
visit to the city in 1898. Warmly greeted,
Republican McKinley spoke at Old Ship AME
Zion Church, the highlight of his foray into
Montgomery. On October 24, 1905, a fellow
Republican, President Teddy Roosevelt, drew
an enthusiastic crowd for a parade up Dexter
Avenue to the Capitol.
BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY
Montgomery had a variety of manufacturers,
some new, others, such as Janney’s Foundry,
harked back to antebellum days. Brick
production, based around the red clay that
abounded along the riverbanks, flourished.
Railroad shops offered employment as did
cotton mills, carriage works, iron and boiler
works, a brewery, distillery, grist and saw mills.
Other small shops offered localized products for
household use. It was, however, the wholesale
businesses, railroads, banking, and especially
cotton that undergirded the economy.
PASTIMES AND
ENTERTAINMENT
A few years after the Civil War, a
recreational area based around a spring on
the old Pickett Plantation came into being.
Pickett Springs eventually included pavilion,
skating rink, bowling alley, gaming area,
lake, and picnic grounds. It was so popular
that the Western Railroad ran a train to it
and, later, the trolley line provided access.
Oak Park was another venue for fun and
relaxation. Originally begun in the late 1880s by
the developers of Highland Park, who extended
a trolley to the suburb and the park, it
immediately attracted crowds. In the mid-
1890s, the City bought the property and with
the 1892 return of the electric trolley, Oak Park,
now renamed, became one of Montgomery’s
most popular places. It was also the site of
the earliest college football games in the city.
Walking paths, playgrounds, picnic shelters,
and, later, a zoo and swimming pool, became
prominent features of the segregated park.
Sports continued to gain in popularity as
the population grew. Montgomerians had a
place in their hearts for horse racing and,
as the nineteenth century was drawing to
a close, harness racing thrilled the crowds
at the Fair Grounds, located off the Lower
Wetumpka Road. Militia encampments,
sporting events, and competitions took place
at Riverside Park, out Railroad Street on the
banks of the Alabama River,
Banker Will Craik was among those
who favored the ancient sport of golf and
built a small course near his home, about two
miles out Carter Hill Road. This was within
a short distance of the Montgomery Tennis
Club on Norman Bridge Road. About 1904,
Craik’s course, joined by the Tennis Club,
led to the formation of the Montgomery
Country Club.
Summer trolleys had open sides, providing
cooler rides.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER I
15

Ladies enjoy their golf lessons on the new
Montgomery Country Club links.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Baseball had been a long-time favorite in
the city. In the 1880s, Montgomery became a
member of the Southern Baseball League, and
by the late ’90s players could gather at the
Baseball Park in the suburb of Highland Park
on Highland Avenue.
In the 1890s a new craze stirred the
public—bicycling. Men, women, and children
joyfully mounted their new travel modes
and took to the streets and byways.
Montgomery’s city fathers, understanding
the modesty of female riders, opened the
third floor ballroom of City Hall so that
ladies could practice their posture and
pedaling before appearing in public. For the
competitive minded, bicycle races took place
at Riverside Park.
Two major theatres enhanced the cultural
life of the city. McDonald’s Opera House on
Bibb Street, and the Montgomery Theatre on
the corner of North Perry and Monroe offered
lectures, plays, opera, other musical events,
and the latest technology. By 1896 both
houses were providing Vitascope for selected
events. On a screen covering the stage, scenes
were cast from plays “which reproduced on
canvas figures in natural action, color effect,
in fact, everything except conversation,”
according to the December 20, 1896, issue of
the Advertiser. The Montgomery Theatre, and
probably McDonald’s, had segregated galleries
for blacks. In 1899. and for the next few
years, another activity, Street Fairs, captured
the interest of everyone. Local businesses
embraced the idea which brought shoppers
and entertainment to Dexter Avenue and
Commerce Street for two or three fun-filled
days each October.
THE CENTURY TURNS
Edgar Gardner Murphy, the new rector of
St. John’s Episcopal Church. arrived in
Montgomery as the nineteenth century was
waning. As a minister and a humanitarian, he
made a profound impression while working
for reforms in race relations, education,
and child labor. An early effort on his part
was the establishment of an Episcopal
church for the black population, the
Church of the Good Shepherd, on Jackson
Street, where he often preached. He was
influential in receiving funds for a library
from Andrew Carnegie, working out the
purchase of the W. O. Baldwin House on
South Perry Street for a YWCA, and urging
financier George F. Peabody for funds
to build a YMCA.
It was his concern for children
who worked dangerous hours in
industrial sites across the country
that contributed to his nationwide
reputation. The cotton mills, a
burgeoning phenomena in the South,
employed underage children and at
the West Montgomery mill, mothers
and children labored under appalling
conditions. Resigning from St. Johns
in 1901, Murphy became active in
promoting legislation to raise the
ages for factory work, education, and
improved race relations.
As the 19th century turned into
the 20th, the Montgomery Advertiser
opened a window into the future;
on October 11, 1899, it noted: “The
automobile was of curiosity here. It
was seen on Dexter Avenue yesterday.
Many who saw it want one badly.”
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
16

C HAPTER
THE CENTURY TURNS, 1900-1920
II
THE ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SCENE
While a newspaper or two questioned 1900 as the true “turn of the century,” it seemed that most
were accepting it as the twentieth century’s first year. Montgomery entered on a high note. Cotton,
still king and “the backbone of Montgomery’s prosperity,” closed out the nineteenth century with
1899 reporting one of best years ever with $7.5 million worth received and sold. The commercial
and industrial sectors goals were to make the year a “record breaker” and encourage small factories’
growth. Electricity was the stimulant for industry, retail and wholesale businesses.
Politically, the Populist move seemed stymied and the Republicans squelched while the Democrats
were riding the crest of the wave with industrialists and business interests finding a welcome in Black
Belt planters’ tents. This consortium, with every intention of keeping power, entered the century
calling for a 1901 constitutional convention to convene in Montgomery. The ensuing Constitution
of 1901 was a dominant factor throughout the 20th century and continues so in the 21st.
Following the Civil War, a small number of African Americans played important roles on the
city’s and state’s political and economic scenes. Their political influence waned after 1874 and the
return of the old guard (Bourbons) to power, but some black businesses continued to grow,
meeting the needs of their neighborhoods and constituents. However, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in Plessy vs. Ferguson, handed down the infamous “separate but equal” ordination which
let “Jim Crow” out of the box and created an opportunity to legalize segregation. Based on the
ruling, Alabama, wrote a new constitution which basically disenfranchised black voters and
thousands of poor whites. Without the power of the ballot box, the disenfranchised within society
Court Square bustles at turn of the century.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER II
17

Top, left: Buyers sample cotton.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Top, right: The electrical “Montgomery:
Your Key to Opportunity” sign stood at the
foot of Commerce.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: A black grocer displays
well-stocked shelves.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
found themselves at the mercy of those who
made the laws.
TRANSPORTATION
JIM CROW
AND
With the passage of the new Constitution,
municipalities moved to establish a pattern of
segregation that would distance the two races
from each other in public places, but the
relationship within homes, fields, and work
places was a different matter as blacks and
whites continued fraternization. However, in
stores, water fountains were labeled, “whites”
and “colored;” this was also true if public
toilets were available. Oak Park, Electric Park,
and Pickett Springs were off limits for blacks
except for nurses escorting white children.
On the streetcars, there was separate seating,
but again, nurses with white children could
sit with their charges. Was this segregation
fair? Well, fair or not, it was legal.
It was on the streetcars, that Montgomery’s
first transportation segregation conflict
occurred. Blacks, resenting the arrangement,
began a boycott in 1901 that lasted many
months. There were no changes in the rules,
but gradually, the order seemed to be ignored
by some riders and drivers. However, in
1906, the City Council passed an ordinance
requiring the Montgomery Traction Company
to put on separate cars for the races. The
ordinance, first vetoed by the mayor, but
passed over his veto by the City Council,
went into effect on November 23rd.
By early morning, the streetcars began
converging on Court Square; none displayed
the required signage designating which race
they were to serve nor had any posted the
ordinance inside the cars. Mayor W. M. Teague
and Chief of Police W. H. Taylor met the
trolleys and immediately began arresting the
officials of the Montgomery Traction Company,
the supervisors and conductors. By ten o’clock,
the entire system was at a standstill. The
traction company’s attorney, Ray Rushton,
sought an injunction that would prohibit the
city’s imposing the law upon the company.
City Court Judge Anthony D. Sayre issued a
temporary injunction that would allow the
trolleys to resume business without police
interference. The City Council later withdrew
the ordinance demanding separate trolleys
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
18

and passed a new one requiring racial
segregation on the vehicles be upheld.
THE CULTURAL AND
SOCIAL SCENE AS THE
CENTURY TURNED
On the cultural and social scenes, all
segments of the population found an outlet,
albeit mostly separately. The Lambardi Opera
Company began the new century with two
operas at the Montgomery Theatre, which had
a gallery for blacks: Carmen on January 9 and
Il Trovatore on January 10. Local ladies enjoyed
literary groups, card clubs, and patriotic
organizations while the men had their own
patriotic and sporting clubs and volunteer
military units. There were also associations
participated in by both genders, such as the
Montgomery Library Association.
Within the black community, there was the
newly organized Alabama Association of
Colored Women’s Clubs with its Montgomery
affiliates, “The Tens” and the Anna M. Duncan
Club. On the State Normal School campus
there were other group organizations. Until
their disbanding by the state in 1905, the
Capitol City Guards, a militia unit, participated
in their own gatherings, parades, balls, and
picnics, and the Grey Eagles Volunteer Fire
Company had its own celebrations
It was during this time that automobiles
began increasing on city streets. It was not
until 1906 that they obviously had become
something of a nuisance for the first automobile
ordinance demanded that cars stop in the
presence of frightened animals. It was in the
same year that the first automobile lawsuit
was filed: Gus Wolff sued Carrie Clapp for
$5,000, accusing her of running him down
with her car on Dexter Avenue.
As the 19th and 20th centuries merged,
two Montgomery girls, destined to achieve
literary recognition, were born: Sara Haardt
on March 3, 1898, and Zelda Sayre on
July 24, 1900.
of the suburban mania. Highland Park
continued to grow. Cloverdale had waxed and
waned, but revived as the neighboring Court,
Perry, McDonough Lawrence, and Hull Streets
extended southward while the western ridge
and Cottage Hill continued to attract new
residents. With the extension of Madison
Avenue and the trolley eastward, Capitol
Heights came into existence. The dream that
Montgomery would become a “manufacturing
Mecca” with an exclusive enclave for
industrialists was a carry-over from the
nineteenth century. However, the commercial
and residential building markets signaled that
Montgomery was a city with an economy that
could support a diversity of needs and tastes.
Above: Striking trolleys line
Dexter Avenue.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Capitol Heights incorporated
in 1907.
COURTESY OF CAPITOL HEIGHTS.
GROWTH OF THE CITY
The vibrant real estate sector boomed and
flourished during this era with the spreading
CHAPTER II
19

Above: The Decatur Street School dates
from 1905. The current board of education
offices stand on the site.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Young children worked in the west
Montgomery cotton mills.
COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.
As the Capital City grew, it attracted
architects to meet the growing demand for
quality design. Frank Lockwood came to
Montgomery in the 1890s. Weatherly Carter,
B. B. Smith, architect for Union Station,
Edward Okel, and Carl Cooper all made their
imprint on Montgomery during the first half
of the 20th century as had J. Pelham Anderson
in the last half of the 19th. Contractors such
as Hugger Brothers, Cook and Laurie, and
Algernon Blair left their marks throughout the
city for several decades.
SCHOOLS
Paying close heed to the changing
demographics, school officials began building
elementary schools to accommodate
neighborhoods as early as the 1880s and
continued into the new century: Chilton
(Sayre Street) Elementary, 1891; Cottage Hill
(Herron Street), 1891, major repairs made
after a 1901 fire; following another fire, the
Board demolished it and rebuilt in 1903-04;
Highland Avenue, 1903; Bellinger Hill, 1904;
Decatur Street, 1905. The school board
had earlier built Boys High School (1885)
and Girls High School (1894), but a new
philosophy, for some revolutionary, suggested
that boys and girls could go to high school
together. This idea became reality when,
in 1906-07, Sidney Lanier High School rose
on the corner of McDonough and Alabama
Streets. The former Girls High became High
Street Elementary and Boys High School,
which already included an elementary
school, was now Lafayette School.
Schools for black residential neighborhoods
did not proliferate as quickly as did those
for whites, but the city operated Cemetery
Hill Elementary School (built 1885) and
Swayne School (originally a private school)
as the century turned. There were several
private schools for black children, including
the Montgomery Girls Industrial School with
well-rounded curricula. Langridge Academy,
begun by a white woman concerned with
the education of black children, later
became a part of the school system as Daisy
Lawrence Elementary.
White parents had several private schools
to choose from including: St. Mary’s of Loretto
operated by Catholic sisters for boys and girls;
Starke University School for boys; Professor
Bragg’s School for boys and Barnes School for
boys; Sam Starke’s School for girls. A wellknown
private elementary school was that of
Gussie Woodruff, and in Cloverdale there was
Miss Willie Fuller’s “Chicken Coop School”
which began in 1906-07 in her family home
and later moved to a building in her backyard.
Children thirteen or over could work in the
cotton mills and other industries, so many
children received very little education.
CENTER CITY
IN TRANSITION
It seemed that the turning of the century
was challenging property owners to re-create
the appearance of downtown, This became
evident as a variety of structures, religious,
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
20

commercial, and governmental, succeeded in
adding new styles to the streets.
RELIGION
Since 1862, the Jewish congregation of
Kahl Montgomery/Temple Beth Or had
worshipped in its Romanesque building at
the northeast corner of Church and Catoma
Streets. In 1901, however, the congregation
sold its building to the Church of Christ and
constructed a larger, modern temple at the
corner of Sayre and Clayton Streets. Designed
by Stone Brothers Company, the edifice
served the congregation until 1961.
The Baptists also built a new house of
worship as the members and programs
had outgrown its 1850s building. The
congregation accepted the architectural plans
of G. I. Norman of Atlanta, and construction
began in March 1906 on the stone and
brick church with its impressive dome.
First services took place in the unfinished
educational wing on the building in February
1908. It was several more years before the
congregation occupied the entire building
COMMERCIAL
DEVELOPMENTS ON
COURT SQUARE AND
LOWER DEXTER AVENUE
During this time, design and construction
were going through major transitions as
technology enabled dramatic new uses of
materials, especially steel and concrete,
affecting both style and height as did
elevators. In 1901 Frank Lockwood added
to the changing face of downtown. On
Commerce Street, he designed a six-story
neo-classical office building for the First
National Bank. Within sight of the new bank,
on Court Square’s west side, Capitol Clothing
Store moved into its new home, also designed
by Lockwood.
The New Exchange Hotel replaced the
earlier one noted for its centerpiece role in
the founding of the Confederacy. The new
hostelry, opened in 1906, soon attained its
own significant role in the annals and lore of
state and city history.
In a modern Commercial-Style structure
featuring a horizontal expanse of windows on
its four floors, the Montgomery Fair presented
the city with its first twentieth-century
department store in 1907. White and blue tiles
with terra cotta Art Nouveau details created
a spectacular transition along narrow North
Court Street. Customers could also enter from
Dexter Avenue through an 1850s storefront
whose re-decorated facade sported new decor.
With the collapse of the Moses Brothers’
business enterprises in the Panic of 1893,
entrepreneur wholesale grocer W. F. Vandiver
had acquired the Moses Building. In early
Above: Miss Willie Fuller’s “Chicken Coop
School” had a well-rounded curriculum
including “shop.”
COURTESY OF THE OGLESBY COLLECTION.
Below: Temple Beth Or occupies its
handsome building on the corner of
Sayre and Clayton Streets, 1907.
COURTESY OF THE ART WORKS OF MONTGOMERY.
CHAPTER II
21

Top, left: This lovely detail graced the
Montgomery Fair Building.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Top, right: The First National Bank moved
into its new skyscraper in 1907. The
Vandiver Building is the tall building to
the left.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The lobby of the First National Bank
sported classical details.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
1906 he exchanged it for the First National
Bank’s six-story 1901 building down Commerce
Street. In September, the businessman
announced he was going to add two stories
to it, thus making it taller than the Moses
Building. A. M. Baldwin, president of the First
National Bank, perhaps caught unawares,
stated that the bank was planning to make
improvements to their new home, but they
were not formulated. After consideration, the
bank decided to demolish the twenty year old
Moses building and construct a twelve-story
steel-framed skyscraper. This would be the
town’s first, but soon another was on the way.
Economic competition was good as
businessman N. J. Bell retained local architect
Frederick Ausfeld to design a twelve-story
skyscraper at the corner of Lee and Montgomery
Streets. The race for which would finish
first was on, but the FNB prevailed, opening
several months before the Bell Building.
The excitement for tall buildings was
catching, for the ten-story Gay-Teague Hotel,
on the southwest corner of Bibb and
Commerce Streets, opened its doors in the
fall of 1908, about the same time as the
Bell Building. Designed by Parker, Gould,
and Blair of New York, the steel-framed hotel
was touted as fire proof.
Property owners along Dexter Avenue
had begun upgrading their exteriors with
new, stylish details. A men’s clothing
store altered its Federal style façade with
a very distinctive, eclectic Victorian
adornment. South Court and Perry streets,
too, were putting on new character with
façade up-grades.
The Montgomery Advertiser modernized
an antebellum building on the corner of
Dexter and Lawrence Streets about 1902,
and then built a new one adjacent. Linking
the two with interior doors and exterior
neo-classical detailing, the paper had a
fashionable home by 1908.
A few doors up the street, a new theatre,
The Grand, opened to the public. In 1907,
the old Montgomery Theatre’s curtain
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
22

dropped for the last time. Designed by local
architect Edward Okel, the new house
featured legitimate theatre as well as
vaudeville. Its stage was large enough to
accommodate the popular extravaganza
Ben Hur, with its spectacular chariot race.
THE WHOLESALE DISTRICT
Differences in detail, materials and styles
were in evidence throughout the Wholesale
District during the 19th century’s last years and
the 20th century’s early years. At that time,
the Romanesque Revival and the Neo-Classical
Revival Styles were competing, a rivalry that
left Montgomery with outstanding examples
of both and combinations of each in the
Wholesale District. The arch became a
signature, included in almost every structure
in the Lower Commerce Historic District.
These buildings, once the pride of wholesale
merchants, now restored and the pride of
new owners, are premier contributors to the
revitalization of the area.
ARCHITECTURE ALONG
COOSA, TALLAPOOSA, AND
NORTH COURT STREETS
The Western Railroad opened its freight
terminal in 1899, displaying the arches in its
first floor windows and the sheltered vestibule
entrance. Also on Coosa Street are the 1905
Schloss and Kahn wholesale grocery fenestration
examples that repeat the Romanesque rhythm.
The 1895 Schloss and Kahn wholesale grocery
building’s windows and loading doors are
arched while its distinctive terra cotta relief
figures of the Greek goddesses Demeter
(harvest) and her daughter, Persephone
(planting and vegetation), offer examples of
beauty in the marketplace. The large, early
twentieth-century Alabama Machinery and
Supply continues the stylistic patterns of
its neighbors.
North Court Street sports the 1907
Roemer Building which, too, has arches. The
1900 Wilcox Produce Company has second
floor arches while the Nathan Segal Ice
Company is archless. Todd’s Gun Store
features upper level arches, and in 1913 the
M & O Railroad built a brick warehouse with
arched loading doors.
ARCHITECTURE ALONG
WATER AND LOWER
COMMERCE STREETS
Beginning at the River and along Commerce
the Romanesque arches are prominent features
on Union Station. The 1893 Forbes Liddell
Building and the 1906 Hobbie Grocery
Company sport arches. Next door is an early
twentieth-century building in the Commercial
Style. The 1891 Schloss and Kahn building
has arches on its first floor. The 1894
Implement Store is a monument to the talents
of nineteenth-century brickmasons who
graced its ground floor arches with other
arches, carrying out the same idea on the floor
above. Next door, the 1894 McIntyre Building
is another study in arches.
Left: The Bell Building was Montgomery’s
second skyscraper.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Right: The Western Railroad built its freight
terminal at the turn of the century.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER II
23

and hay business was the original occupant.
The 1910 Loeb Carriage Company, which
is currently undergoing restoration, is paired
with its next-door companion in repeating
the Romanesque rhythm with round arches.
The Alley entrance is topped with a modified
arch, and to its south is the 1928 Whitfield
Block displaying arches. The neo-classical
Greystone Hotel, does not carry out the
arch motif, but is endowed with symbolic
classical designs.
THE
CAPITOL
Above: The Forbes Lidell Building on the
corner sports arches on its third floor.
The Hobbie Building is next door and dates
from 1906.
Below: Known as “the Old implement
Store,” this building’s brickwork and arches
display brickmasons’ talents.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Dry goods wholesale merchants built the
1891 Steiner-Lobman Building with its Italian
Renaissance influences emphasized by the
applied thin sheet metal ornamentation. The
structure has long-puzzled passer-bys. The
“casket” covers a large water tank and the statuesque
lady nearby on the cornice represents
Athena, or Minerva, Goddess of the Hearth.
The oldest in this unique late Victorian
collection is the 1881 Anderson Block, with
slightly arched windows. A wholesale feed
By 1900, Alabama’s capitol did not meet
current needs with a growing state
bureaucracy and legislature. However, there
was a land issue that needed resolution.
Andrew Dexter’ gift of Goat Hill for a capitol
was not large, and early city maps showed two
streets, North and South Market, on each side
of Capitol Hill. In 1885, the City deeded the
land on the north to the state with the
provision that it make improvements On the
south, there were private residences separated
by fences from the capitol grounds, but in
1905 the state acquired that property.
A competition that same year for both
north and south wing additions resulted in
Frank Lockwood’s taking the prize. Because
of a controversy, nationally known architect
Charles Follen McKim came down for
consultation with the winning architect and the
building commission. With a few suggestions,
McKim resolved the issue and work began on
the south wing which opened in 1907.
There was no money for the north wing
until a 1911 legislative appropriation made
construction possible. The governor moved
into the north addition upon its completion
in 1912.
THE CARNEGIE LIBRARY
As early as 1848, Montgomery had a Library
Association, but over time it failed, as did
subsequent organizations. In the late 1890s as
Andrew Carnegie made libraries across the
nation possible with grants, Montgomery again
organized an association to seek funds for a
library. With the assistance of Edgar Gardner
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
24

Murphy, rector of St. John‘s Episcopal Church, it
requested help from Carnegie. His answer was
for the association to acquire a suitable site, and
he would contribute $50,000 to construct a
library. With great support from the public, the
Montgomery Library Association met its goal of
$12,500 and purchased the property at the
northeast corner of Perry Street and Adams
Avenue. With Carnegie’s money, the New York
architectural firm of York and Sawyer designed
and Laurie and Cook Construction Company
built the handsome Beaux Arts building which
opened in 1904 as Montgomery’s first free
public library. It served the public in that
capacity until 1960 and is now a part of the
Montgomery County Court House Complex.
THE YMCA AND YWCA
The city’s youth received some attention
with the construction of the YMCA on
Washington Street in 1907. Edgar Gardner
Murphy’s contact with George Peabody
facilitated a grant. It offered facilities for
activities and boarding for young working
men. Although not housed in a new building,
the girls were not neglected as the YWCA
acquired the antebellum Baldwin House for
its functions and living space for young
women who worked in the city.
WOMAN’ S
COLLEGE
Founded in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1854,
the Tuskegee Female College, later named
Alabama Conference Female College, came to
Montgomery in 1909. Since 1906, a search for
land had been on-going, but a fifty-acre plot on
the southern outskirts, near the small village
of Cloverdale, was the site chosen. The wellknown
Olmsted Brothers firm designed the
landscape and the buildings’ locations. The
Collegiate Gothic John Jefferson Flowers
Memorial Hall was both administration building
and dormitory when the newly named Woman’s
College opened on campus in the fall of 1910.
arrival of the Wright Brothers who opened the
nation’s first civilian flying school in
Montgomery. Looking for an all-weather site
for a flying school, Wilbur Wright came to
Montgomery on February 15, 1910, and in
the next few days, researched weather
patterns, visited several sites with members
of the Montgomery Commercial Men’s
Association, and accepted Frank Kohn’s offer
to use his flat cotton land northwest of
town as a flying field. Within a few weeks, all
was in readiness for the school as local
businessmen had built a small wooden hanger
for the Wright Flyer which arrived by train.
On March 26, Orville took the plane up, thus
being the first mortal to fly over Montgomery,
Alabama. Five adventuresome students made
history during the two months the school
operated. Among other feats, the first
recorded night flight in history took place in
the skies above Montgomery.
Above: Andrew Carnegie gave
Montgomery $50,000 to build this
Beaux-Arts library, 1907.
COURTESY OF THE ART WORKS OF MONTGOMERY.
Below: Orville Wright discusses flying with
his students.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
WINGS OVER MONTGOMERY
In the spring of 1910, one of the most
exciting moments for Montgomery was the
CHAPTER II
25

Above: W. A. Gunter became mayor of
Montgomery in 1919.
COURTESY OF FAIRLIE HAYNES.
Below: Probate Judge Will Hill built this
house in 1914. He and Gunter were
political rivals for many years.
COURTESY OF WILL HILL TANKERSLEY.
Montgomerians and others flocked to the
site, marveling at what was occurring and
never realizing the role this very piece of land
would play in aviation history.
A CHANGE IN FORM OF
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
Montgomery’s first election in 1820 was
for seven aldermen who, from their midst,
elected an intendant who functioned as
mayor. In 1837, when Montgomery was
recharted as a city, it adopted the mayorcouncil
style of government with all elected
by the people. In the early years of the
twentieth century a progressive move around
the country promoted the commission form
of government. Montgomery adopted this
type under the guidance of Mayor William A.
Gunter during his 1910-1915 term. The new
order called for election of a mayor and two
commissioners, one for public safety and one
for public works. In 1919, Gunter returned to
the mayor’s office and continued to receive the
confidence and vote of his constituents until
his death in office in December 1940.
The prominent Gunter and Hill families
had a number of political differences between
them, but in the depths of the Depression,
Mayor Gunter and Probate Judge Will Hill
finally settled their problems with a
THE MAYORS
OF MONTGOMERY,
1900-1940
M. L. Moses 1875-1881
E. B. Joseph 1900-1903
Thomas H. Carr 1903-1905
W. M. Teague 1905-1909
Gaston Gunter 1909-1910
W. A. Gunter, Jr. 1911-1915
W. T. Robinson 1915-1919
W. A. Gunter, Jr. 1919-1940
“womanless wedding” while raising funds for
the Junior League. Gunter was the bride and
Hill the groom of this charitable affair.
WORLD WAR I
The Montgomery True Blues, a militia unit
organized in the 1830s to defend against
the Indians, went to the Civil War and were
ready for the Spanish-American War. In 1916
it became a part of the Alabama National
Guard’s Fourth Alabama that went to the Texas
Border to combat the threat posed by Pancho
Villa. Sent home just in time to go to World
War I, the Fourth was integrated as the 167th
Infantry Regiment into the 42nd Rainbow
Division and shipped out to France. Black
Montgomerians also served, many in the 93rd
Division, a segregated unit. Montgomery boys
were in some of the thick of the fighting.
Montgomerians participated in all branches
of the military; some never came home.
The Gold Star collection in the State Archives
is a memorial to Alabamians who did not
return; it can be accessed on the web.
The women of Montgomery were very
busy as home front volunteers. The Red Cross
Canteen was busy with coffee and doughnuts
at Union Station, and for special Liberty Bond
drives. Women worked as drivers in the
motor corps that transported soldiers to town
from the bases and ran other mobile errands;
others spent time in the hospitals, assisting in
whatever capacity needed. Ladies in Prattville
auctioned off calves donated by cattlemen for
the Red Cross.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
26

The homefront geared for combat as
the government acquired extensive lands,
including Pickett Springs, for Camp Sheridan,
an infantry training camp whose personnel
were primarily from the 37th Ohio Buckeye
Division. With the Wright Brothers in mind,
officials acquired the excellent flat lands for
an air base as they also eyed the possibilities
of fields east of the city. The Kohn lands
became Air Repair Depot Montgomery,
Ardmont, and the government leased eastern
property for flight training, Taylor Field.
With the Armistice, the 167th Regiment
then went to Germany as part of the
occupation. On May 12, 1919, the boys
finally came home to a welcoming parade and
a reception through the downtown area that
continued far into the morning hours.
Above: The Montgomery True Blues became
a part of the 167th Infantry.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The 167th returns home,
May 12, 1919.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
CHAPTER II
27

Right: Wrights’ flying field became Air
Repair Depot Montgomery (ARDMONT).
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS FOUNDATION-
MARLEY COLLECTION.
Below: Red Cross volunteers help the
war effort.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
THE INFLUENZA PANDEMIC
In January 1918, a mysterious illness
broke out in Camp Funston, a component of
the much larger Fort Riley, Kansas, as the
United States continued to mobilize troops
and materials for war in Europe. Gaining a
foothold, the flu was soon galloping across
the nation and the world as the armed
services moved men around the country and
to Europe; Montgomery was not immune to
the Spanish Flu.
During the first few months, the disease
was relatively mild, and by summer seemed
to be slowing down, but it was just resting
to reappear in a much more virulent form.
By October, it was striking boys at Camp
Sheridan with three deaths on October 7,
1918. The large base hospital reported 599
flu cases and 26 pneumonia victims at the
time. Local men were dying far from home of
the same maladies as were civilians. Doctors
and nurses were volunteering their services
throughout the state, but they were frequently
victims themselves.
On October 9, Montgomery ordered
schools, churches, and all public gathering
places closed and events cancelled. The City
set up an emergency hospital on October 16
with doctors and Montgomery women
volunteering their services in spite of the
danger. The Sheridan commander ordered
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
28

all personnel to remain on base, and the
president of Woman’s College placed a strict
quarantine on the school. On October 16,
there were twelve deaths on Sheridan. As the
month progressed, the disease appeared to be
slackening with fewer new cases of a milder
sort reported.
The first day of November, Montgomery
lifted most restrictions and school reopened
on the 5th. With the news of the Armistice
on the 11th, the town went wild with
people flocking into downtown Montgomery.
Although not invited, Influenza came
anyway, reinvigorated by so many potential
victims all together, hugging, kissing,
and partying.
Into 1919 flu raged, carrying out its
rampage until the strain grew weak and too
many people had either had it or had
developed immunity. In Alabama the death
rate for 1918 was 5,446 and in 1919, 2,322.
All in all, it has been estimated that
worldwide it killed 50 to 100 million people.
WOMEN IN THE EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURY
During the first two decades of the
twentieth century, women progressed in their
work for prohibition and the vote. In 1919,
the Eighteenth Amendment made liquor
illegal, opening the door for the tumultuous
years of Prohibition and Roaring Twenties.
The vote for women was hanging in the
balance while some Montgomery females,
including Marie Bankhead Owen, sister of
the politically important Bankhead brothers,
fought against it; others fought for it.
In the first decade, women’s issues, which
had begun to appear in the local papers
as early as the mid-1880s, were increasing,
including housekeeping and cooking tips,
short stories, and news items. Engagements,
weddings, balls, and parties occupied many
columns, especially on Sundays, and the
meetings of various clubs were frequently in
the news. Respecting the idea that women
could and did manage their own affairs, the
First National Bank in the 1909-1910 guide
to Montgomery clubs and organizations,
The Blue Book, had an advertisement with a
drawing of FNB’s new skyscraper quarters:
“WOMEN MAKE GOOD CUSTOMERS.”
TEACHERS
Two white educators, Miss Alice Beard and
Miss Margaret White came to Montgomery
in 1886, to found a school for black girls.
Known as the Montgomery Girls Industrial
Tomorrow’s leaders attend
Montgomery Girls Industrial School.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS FOUNDATION-
PRYOR COLLECTION.
CHAPTER II
29

Fanny Seibels conducting her orchestra.
COURTESY OF THE CAROLYN VOSHELL COLLECTIONS.
School, it prepared students in academics
and the fine and practical arts. The students
included many future successful educators
and business women, one of whom was Rosa
McCauley. The school served the community
until the late 1920s.
Miss Margaret Booth, born in Montgomery
in 1880, received her education here and at
Agnes Scott and Mt. Holyoke. Following a few
years of teaching, she opened a preparatory
school in 1914 for Montgomery girls. The
Margaret Booth School, recognized by some
of the country’s finest women’s colleges,
operated until Miss Booth’s death in 1953 in
London where she was leading the school’s
annual trip abroad.
ARTISTS OF MANY STRIPES
Montgomery violinist Fanny Marks,
born in 1884, studied in New York and
later in Chicago, but from 1908-1910
she took lessons in Berlin. Upon her
return, she married Emmett Seibels and
devoted her life to teaching and sharing
her love of music with the children and adults
of Montgomery.
Artist Anne Goldthwaite, born in
Montgomery in 1869, studied in New York
before going to Paris in 1907. She left
France for home just as World War I began.
A noted printmaker, some of her best known
works are Montgomery scenes remembered
from childhood.
Some of the younger ladies were also in
the news. Zelda Sayre, with her engaging and
daring personality met Scott Fitzgerald while
he was at Sheridan and as 1919 closed, they
were on the threshold of marriage.
Sara Haardt, in her senior year at Goucher,
was making a name for herself in literature and
English. She would soon join the faculty there
and continue her writing with short stories
based upon her southern background.
THE POPULATION
OF MONTGOMERY,
1900-1920
1900 30,346
1910 38,000
1920 43,000
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
30

C HAPTER
III
THE TUMULTUOUS ’20S
AND THE TRYING ’30S
As the decade of the Twenties opened, Montgomery was still nervous from the bouts with
Spanish flu, but a traditional optimism was regaining its hold on the population. “The War to Make
the World Safe for Democracy” was over, and the victorious Allies had imposed the Versailles Treaty
upon their recent enemies. The United States, however, failed to ratify the Treaty and the League
of Nations. The boys were home, and Montgomery, along with the rest of the country, continued
its adjustments to the postwar world.
In the late 1920s, Kress Five and Dime
suffered a devastating fire.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
AMENDMENTS XVIII AND XIX
The Twenties were to change many of the old ways including the role of women within the
political realm and the place of liquor in everyday lives. Since the 1890s, numbers of Montgomery
females, in concert with their counterparts around the country, had been working for woman’s
suffrage . There were many who disagreed, including Marie Bankhead Owen, wife of State Archivist
Thomas M. Owen. It no doubt pleased her when Alabama was not among the thirty-six states
which voted for ratification. The vote of the Tennessee legislature in late August 1920 was the one
needed to ratify the XIX Amendment, thus giving women the vote.
An early event of the new decade was the installation of the Kiwanis Club’s second president,
Edward G. Branch, on January 6, 1920. Organized in mid-1919, this was the fledgling club’s first
full year as a men’s Montgomery civic club.
Another occurrence of the year took place away from Montgomery; to the dismay of friends, relatives
and society doyennes, Scott and Zelda did not marry in her hometown. On April 3, 1920, they married
CHAPTER III
31

An Army band serenades Lister Hill and his
wife, Henrietta.
COURTESY OF NEWSOUTH BOOKS.
at the rectory of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New
York. Thereafter, the newly published young
novelist from Minnesota and the effervescent girl
from the Deep South moved together to the beat
that they came to personify as the Jazz Age.
Back in Montgomery, Bill Gunter had the
reins of municipal government firmly in hand
as he settled into the mayoral office, a position
that was to be his for the next twenty years.
Other figures who would play a large role in
Montgomery’s future included Grover Hall, a
talented journalist with the Montgomery
Advertiser who would become editor and a
Pulitzer Prize winner before the decade ended.
Another rising star was a young lawyer, Lister
Hill, a member of the prominent Hill family,
whose father, Dr. L. L. Hill, had earlier
performed what was probably the world’s first
successful open heart surgery. Although there
had been long-standing problems between
the Gunters and the Hills, Mayor Gunter
and Congressman/Senator-to-be Lister Hill
were to find themselves both working for
Montgomery’s causes in years to come.
At the conclusion of WWI, municipal
leaders made efforts to retain Camp Sheridan
and its military presence, but the decision to
close it and the Remount Station which served
it was final. Taylor Field suffered the same
fate, but Ardmont was a different story.
The U.S. government had leased land
from the City on which it developed Camp
Sheridan. At the conflict’s end, the City and
federal government settled any differences
they may have had, thus returning the land
to Montgomery. The dismantling of Sheridan
got underway with many materials sold at
reasonable prices to local people; a number
of houses sport various elements from the
site. The City then sold a portion of the land,
northeast of town on 231 North, to the state
for the construction of a new prison.
Completed in 1922, one of the most modern
prisons in the country bore the name of
former Governor Thomas E. Kilby during
whose administration plans originated.
As an adjunct to Sheridan, the 160-acre
Remount Station, southeast of town at Keyton
Station on the Central of Georgia Railroad,
had accommodated 5,000 horses for the
possible needs of the 27,000 men of the 37th
(Buckeye) Division. Its leased land reverted to
the owners at the end of WWI. A lumberyard
later utilized the space on 5th and Jean Streets.
Taylor Field whose 16 hangers and
buildings covered 800 acres of pasture and
farm land, closed. One hundred and thirtynine
young men had learned to fly during its
heyday, but with the War over, its leased lands
went back to owners who returned it to
earlier uses as pasture and cotton fields until
it served in WWII as an auxiliary flying field.
Ardmont was one of three engine repair
shops of the Army Air Service in WWI. One
factor in its salvation was that top military
recognized the possibilities of aircraft in
future wars. After purchasing the land, the
government, on November 8, 1922, changed
the base’s name to Maxwell Field, in honor
of William C. Maxwell of Atmore, Alabama,
who died in the Philippines when he crashed
while diverting his plane from a field where
children played.
The variety of uses for the base unfolded
as ideas and emergencies developed. In
April 1925, Maxwell played a part in a test to
determine the possibility of delivering air mail
from New Orleans to Chicago via Montgomery.
Four years later, in the spring of 1929, torrential
rains brought flooding across Central Alabama,
leaving people stranded and in need. Maxwell
began mercy flights, dropping over 50 tons of
supplies during 281 missions in six days.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
32

The year 1929 also witnessed a highly
significant event in Maxwell’s history.
Congressman Lister Hill, a native
Montgomerian, used his influence in
convincing top brass that Maxwell was ideal
for relocating the Army Air Corps Tactical
School from Langley Field, Virginia. This
move proved to be a major factor in
Montgomery’s economic survival during the
Depression. It also made Maxwell a vital link
in the Air Corps/Air Force’s educational
system. During the 1930s, hundreds of men
studied tactics and strategy that led to the
United States’ air superiority in World War II.
THE
CITY
Every decade brings its changes, and there
were numerous ones through the 1920s. A
very great change was that liquor could not be
bought—legally. Everyone knew where to get
a drink, and many had their own bootlegger
or knew someone who did. Word spread as
to how to acquire anything from beer to
champagne—and, hopefully, not get caught.
The new state prison’s population, designed
for 900, had risen to 1,400, much of this due
to arrests and incarcerations of bootleggers.
LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS
A big transition was females having the
vote. The old suffrage organizations had
become the League of Women Voters which
vocally engaged in numbers of civic, social
and educational efforts around the
country. In Montgomery, an early
involvement (1922-1924) was support
of Henry Ford’s offer to acquire the
incomplete Muscle Shoals nitrate plant
and dam, begun by the government
during WWI, and finish it for the
good of the state. The Alabama Power
Company opposed the idea. One reason
was that Ford would not come under
the Federal Water Power Act and the
Alabama Public Service Commission.
The League, along with many powerful
Alabama forces, favored Ford’s stance
and opposed the Power Company.
Eventually, Ford withdrew his proposal.
ALABAMA POWER COMPANY
The Power Company, though, was soon to
impact daily lives when, in 1922, Montgomery’s
two electrical companies declared bankruptcy.
The Montgomery Light and Water Power
Company and the Montgomery Light and
Traction Company had viciously competed for
years and had both reached the point of
collapse. These failures could have thrown
Montgomery into serious circumstances, but the
Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, working
to stave off an impending crisis, invited the
Alabama Power Company to step in and
bring their resources to Montgomery. With
the approval of the Alabama Public Service
Commission in early spring 1923, the Alabama
Power Company came to Montgomery,
assuming the nearly $2 million in combined
debts of the failed businesses and quickly
spending $15,000 on upgrading the facilities
and equipment. Alabama Power contributed to
all facets of Montgomery’s life after its arrival.
Above: Ardmont became Maxwell Field.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
Below: Montgomery Light and Water
Power Board turned over operations to the
Alabama Power Company in 1923.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
CHAPTER III
33

In the fall of 1927 Pike Road’s Montgomery
County High played Montgomery’s Cloverdale
High in Cramton Bowl. The game was at night,
the first played after dark in the Bowl. The
Power Company’s thirty 1,000-watt lights
brightened the exciting event for the 5,000 who
watched and cheered while setting an attendance
record for an Alabama high school football
game. (Dr. Leah Atkin’s Developed for the Service
of Alabama: The Centennial History of the Alabama
Power Company is an excellent reference for the
study of the electrical service in the state).
enlarged nearby Chisholm School for the
children of the new community.
At its peak, the mill employed 950 people
on two shifts. During the Depression, West
Boylston remained open, although sometimes
with a reduced labor force. In 1931 it worked
500 employees five and one-half days a week
and in 1934 and 1937, the managers made
one-story additions to the mill. The West
Boylston Manufacturing venture was so
successful that it even contributed to the sale
and revitalization of a smaller cotton mill on
the west side of Montgomery. (Information
based on 1984 National Register Nomination
prepared by historian Marilyn Sullivan).
FRED CRAMTON AND
CRAMTON BOWL
Above: The West Boyleton Mill closed in
the 1970s.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Businessman Fred Cramton was a
generous supporter of civic activities.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
WEST BOYLSTON COMPANY
In 1928 the Chamber of Commerce praised
the APC for “its aggressive cooperation” in
persuading the West Boylston Company to
bring a $2-million cotton mill to the city.
Another who had assisted in bringing the
mill to Montgomery was businessman
W. A. Bellingrath who understood the need
for attracting big industry to Montgomery.
Bellingrath had brought Coca Cola to
Montgomery in 1903 and continued to work
tirelessly for the development of the city.
West Boylston’s arrival signaled the city’s first
major breakthrough in this regard. Company
officials noted climate, lower taxes and
hydro-electric power as primary reasons for
investing here. Other factors were a labor force,
local investment in the company, banks’
consideration and city and county tax
exemptions for five years. With the creation of
400 to 500 jobs and a new three-story, well
ventilated, fireproof brick building, West
Boylston opened in November 1927 on land
that was part of Camp Sheridan during the war.
A well-planned community provided a
sense of place for employees who lived in 124
new rental homes on the site. A small shopping
area grew up around the neighborhood, and a
new passenger train depot opened for the mill’s
and workers’ convenience. The school board
Cramton Bowl, opened in 1922, was
named for Fred Cramton, one of its major
developers. Born in Michigan, Cramton came
to Montgomery in 1888. He worked in local
lumber mills and, in 1898, founded Cramton
Lumber Co. on North Lawrence and Pollard
Streets. Successful in business, Cramton was
also a prime mover in the development of
neighborhoods including Bel Air and the
“Cedars” on Lexington Avenue, During his
lifetime, he engaged in many other civic
activities. (“Through the Years;” in Landmarks
Foundation-Cramton Files).
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
34

Both football and baseball teams played in
the Bowl. It was the home of the Montgomery
Lions, a 1920s baseball team which won
two minor league championships. Later,
in the 1930s, the team became the Bombers
and eventually the Rebels who moved into
Paterson Field when it opened in 1950.
Cramton Bowl then became exclusively a
football stadium. As of 2011 it is undergoing
massive renovation with the inclusion of more
stadium sitting and a high press box.
KIWANIS
PARK
Another recreational gift for the people of
Montgomery was Kiwanis Park on Columbus
Street between Hull and McDonough Streets.
Location of early lawyer Charles Crommelin’s
home, the land was a donation from his
descendants in the early 1920s. The Kiwanis
Club leased and developed it as a playground
for neighborhood children, many of whom
were underprivileged. First Presbyterian Church
sponsored a small chapel on the northeast
corner for services and youth programs. With
Old Alabama Town now adjacent, Kiwanis Park
is the scene of concerts, picnics, and activities.
In 2005, the Junior League created an elaborate
children’s playground on the site.
DEXTER
AVENUE
Commercially, Montgomery was vibrant.
In 1923, Klein and Son, Jewelers, moved
into the old bank building at the corner of
Dexter Avenue and the Square. Dating from
1856, the Renaissance Revival structure was
originally the Central Bank of Alabama and
had harbored a succession of significant
Montgomery financial houses until the early
twentieth century. About 1934, Klein and
Sons installed the well-known sidewalk clock,
a landmark in itself. Tucked into a tiny space
adjacent to Klein’s was Schulwolf’s Fruits with
its polished apples and pears.
A few doors up Dexter from Klein’s was
Kress Five and Dime. In the mid-1920s, a
double tragedy occurred when it burned, and
a replacement under construction collapsed.
The horrific crash also caused massive
damage to two adjacent vintage structures.
Eventually, the new, handsome Kress opened
with two new buildings as its eastern
neighbors. Alterations to facades in this same
block changed its general appearance, adding
stylish touches of Art Deco. A new building
on the corner housed the well-known Silver’s/
Green’s Five and Dime with its lunch counter
and large basement grocery.
Further up Dexter Avenue, at the corner of
Dexter and Decatur, the Scottish Rite, a Masonic
order, built an impressive temple dedicated
in 1926. Its designer,
Hyman W. Witcover, a
member of the Order,
was a noted architect of
several temples and the
monumental Savannah
City Hall. The contractors
were Hugger Brothers
with supervisor of the
project, A. M Keifer, a
Scottish Rite member.
(“Dedication and Reunion”
April 10-13, 1928, Scottish
Rite’s Booklet in Landmarks
Foundation Files).
Above: In 1924, Klein’s Corner was the
busiest place in town.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The structure to replace Kress Five
and Dime collapsed during construction.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER III
35

In 1929 the Jefferson Davis Hotel,
designed by architect Frederick Ausfeld and
built by Hugger Brothers, graced Montgomery
Street, including its soon famous Drum
Room. In 1931, one block to the east on the
same street, the Whitley Hotel opened its
doors. Both of these hostelries reflected the
stylish neo-classical detailing then in vogue.
Next door to the Jeff Davis, the Shepherd
Building, also designed by Ausfeld and built
by the Huggers, provided office space.
NEW
SYNAGOGUES
The Scottish Rite Temple is
under construction.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
On Sunday afternoon, June 4, 1927, a
terrifying fire struck Lee and Commerce Streets
between Bibb and Tallapoosa. Reputedly
started in a junk yard on Lee Street by a
cigarette dropped carelessly into a pile of oily
rags, the blaze, fanned by a whipping wind,
spread quickly through to the buildings on the
west side of Commerce. Firemen’s efforts were
futile as flames ignited automobiles and trucks
parked on Commerce Street and jumped to the
east side of the street. The fire departments of
neighboring towns came to assist in controlling
the conflagration which burned through
almost the entire block between Commerce
and Lee Streets. On the east side of Commerce,
the Imperial Hotel and two buildings to its
north were lost. It was a scene of massive
destruction by late afternoon.
The conflagration took the historic
Confederate Office building that had also
housed a Civil War hospital. Other victims were
the popular Pickwick Café, Owl Drugstore,
hardware and furniture stores, and other varied
businesses. Plans to rebuild began immediately.
The Wolff-Scheuer family had owned and
operated the Imperial Hotel. Without hesitation,
they enlisted Frank Lockwood, architect, and
Algernon Blair, contractor, to build a new hotel
on their prime corner lot. Construction began
at once, and the ten-story Greystone Hotel,
tastefully detailed by neo-classical elements on
the exterior and lobby, opened in February
1928. There was soon competition as two new
hotels rose close by in the next two years.
(Montgomery Advertiser, June 5, 1927, January
28, September 11-13, 1928; MCHS, Herald,
Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring 2006).
Yiddish speaking Ashkenazi Jewish
immigrants from Eastern Europe arrived in
Montgomery in 1902 and formed a
conservative congregation, Agudath Israel.
They first had a synagogue on Monroe Street,
but in 1928 constructed a unique building at
the corner of McDonough and High Streets.
Sephardic Jews from the Isle of Rhodes came to
Montgomery in 1912, and later, in 1927, built
a synagogue on Sayre Street. The architectural
heritage of the congregation is evident in the
small Greek temple design of the building.
NEW
BRIDGE
In 1926 the Reese Ferry Bridge on
Highway 31 opened. The bridge crossed the
Alabama River, connecting Montgomery to
the northern part of the state.
CLOVERDALE AND
CAPITOL HEIGHTS
In September 1927, Montgomery
expanded its limits through incorporation of
neighborhoods and villages. Cloverdale on
the south and Capitol Heights on the east had
been two independent towns.
Dating from the late 1880s and early ’90s,
Cloverdale’s development lagged, but when
the Montgomery and Cloverdale Street Railway
began operation in 1892, it spurred the suburb’s
growth. Incorporating the ideas of such
landscape architects as Frederick Law Olmsted
and Joseph Johnson, its winding streets, small
green parks, and abundant trees attracted both
speculative builders and individuals. It is not
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
36

clear if either of the two landscape architects
was the designer, but their influence is evident;
both had been in town during the 1880s and
early 1890s, the hamlet’s formative years.
Cloverdale incorporated in 1910, and
elected its first mayor, Charles Tullis.
Sidewalks, sewer lines, and graveling the
streets got underway as the citizens reached
into their pockets to acquire these urban
amenities. As the village grew, it included
contiguous plats such as Cloverdale Ridge.
William B. Nelson was its last mayor.
On Friday, September 30, 1927, Cloverdale
officially became a part of Montgomery
along with Capitol Heights, Riverside, North
Montgomery, South Cloverdale, Ridgecrest,
the West End, and certain sections of Oak
Park. The Advertiser announced on October
1, 1927, that the City had added $6.5 million
in real estate and personal property.
Montgomery County was responsible for
schools outside Montgomery’s city limits.
In Cloverdale, with residential building
continuing and population rising, the county
constructed Cloverdale School, grades one
through twelve, in 1922. Up until this time,
private schools had served families’ needs. In
1927, the City of Montgomery realized its
need for a larger high school to accommodate
its new citizens. With Frederick Ausfeld
as architect, the city and county began
construction of the regal Collegiate Gothic
school to supplant Cloverdale on Fairview
Avenue and Sidney Lanier on McDonough
Street. A story that has long circulated is that
a football game would determine the name of
the consolidated school. Sidney Lanier’s team
defeated Cloverdale and triumphantly carried
its name to the new building on South Court
Street when school opened in 1929.
Top: Cloverdale was sometimes known as
“the Pines.”
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Middle: W. B. Nelson served as last mayor
of Cloverdale.
COURTESY OF CATHERINE NELSON JONES.
Bottom: Reese Ferry Bridge opened in 1926,
bringing Montgomery and Prattville
closer together.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CAPITOL
HEIGHTS
At the turn of the twentieth century, the
Capitol Heights Development Company began
working with the City of Montgomery in
extending Madison Avenue eastward to the old
Vickers Plantation. Their goal was to develop
the former cotton lands into a prime residential
community, arguing that it was necessary as
Montgomery was “becoming too compact and
CHAPTER III
37

Above: The Paramount was Montgomery’s
newest theatre as the 1920s came to a close.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
Below: The popular Strand Theatre was on
Court Square.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
congested with closely built homes.” Obviously,
people heeded the message and by 1907,
Capitol Heights incorporated, elected a mayor
and council, and set about expanding services
and planning for the future.
In 1917 the Capitol Heights Elementary
School, designed by Frank Galliher, opened.
About 1923, Capitol Heights Junior High,
architect Frederick Ausfeld, welcomed its
student body to a new school on Saffold Street
(Federal Drive).
Well-known Montgomery architects were
designing houses for both Cloverdale and
Capitol Heights. These included the firms of
Okel and Cooper, B. B. Smith, and Weatherly
Carter, and in Capitol Heights especially,
R. S. Whaley. Frank Lockwood worked more in
Cloverdale and adjacent southern neighborhoods.
ENTERTAINMENT
The silent movies turned into the ‘talkies”
at the end of the ’20s. The Orpheus on Court
Square, and the Empire on Commerce Street
were two of the earliest “movies” in
Montgomery. By the late ’20s, the Empire had
moved into a new theatre on Montgomery
Street and then became the first air-cooled
“picture show” in the state. The Strand took
over the site of the Orpheus, and the Tivoli
was on Commerce Street between Bibb and
Tallapoosa. The Pekin on North Lawrence
catered to black patrons. The Paramount
would open as the decade ended. During this
period, there were three popular sites for live
theatre and concerts: The Grand Theatre on
Dexter Avenue, City Hall Auditorium, and the
Little Theatre on Julia Street.
GROVER HALL AND
THE KU KLUX KLAN
Grover Hall, Sr., became editor of the
Montgomery Advertiser in 1926 as the revitalized
Ku Klux Klan continued its harassment and
violence against all whom its members deemed
errant. The Klan, active since its 1915 revival,
mounted campaigns against immigrants,
Catholics, blacks, Jews, anti-prohibitionists,
politicians of many stripes, women’s fashion—
their enemies fell into every camp. Grover Hall’s
strident editorials against the Klan brought him
national recognition and the Pulitzer Prize.
BOOZE AND THE CRASH
The world of the flappers, speakeasys,
bootleggers, gangsters, the Jazz Age—all were a
part of the Roaring Twenties. While Montgomery
did not roar as loudly as some. it had its share of
all. The Country Club burned to the ground in
1926, tragically taking the lives of two firemen.
Zelda Sayre, in Save Me the Waltz, claimed the
cause was the explosion of a bottle of bootleg
whiskey in a locker. Whether that actually
happened, one will never know. However, the
world of the flapper changed forever on October
29, 1929, when the stock market’s collapse
ushered in The Great Depression.
WOMEN IN THE TWENTIES
The Twenties were a time for women to break
out—as though some had not done so long
before. The right to vote gave them legality, and
that, accordingly, also gave them the right to
drink and smoke. During the decade, the League
of Women Voters was one of the most activist
groups involved throughout the state. Their
causes included prohibition, female voter
registration and anti-convict labor legislation.
As the decade began, Zelda was getting
married; by its end, she had lived a reckless life
in New York and abroad, and was displaying
alarming symptoms of a breakdown.
Sara Haardt graduated from Goucher,
and after teaching at home for a year or so,
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
38

eturned to her alma mater to teach and
continue her writing. By the end of the
twenties she had met H. L. Mencken, and was
on the threshold of matrimony.
Rosa McCauley had entered the Montgomery
Industrial School for Girls at the age of eleven,
about 1924, and having received an education
focused around the development of self-worth,
she finished the eleventh grade in 1929.
(Alabama did not then require a twelfth grade)
She later attended Alabama State before
marrying Raymond Parks, a barber. Both became
active members of the NAACP, continuing their
support through the next decades.
THE TRYING THIRTIES
With a population increase of twenty-three
thousand since 1920, Montgomery entered
what were to be trying times. The crash had
happened at the very end of October, so it was
uncertain as the new decade began just what
was in store for the country. In 1933, to the relief
of many, and the consternation of a few, the
Prohibition Amendment (XVIII) was repealed
by the XXI Amendment. In Alabama beer and
wine became legal after July 1933, but it was
1937 before hard liquor was legally available.
The death of Prohibition itself helped some
through the trials ahead.
A. M Baldwin and the First National Bank
averted a calamity in February 1930. When
the Fourth National Bank’s failure was
imminent, First National rushed to absorb it.
Only a few knew of the condition of the
Fourth, so Baldwin’s swift decision prevented
a run on it and possibly other banks as well.
WOMEN IN THE
EARLY THIRTIES
Sara Haardt and H. L. Mencken, married in
Baltimore on August 27, 1930. Mencken an
acerbic, talented writer/journalist who, before
meeting Sara, had written “The Sahara of the
Bozart,” a satirical essay on southerners’ lack
of culture. Sara, who had tuberculosis,
continued writing after her marriage which,
according to reports, was happy.
Scott, Zelda, and their daughter, Scottie,
were living in Paris. Zelda, immersed in ballet,
THE POPULATION
OF MONTGOMERY,
1920-1930
1920 43,000
1930 66,000
collapsed in June 1930. Entering a psychiatric
clinic in Switzerland, she underwent extensive
treatment until released in September 1931.
The Fitzgeralds returned to Montgomery and
rented a house at 819 (919 today) on Felder
Avenue in Cloverdale. They attempted a more
conventional life style, but Scott, offered a
Hollywood job, left for California. Zelda
dedicated herself to writing in his absence.
Throughout Montgomery, people were busy
with their own lives. Born in 1928, Alberta
Johnson lived on Hunt Street north of town
near the Alabama River with her family
of twelve brothers and sisters. Members of
St. James Old Field Baptist Church, the family
made ends meet by picking cotton in the
summer. At 4 a.m a bell signaled the time to
meet the truck for a ride to Deatsville where
they spent the day in the cotton fields. Alberta’s
mother could pick three rows at a time and on
her best days could pick 250 pounds of cotton.
The pay was a penny a pound.
MAXWELL
FIELD
There was a project in progress west of
downtown that was to save the city much
anguish. Congressman Lister Hill had convinced
the government to relocate the Air Corps
Tactical School from Langley Field to Maxwell
in 1928. Major Walter Weaver, commandant of
Maxwell, had been instrumental in achieving
the victory. The Chamber of Commerce played a
significant role in the government’s purchasing
over a thousand acres to expand the site. Money
was necessary for enlarging and converting the
base, its facilities, and educational and training
programs; Hill saw to it that the funds were
forthcoming. In September 1930, Congressman
Hill was on hand as work began on the
project which would bring millions in
construction costs, payroll and special project
CHAPTER III
39

had an outstanding record for design work
on both residential and public buildings. The
Courthouse and Post Office opened in 1933.
COURT STREET
METHODIST CHURCH
Above: First National Bank absorbed the
Fourth National to prevent its collapse.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Construction of new officers’
quarters at Maxwell is underway.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
moneys to Montgomery throughout the Thirties.
In September 1931, the Advertiser referred to
Lister Hill as The Godfather of Maxwell Field.
(sources include Jerome Ennels and Wesley
Newton, The Wisdom of Eagles and Gordon
Harvey, Lister Hill, Godfather of Maxwell Field
in Alabama Review LIII).
FEDERAL
COURTHOUSE
Another federal project which brought jobs
and money to Montgomery was construction of
the Federal Courthouse where the Court Street
Methodist Church had stood at the intersection
of Court and Church Streets. In 1930,
the Church sold the property to the United
States for $113,720.00. The government then
retained architect Frank Lockwood, Sr., who
The Court Street Methodist Church bought
property on Cloverdale Park for its new
building. Admiring the Gothic Revival Style,
the church hired George Aswumb, designer
of such a one in Memphis, Tennessee. Batson-
Cook of LaGrange, Georgia, was the contractor.
Groundbreaking was in February 1932 with
the laying of the cornerstone in October.
The work was continuing nicely until the
morning of November 29, 1932, when an
explosion in a tunnel under the building blew
out large areas of the nearly completed
structure, As inspectors were examining wiring,
a flashlight failed ,and when someone struck a
match, the blast occurred, caused by a build-up
of leaking gas. The city inspector died and a
lighting contractor suffered severe injuries.
Much of the job had to be redone, and work
began as soon as possible, Lawsuits were settled
out of court while Batson-Cook financially
assisted the church in the rebuilding. This
construction site provided jobs for many
workers over the two-year period of building
and rebuilding. The first services in the newly
named First Methodist Church of Montgomery
took place on November 30, 1933.
ROOSEVELT
VISITS
In November 1932, Democrat Franklin D.
Roosevelt won the presidential election, and
on January 21, 1933, he made a stop in
Montgomery following a trip to North
Alabama. Greeted at Union Station by an
excited crowd, his touring car proceeded up
Commerce to Court Square and on to the
Capitol where attendants wheeled him onto a
portico platform. He assured the cheering
throngs that the economy would get better as
he was planning any number of things to help
it turn around. A young couple from Prattville,
with their two month old baby in tow, came to
Montgomery for the historic occasion and for
many years enjoyed reminding their child that
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
40

she had “seen” FDR. His optimism and self
assurances were a tonic for all, but each day
brought more and more bad news with banks
failing, stocks falling, jobs lost and desperate
families seeking help.
SCHOOLS
In January 1933, the school board, unable
to meet its payroll, asked teachers to take a
thirty-three-percent cut in salary or the
schools would not reopen, The teachers
refused the proposal, and the Board closed the
schools. To the rescue, Mayor W. A. Gunter
prevailed upon the City Commission and the
Board of Revenue to help, Teachers’ salaries
were not cut and schools reopened, but
teachers did receive part of their pay in
warrants that most stores would accept.
When better times came along, the merchants
could turn these in for reimbursement.
MAYOR
W. A . GUNTER
Throughout his years in office, Mayor
Gunter never ceased in his efforts to lead well
and justly. In his 1927 reelection campaign, he
had battled candidates closely aligned with the
Ku Klux Klan and had defeated them. During
the Depression, he warred against the forces of
an economy that seemed to have failed its
followers and against despair and pessimism.
Many stories are told of his personal kindness
and generosity. At times he had coal delivered
to those suffering in unheated homes or
arranged for sacks of groceries to go to the
hungry. For the poor, he set up a pediatric
center in the basement of City Hall
where Doctor Harris P. Dawson, a respected
Montgomery pediatrician, volunteered his
services, treating patients black and white.
There are numerous records of Gunter’s
official acts while mayor, and his reelection
every four years from 1919-1939 reflects the
citizens’ respect and the power of what became
known as “the Gunter Machine.” He had been
in office earlier, 1911-1915, then served four
years in the legislature before coming back to
the mayor’s office in spite of opposition from
the Hill family. Later, he and Probate Judge
Will Hill made up some of their differences.
Although he had a strong following, he did
have detractors who pointed out that while
many admired his tolerant nature, he was too
much so when it came to enforcing the laws
on gambling, prostitution, and drinking which
some claimed flourished during his tenure.
On the other hand, he led Montgomery well
during perilous times. The following only
touch on all that he did accomplish.
MONTGOMERY
MUNICIPAL AIRPORT
Inspired by Montgomery’s role in the early
years of flight and by the work at Maxwell
Left: Court Street Methodist Church.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Right: The Federal Courthouse and Post
Office dates from early 1930s.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
CHAPTER III
41

First Methodist Church had its first services
on November 30, 1933.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Field, Mayor Gunter began the drive for a
municipal airport in the 1920s. He foresaw
the opportunities for commercial and airmail
services as sources of income and importance
for the city. Dedicated in 1929, the airport
was advanced in its design, including
recreational and aeronautical functions for
diverse usage. Located on the Upper
Wetumpka Road (Highway 231 North),
northeast of town, its sixty acres offered a
lighted sod landing strip, (Maxwell had
no lighted runway at the time), an aerial
beacon, a large hanger, hotel, restaurant,
swimming pool, and golf course. A year after
the airport opened, Radio Station WSFA,
begun by future governor Gordon Persons
and Howard Pill, took to the air. Mayor
Gunter encouraged this undertaking and
asked the owners to use the call letters
WSFA—while the W was obligatory, the SFA
stood for “South’s Finest Airport.” This was
Montgomery’s first radio station and the
fourth in the state.
THE MONTGOMERY
HOUSING AUTHORITY
Concerned about the condition in which
many Montgomerians lived, Mayor Gunter
led in forming a housing authority for slum
clearance and relocation of occupants under
the provisions of the Wagner-Steagall Housing
Act of 1937. This Act tied building with
government funds for slum clearance—one
slum dwelling destroyed for every housing
unit built. States or local authorities were to
direct the programs. Alabama passed
legislation, also in 1937, that enabled cities or
counties to create housing authorities. The
organization of the Montgomery Housing
Authority made possible the City’s building
two of the earliest housing projects in the
country—William B. Paterson Courts for
blacks (1937-38) and Riverside Heights for
whites (1939). The Housing Act of 1937, the
first to support low-rent housing, created
construction jobs in addition to clearing
slums and providing better public housing. It
was under the administrative auspices of the
Public Works Administration as part of the
National Recovery Act.
CITY
HALL
In March 21, 1932, a raging fire, seen for
miles around the county, destroyed the 1870s
City Hall. Located on the site of the city’s 1820s
market house, first jail, and a small municipal
hall from the 1850s, the Reconstruction era
building was an imposing feature of downtown.
The earlier 1850s building was incorporated in
the grand three-story Victorian edifice. On the
ground floor was a city market, administrative
offices were on the second and a large multipurpose
auditorium was on the third. Topped
by an impressive tower, the building faced
Monroe Street, stretched north along Perry
Street and around the corner onto Madison
Avenue where there were accommodations for
fire and police units. The fire occurred late in
the afternoon; consequently, much was lost. In
the same month killer tornadoes ravaged
counties throughout Central Alabama.
Mayor Gunter, faced with a monumental
problem, called upon the Federal Public Works
Administration to assist in the rebuilding
project. An ensuing cooperative effort between
the city and the PWA resulted in the current
city hall. Designed by Frank W. Lockwood, Jr.,
architect, and built by Algernon Blair,
contractor, the new City Hall’s grand opening
was September 30, 1937.
THE FIRST
BLUE- GRAY GAME
Howard Pill, in a paper about Gunter for the
“Thirteen,” a local men’s literary group, stated
that Mayor Gunter and his old friend, sports
promoter Champ Pickens, should be considered
the fathers of the famous Blue-Gray Football
games first played in Montgomery on January 2,
1939. Pickens’ idea to ask senior players from
northern and southern colleges to meet on the
gridiron for a friendly sectional-rivalry game was
immediately embraced by Gunter who insisted
that Montgomery would be the best of all places
to host it. When Pickens told him the first game
would probably lose $5,000, Gunter secretly
went to ten well-heeled friends and told them
that each would be responsible for ten percent
of any loss incurred by the sponsors. When the
game’s costs and proceeds were tallied, there was
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
42

a $4,860.00 loss. The friends happily paid
up, and the game continued for many
years thereafter in the Cramton Bowl. Fairlie
Haynes in Green Are the Memories, recounts
many stories of the Gunter family.
CITY OF ST. JUDE
In 1934, Father Harry Purcell founded the
City of St. Jude on the western outskirts of
Montgomery. Its mission was to develop a
“village” around a church which was to be
the inspirational center for services to those
in need. These were to be educational,
health care, social services and enlightened
enrichment. The church was the first building,
followed in 1939 by the Social Center, the
school in 1947 and, in 1951, the hospital, the
first integrated one in Montgomery. In 1958,
the Center for Exceptional Children with
special needs began its services.
AN AGRICULTURAL NOTE
The times were uncertain for all.
Sharecroppers, renters, and landowners all
found their paths strewn with the unfamiliar.
Cotton still had a grip on the land and those
who worked it, but that was changing. The
boll weevil took its toll, forcing some into
cotton mills, and during WWI, many black
and some white farm laborers had gone north
in the first wave of the Great Migration,
thus reducing the southern labor supply
needed for cotton. At the same time,
experiments with mechanized equipment
in the cotton industry were introducing
methods of defoliating the plants and picking
it mechanically. Montgomery still had a
dependence on cotton and its production,
but Maxwell Field, an expanding state
bureaucracy, and the increase in cattle
production and stockyard sales were putting
money into the hands of the community,
lessening its great need for cotton revenue.
GOODBYE,
LIGHTNING ROUTE
Route street railway, replacing it with modern
buses. After fifty years of service, the venerable
trolleys, once the city’s lifeline, no longer gave
routine rides or provided dangerous thrills to
roller skating youngsters hanging on for tows
up the hill. Perhaps buses were more efficient,
but certainly less colorful and fun. The young
Prattville couple who took their infant to see
Roosevelt also brought her as a three year old
to ride the Lightning Route before its last run.
CAPITOL
HILL
On Capitol Hill many changes had been
taking place as the governmental complex
continued to expand into what had formerly
been residential areas; many houses on Dexter
and other streets in the vicinity had been
rented for state offices. In 1928, Governor
Bibb Graves, as the governmental bureaucracy
Above: Frank W. Lockwood, Jr., designed the
1937 City Hall.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
Below: Saint Jude’s Catholic Church was the
centerpiece of the City of St. Jude.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
On March 8, 1936, the Alabama Power
Company discontinued the famous Lightning
CHAPTER III
43

Above: Governor Bibb Graves begins
construction of the Public Safety Building.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
Top, right: Helen Keller visits with her sister,
Mildred Tyson, on Felder Avenue.
COURTESY OF THE MCPHILLIPS COLLECTION.
Below: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald wrote
portions of Save Me the Waltz while living
at 819 Felder Avenue.
COURTESY OF THE FITZGERALD MUSEUM.
grew and a need for space became urgent, had
commissioned a study of Capitol Hill and its
surroundings by the Olmsted Brothers. While
several aspects of the plan never materialized,
utilization of several features made a
profound impact on upper Dexter Avenue.
The plan recommended that the state
purchase the Scottish Rite Temple on the
corner of Dexter and Decatur for the judicial
department. The state acquired it and
contracted with the firm of Warren, Knight
and Davis for its renovation (1937-38).
The Olmsted study also proposed
buildings sited and designed that would
complement the Capitol, not overwhelm it.
The Highway Department/Public Safety
Building (1938) and the Archives (1940)
followed the plan; the same Birmingham firm
designed the two that had renovated the
Judicial Building. The 1940s Archives was
one of the last WPA projects in the country
and while WWII delayed the State Office
Building’s construction until 1955, it, too,
continued the Olmsted design.
W O M E N I N T H E
LATE THIRTIES
There was sadness in Baltimore and
Montgomery when on May 31, 1935, Sara
Haardt Mencken, died of meningitis in Johns
Hopkins Hospital. During her last days, she
had continued writing short stories and
developing ideas for a novel.
Through the 1930s, Zelda and Scott
continued their tumbling relationship. Scott
was in Hollywood in December 1931 when
Zelda’s short story, “Miss Ella” appeared in
Scribner’s, creating excitement in Montgomery.
By February, Zelda was in Baltimore’s Phipps
Clinic. She had worked on Save Me the Waltz,
in Montgomery and finished it in the hospital.
Disappointingly, it did not sell well.
Margaret White, principal, closed the
Montgomery Industrial School for Girls in
1928-29 and returned to Massachusetts
where she died in 1935. The work she, Alice
Beard, and others did, however, continued to
influence the girls they had imbued with the
spirit of self-worth.
Helen Keller, Alabama’s most esteemed lady,
frequently visited her sister, Mildred Keller
Tyson, in her home at 851 Felder Avenue.
A young lady from Thomasville, Alabama,
Kathryn Tucker, graduated from Huntingdon
College, formerly Woman’s College. This
name-change came about in 1935 when the
school admitted men.
Mary “Darlie” Martin and Jane Speed, mother
and daughter, were members of the prominent
Baldwin family, and the era’s most politically
radical Montgomery women. Their leftist actions
on behalf of the Sharecroppers Union and
Scottsboro Boys branded them Communists
(which Speed was) in conservative Montgomery.
Women, as a whole, made strides in the job
market as their ranks in the professions, in
offices and factories gained them recognition
and respect.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
44

C HAPTER
WAR AND RIGHTS: MONTGOMERY IN
THE 1940S AND ’50S
IV
As the 1940s opened, Depression pain had lessened, but international events of the 1930s had
the threat of war hanging overhead. The actions of the Japanese, Hitler and Mussolini were
horrifying many in the United States; Germany’s attack on Poland in September 1939 stirred even
the isolationists. After a few months of the “phony war,” the real one exploded in the spring of
1940. Soon, England battled Germany alone, and the United States, with fewer isolationists, began
giving overt and covert assistance to the British. Alabamians, as a whole, were not isolationists, but
expressed support for those fighting the Axis powers. Preparations for the coming war included an
expansion of Maxwell’s mission, facilities and personnel and the development of Gunter Field.
With the federalization of the National Guard, and many men enlisting or being drafted, many job
opportunities opened for women.
One woman who finally got the job she wanted was Kathryn Tucker, a 1939 Huntingdon
College graduate. When she applied with the Montgomery Advertiser-Alabama Journal, the editor
turned her down; she was, after all, just a girl. In early 1941, the Journal hired her as police
reporter and feature writer, replacing a male who had enlisted. The fact that she was a female had
nothing to do with the position. The paper needed a good writer—and got one.
Dexter Avenue is Alabama’s main street.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
MAXWELL AND GUNTER FIELDS
By the end of 1939, President Roosevelt had determined that air power would be the key to
future wars. This was good for Maxwell and Montgomery. Colonel Walter Weaver, who had been
an ally of Lister Hill in getting the Air Corps Tactical School to Montgomery, came back to Maxwell
in the spring of 1939. A stickler for discipline, Weaver also believed in equal facilities and
treatment for officers and enlisted men. Early in 1940, Maxwell became the school for all flight
CHAPTER IV
45

B-29 pilots receive training at
Maxwell Field.
COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS.
training in the southeastern part of the U.S.,
the Southeastern Air Corps Training Center,
with Weaver as commander. There would be a
basic training flight school as well as an
advanced one for single-engine planes. Basic
would take place at the soon-to-be-militarized
municipal airport.
The loss of the municipal facility was not
popular with the Montgomery business
community. The field was serving Montgomery
well not only as an airport, but it had the only
public golf course in town. The businessmen
wanted $40,000 for the facility, but the
government had another idea—a 35-year lease
at $1 a year, a plan used elsewhere. Finally,
with the military threatening to move all
operations out of Montgomery, the local group
acquiesced and signed the lease.
Work immediately got underway on Gunter
with WPA workers, Algernon Blair Construction
Company, and the military laboring side by
side as the funds made their way into the
pockets of Montgomery merchants, businesses
and laborers. Montgomery also received funding
from the Civil Aeronautics Authority for another
municipal airport. Dannelly Field, named for
Montgomerian, Clarence Dannelly, Jr., a naval
pilot killed in an air accident, opened in 1943
with an agreement that Gunter planes could
practice “touch and go.”
Maxwell, swelling with additional personnel,
had a massive building program underway as it
took on new duties. The classes began in the
fall, even as construction continued, The
necessity for two large “tent cities” underscored
the urgency of the times. At nearby Riverside
Heights Housing Project 420 new units, when
completed, housed military families. In his
book, Montgomery in the Good War, Dr. Wesley
Newton credited the end of the Depression in
Montgomery to Maxwell’s expansion.
AID FOR ALLIES
In 1941, Maxwell initiated its own “lendlease”
brand of aid to allies. Under fire, the Royal
Air Force was successfully defending Great
Britain against the German Luftwaffe but was in
desperate need of more pilots. Englishmen came
to Montgomery and joined the basic training
programs at Gunter and classes at Maxwell.
While here, the trainees suffered accidents,
disease, and deaths. The graves, carefully
tended at the Oakwood Cemetery Annex,
under the auspices of the Commonwealth War
Graves Commission based in Canada, testify to
the cadets’ sacrifice as do those of the French
boys who died during training.
SEGREGATED
FACILITIES
Montgomery’s was a segregated society, as
was the military’s, when the United States
faced its greatest challenge. Because of racial
segregation, facilities for training blacks for
flight were separate from that of the whites. In
Tuskegee, the Ninety-ninth Pursuit Squadron
came into existence with the same three
phases of training for blacks as whites received
at Gunter and Maxwell. The Tuskegee airmen
were to have the same ranks and standing;
their trainers and officers were black. At
Maxwell, the Fourth Aviation Squadron, a
service group composed of black enlisted men
with white officers, began, followed by a
similar group at Gunter.
At Maxwell in 1944, B-29 bomber training
began with the emphasis on their being used
for raids on Japan.
Wesley P. Newton’s and Air Force historian
Jerome Ennel ‘s The Wisdom of Eagles: A History
of Maxwell Air Force Base is an invaluable
source for the Maxwell and Gunter material.
The Tuskegee Airman, by Joseph Caver, Jerome
Ennels and Daniel Haulman, is an excellent
pictorial study for the topic.
MONTGOMERY ON THE
EVE OF WAR
Mayor Bill Gunter had learned that the
municipal airport had been renamed in his
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
46

honor before his death on December 4, 1940.
When word spread that Gunter had died,
there was an outpouring of grief and
sympathy for Montgomery and for the
mayor’s family. Many praised the man and his
work. A quote from the Montgomery Advertiser
in 1927 seemed to succinctly convey the
manner and depth of the man, “Gunter knows
that government is more than a science—it
is an art and demands as much of the heart
as of the head.”
Scott Fitzgerald was living on the West
Coast and working on his novel, The Last
Tycoon, when his health deteriorated. Zelda
was dividing her time between Montgomery
and Highland Hospital in Asheville, North
Carolina. On December 21, 1940, Scott died
of a heart attack; he was only forty-four. His
unfinished novel, with the use of his ideas for
completion, was published to wide acclaim.
DOWNTOWN
Even though business slowed considerably
during the 1930s, as the ’40s opened, it was
beginning to show renewed energy, triggered
by the thousands who were coming through
Maxwell and Gunter. Dexter Avenue, Court
Square, and their environs comprised the
heart of the town’s retail with old established
shops and five and dimes. Service and
professional offices occupied the second and
third floors of the historic structures.
On Montgomery Street, in addition to
shops, movies, hotels, and the Bell Building,
was the famous Elite (pronounced E lite)
restaurant. Peter Xides, owner and manager,
had come from Greece in 1911. Up the
street was the Krystal where a bag of ten
hamburgers cost a dollar.
Commerce Street, the center of the
banking and wholesale worlds, hosted several
restaurants; two particularly favored by
Montgomerians were Morrison’s Cafeteria
and the Pickwick Café. The latter, operated by
the Ridolfi family of Corsican origin, burned
in the fire of 1927 but relocated further up
Commerce Street. The old wholesale district’s
vitality continued. Although steamboats
had left the river in the 1920s, trains had
expanded their services and vigorous freight
and passenger traffic would pick up with
the war. Throughout Montgomery, local
businesses welcomed the thousands of men
who trained as pilots, navigators, and
bombardiers in B-24 and B-29 bombers and
fighter planes. Soon after the end of the War,
the Charles Theatre, with its double “love
seats” at the ends of each row opened.
RESIDENTIAL
REGIONS
During and following WWI there was an
influx of people into urban areas with growth
in Cloverdale and south of Fairview Avenue.
The Oak Park neighborhood expanded as
did Capitol Heights and Highland Park. In the
Depression’s early years, construction slowed,
but never totally stopped.
Above: The Charles Theatre on Commerce
opened in 1947. Note Streamline Moderne
De Luxe Café next door.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: The building that housed Morrison’s
Cafeteria was seriously damaged in a fire.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER IV
47

members of the military moved in and out of
the city during their duty at the bases.
WAR
COMES
December 7, 1941, was a cold, blue-skied
Sunday afternoon, and Sergeant York was
playing at the Paramount when Montgomerians
learned that Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor.
The next day, parents kept their children home
from school to hear Roosevelt declare war and
describe December 7 as “ A day that will live in
infamy.” The world had profoundly changed.
MONTGOMERY
DURING THE WAR
Above: Children in the 1940s celebrate the
end of classes at Lafayette School.
COURTESY OF BARBARA LINDSEY.
Below: Soldiers and sailors line-up at
the Junior Chamber of Commerce’s Red
Cross Canteen.
COURTESY OF THE MATTHEWS COLLECTION.
Homebuilding, therefore, was not
completely dead in Montgomery. By the late
1930s residential housing numbers were
climbing again in older areas as well as
Idlewild and, on Lexington Avenue, the
“Cedars” east of Norman Bridge Road. To
the north of the Atlanta Highway and east
of Capitol Heights there were developments
along Dalraida Road. Black residential areas
expanded along Cleveland and West Jeff Davis
Avenues and near Alabama State College.
World War II brought a stop to most
homebuilding except on the bases. It also
caused temporary housing shortages as
Through the early days of 1942, citizens
and municipal authorities worked together in
preparations to meet any emergency. A
Citizens Defense Corps coordinated air raid
sirens and trained individuals as volunteer
wardens to recognize incoming planes and
track them on maps. Another group, under
Mrs. Y. M. Brame, succeeded in organizing
block housewives to work with others in
preparing for air raids, conducting scrap
iron drives. selling war bonds, knitting
socks, and efficiently managing rationing.
Children collected scrap metals, saved tin
foil, and planted victory gardens. Teachers
and parents instilled in students the
importance of listening to the radio news,
following the war through Weekly Reader, a
valuable classroom tool, and watching news
reels and war movies. Children’s imaginative
games reflected their awareness of events.
Rationing began with sugar, shoes, meats,
coffee, canned goods, gasoline, and tires. The
Office of Price Administration oversaw this to
prevent hoarding, black marketeering, and outof-control
inflation. Rent and wage controls
were implemented, and a new federal law
imposed a 5 percent tax on yearly incomes over
$624; this did not meet with universal acclaim.
As the personnel on Maxwell and Gunter
continued to increase, Montgomerians opened
their homes, community and hearts to the
military. The Gray Ladies led by Mrs. Gypsie
Oliver, whose son, Tom, served in the
Merchant Marines, visited Maxwell and
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
48

veteran hospitals, as aides to patients. The Red
Cross provided services to families and the
military. In October 1943, the Junior Chamber
of Commerce’s Free Canteen, operated by the
Red Cross Canteen Corps, opened in a small
building on Commerce Street. Black and white
servicemen were equally welcomed.
Segregated dances and parties, for both
races, took place on the bases and in town
with local girls in attendance. The USO
provided many hours of entertainment with
visiting stars such as Al Jolson, Jerry Colonna,
Bob Hope, and Joe Lewis appearing.
One popular place that thousands enjoyed,
was Chris’s Hot Dogs on Dexter Avenue where
a “dog all the way” cost eight cents, and beer
was available. There was a big juke box, cozy
booths, and a long counter with stools. For
many, it surpassed all other venues for the
best spot in all Montgomery. Greek immigrant
Chris Katechis opened a fruit stand next to
the Post Office in 1917, then a cafe, and soon
added hot dogs. In 2011 his family still dishes
out hundreds of hot dogs daily from the same
spot, smothered in Chris’s special secret
sauce. The place is legendary.
Montgomery had a live and let live attitude
toward prostitution, but before the war, the city
required that the “ladies of the evening” register
and come for monthly Wasserman tests. After
the build-up of the military prior to the war,
the city closed known houses of prostitution.
That did not end the problem which even
included underage girls. A solution in 1944
seemed to help control it. If a woman was
convicted of vagrancy, she was tested for
venereal diseases and if positive, the authorities
jailed her while she underwent treatment.
Vagrancy and juvenile delinquency were
also problems. The city commission passed an
ordinance that stipulated a $100 fine and six
months if proven guilty of vagrancy. The War
was the underlying cause of many problems.
War bonds and stamps helped to finance
the conflict; before Pearl Harbor, a committee
began local sales campaigns. The Treasury
Department’s first War Bond Drive in
December 1942 and all subsequent ones,
were for two purposes: to raise funds to pay
for the war and to keep inflation down by
soaking up surplus cash. There were six
drives up through December 1945; following
it was the “Mighty Seventh in Seven Days.” All
over the country any type of entertainment,
even Bugs Bunny, encouraged everyone to buy
bonds and help win the war. Estimates range
from $150-185 billion brought in nationally.
Montgomery’s total is unknown, but a speaker
during a rally at the Dexter Avenue Baptist
Church stated that Montgomery’s black
population alone purchased over $1 million
in stamps and bonds.
Top: Red Cross volunteers serve coffee and
cheer at the Canteen.
COURTESY OF THE MATTHEWS COLLECTION
Above: Black soldiers enjoy Coca-Colas at
the Junior Chamber’s Red Cross Canteen.
COURTESY OF THE MATTHEWS COLLECTION.
CHAPTER IV
49

Above: Everybody remembers
Chris’ Hotdogs.
COURTESY OF: GRAHAM NEELEY.
Below: General Eisenhower arrives at
Maxwell for an inspection in April 1947.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
Over four thousand civilians—male and
female, black and white—worked at Maxwell
Field in 1944, and most of these workers
spent much of their pay checks in
Montgomery. This was in addition to the
construction and repair jobs that went on
continuously on the bases. One example of
the money flowing into Montgomery was the
$9-million contract Algernon Blair’s company
received in 1942 for building the Holding and
Reconsignment (H and R) Point, an army
supply depot southwest of Maxwell.
On August 8, 1944, Cyrus “Cy” Brown,
who had succeeded Gunter as mayor, died
unexpectedly. David E. Dunn won the
election after promising to resign at war’s end
so military returnees could have a voice in
city government. In March 1946, Dunn kept
his promise; attorney John Goodwyn followed
him as mayor.
Several famous persons spent brief times at
Maxwell during the War. One was the popular
musician Glenn Miller, who reported to
Maxwell in November 1942. The next month,
he led the Maxwell Rhythmaires in a
memorable Christmas Eve concert. Miller’s
stay at Maxwell was short as was James
Stewart’s one night there. Clark Gable came
South for several weeks of indoctrination
at Maxwell. General
Dwight D. Eisenhower,
on a postwar inspection
tour of military facilities,
visited Maxwell in April
1947. Obviously he
enjoyed his two-day stay
that included golf,
fishing in the Alabama
River, and attending an
NCO dance.
AFTER THE
WAR
Montgomery men and
women served in every
branch of the military. It
has been difficult to
determine the exact
number of those killed,
wounded and missing,
but Montgomery boys and at least one girl
died in the conflict. Naval pilot Charles Eric
Brannon died during the battle of Midway; his
body was never recovered. Several met the
same fate. Some families had remains brought
home if it were known where they had been
buried. Others chose to leave the bodies in
military cemeteries in foreign countries. Some
never knew exactly what happened to their
loved ones.
One dilemma for postwar Montgomery was
the housing shortage; this had been a pressing
problem during wartime, and though the
bases would have fewer personnel, there would
be many veterans returning. Small framed
houses, reminiscent of Cape Cod cottages
or other vintage styles, were easily and
relatively cheaply built. A number of apartment
buildings, some built for wartime housing,
were now available for the returnees. In the
last years of the ’40s, building continued, with
VA and FHA loans making an impact.
There was hope that Maxwell’s and
Gunter’s roles would be considered vital in
the new world order. Recognizing the need
for officers’ graduate school, and the transfer
of the newly named Army Air Force School
from Orlando, Florida, Maxwell was secure.
On March 12, 1946, the school officially
became the Air University, and on September
3, 1946, it formally opened with great fanfare.
Gunter’s place was unclear, but it was not
on the closure list. It had a “stand-by”
designation as all flight training came to
an end; the French and Chinese students
received transfers to another base. As part of
the Air University, Gunter began a series of
assignments, serving in different capacities
since the end of WWII.
Upon returning home men found
women holding their old jobs. Some
women gladly turned them over to the
fellows, but others were not happy about
being displaced. Returning blacks found the
same segregation patterns that had existed
before they left to offer their lives for
freedom’s cause. The next decade was to be
a source of discontent followed by extreme
challenges and changes. (See Ennels and
Newton’s Wisdom of Eagles and Newton’s
Montgomery in the Good War).
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
50

WOMEN IN THE FORTIES
KOREAN
WAR
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald died in a fire at the
Highland Hospital on March 10, 1948. She
and Scott are both buried in the Rockville
Union Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland.
Kathryn Tucker’s career took her away
from Montgomery before the war was over,
but in her later book Odd Egg Editor, she
told a number of interesting “wartime stories”
she had written as police reporter for the
Alabama Journal. In 1946, she married
Amassa Windham.
Women served gallantly in World War II
in myriad capacities. They were often the
volunteers, the glue that held so much together.
A 1942 Verbena High graduate, Mary Lett,
came to Montgomery seeking a job. Noticing
a sign urging women to apply for mechanics
training at Maxwell, she signed on, joining
a class of married and single women. After
graduation, she went to Gunter as an aircraft
frame mechanic, and with her first check
celebrated with Chris’s hotdogs. In 1944, she
married her hometown boyfriend, Ed Neeley,
an air corps pilot who received flight training
at Maxwell.
Harriett Engelhardt volunteered with the
Red Cross in 1944-45, serving in Europe as
the allies moved against the Germans. In
October 1945 she died in a jeep accident the
day before she was to return home.
Alabama women served in the military in
such organizations as the WAC, WAVES, SPARS,
WASPS, and the Marine Corps Reserves.
THE FIFTIES AND
THE FIGHT FOR RIGHTS
The 1940s presented an international
challenge for the cause of Freedom. The
1950s presented a domestic challenge for
the cause of Freedom—for those peoples
who lived in a society separated by the
laws and practices of segregation as was
Montgomery, Alabama.
Montgomery’s population had increased
significantly from 78,084 in 1940 to 106,525
in 1950. Much of this increase was due to the
“Baby Boom” and to the migration into the
city from rural areas.
Before veterans had time to unpack
their gear, the Korean War began, and
Montgomerians were again called upon to
make sacrifices of time or even their lives.
On June 25, 1950, North Koreans crossed
the thirty-eighth parallel into South Korea.
The United Nations and the United States
moved in on the side of the South Koreans
while Communist China backed North Korea.
Savage fighting back and forth across the
border continued until an armistice was
signed in July 1953. Again, Montgomerians
served in all branches of service.
THE POLITICAL SCENE
For generations, Montgomery’s political
leadership had come from the southern
neighborhoods. However, in the postwar world
the northeastern side of town’s growth, stemming
from many newcomers finding practical housing
in its older and newly developing suburbs, was
not going unnoticed in political circles. These
areas also were supporting up-and-coming
centers of shopping, churches and places of
entertainment. The school board was realizing
the need for new schools, and eager political
aspirants were envisioning opportunities for
moving into the realm of municipal
government. Many newcomers were
white, changing the racial balance to
60 percent white and 40 percent
black. This ratio was to determine
many factors in the coming years.
Returning black veterans
hoped to find a welcoming reception,
even an easing in segregation,
and there were moves afoot
that seemed promising. One theory
on historical movements and
revolutions is that they generally
occur as reforms have either been
inaugurated or are seriously
under consideration. This seemed
to be the case in the late 1940s
and early ’50s in Montgomery as
many institutional and cultural
activities formerly closed to
blacks came within their reach.
Above: W. A. “Tacky” Gayle was mayor
during the turbulent mid-fifties.
Below: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was
minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
during the Bus Boycott. This picture is from
1978 when the congregation had restored
the church to its original appearance.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER IV
51

BLACK
PROGRESS
Professor J. Mills Thornton in his definitive
work on the Civil Rights Movement in three
Alabama cities, Dividing Lines, described the
black advances from the late 1930s to 1954.
He points out the divisions within the black
community while outlining the changes
occurring within the white population as the
old paternalistic, upper middle class sector of
society was losing its long-held political clout to
the new demographic and geographic patterns
in the expanding city. Significant strides for
improving the lives and status of black citizens
were taking place within this frame.
Education of blacks made progress with
the opening in 1946 of Booker T. Washington
High School followed in 1949 by George
Washington Carver High. St. Jude, a private
school, moved into its new building in 1948,
serving 7th through 12th grades. That same
year branches of the YMCA and the public
library opened, the latter in the Federated
Women’s Community House on Jackson Street.
Voter registration was increasing slowly
especially with new legislation requiring
applicants to answer questions on the U.S.
Constitution. On the other hand, the Supreme
Court’s declaring white primaries unconstitutional
was a positive note. The organization of
the Women’s Political Council added another
voice to the chorus urging political action.
Through the early 1950s there were other
encouraging moves, including the integration
of the military, the election to the City
Council of moderate Dave Birmingham, the
hiring of black policemen, and the addition of
two black players to the Rebels baseball team.
The founding of St. Jude’s hospital, permitting
black surgeons to operate in the city, and the
hiring of other medical professionals, opened
doors previously closed.
THE POPULATION
OF MONTGOMERY,
1940-1950
1940 78,094
1950 106,525
THE MAYORS
OF MONTGOMERY,
1940-1971
W. A. Gunter 1940
(Gunter died December 4, 1940)
Cyrus B. Brown December 1940-1944
David E. Dunn 1944-1946
John L. Goodwyn 1946-1951
W. A. (Tacky) Gayle 1951-1959
Earl D. James 1959-1971
The opening of the Ben Moore Hotel was a
big step forward for black business interests,
but the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown
vs. The Board of Education was the real
breakthrough in most minds during the
summer of 1954. With the Brown decision.
the local NAACP petitioned the Montgomery
Board of Education for an integration plan as
schools opened in September 1954.
However, there was a struggle on the
horizon that would bring together black
adversaries, white liberals, and hesitant, but
open-minded whites, pitted against an oldguard
municipal order and a segregated
community ranging from radical Ku Klux
members, institutions whose members defied
change, middle of the road segregationists, and
those who emphatically opposed integration.
THE BLACK COMMUNITY
Within the black community there were the
east and the west sides of town. East side
centered on the Centennial Hill area with the
corner of Jackson and High Street as its nucleus.
This important neighborhood originated in the
post-Civil War city with a few members of the
newly freed population who had resources,
education, and friendship with leaders of the
white community working together to create a
place for aspiring blacks to live and work. It was
from this community that the support for
bringing the Normal School from Marion to
Montgomery received its support. The success
of this venture extended the physical territory
of Centennial Hill, its population of educated
blacks, its influence among its own people and
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
52

the white community. One of its leaders in
the 1940s and ’50s was Rufus Lewis, a Fisk
University graduate who came to Montgomery
as Alabama State’s football coach. In 1946 he
became head administrator for a black veterans’
job training program, and used the opportunity
to encourage voter registration.
The forbears of the west side were from
plantations to the south and west of
Montgomery who established a community
that was, to a large extent, working folk
but with a mix of the more educated and
influential. A proud group, it was in this area
that people such as E. D. Nixon lived. Born
in Lowndes County, he had little education,
but his work as a Pullman porter put him
in contact with J. Phillip Randolph’s methods
in establishing the Brotherhood of Sleeping
Car Porters. Nixon modeled much of his own
efforts for bettering life for black Americans on
Randolph’s patterns. In the 1940s he became
president of the local NAACP and for a brief
period was state president. In 1952 he became
president of the Progressive Democrats
Association in Montgomery. His was the voice
of west Montgomery. Dr. Richard Bailey in his
book, They Too Call Alabama Home stated:
“Other than Rosa M. Parks, the person most
responsible for the Montgomery Bus Boycott
and ushering in the modern civil rights
movement was E. D. Nixon”
BUS
BOYCOTT
Rosa Parks was aware of all of this on
December 1, 1955, when she sat still in
defiance of an order by the driver to give
up her seat to a white. Parks was not the first
black woman to have trouble with bus drivers
about seating, There had been disputes
through the years, but, encouraged by the
Brown decision, there were renewals of
the effort. In March 1955, fifteen-year-old
Claudette Colvin refused the driver’s orders
and was arrested as were, at other times,
Mary Louise Smith and Aurelia Browder. The
idea of a boycott had been discussed with
these arrests, but none was the candidate to
Above: The home of E. D. Nixon suffered
damage from bombings.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: A taxi rounds the Court Square
Fountain in 1950s.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
The serious issue was the continuing
problems of seating on city buses. The
arrangement in 1955 was confusing, going
back to City Council ordinances after the
1901-02 trolley boycott, the 1906 trolley
strike, and more recent bus-related ones. In
1955, the plan generally followed was that
the ten front seats were for whites, a middle
section was under the supervision of the driver
and could be for both races unless there were
no seats available for boarding whites. In that
situation, the driver then could order any
black in the middle section to get up and give
the white a seat. The last ten seats were for
blacks. There were numerous reports of rude,
abusive bus drivers, taken note of by whites
such as Juliette Morgan, a frequent rider.
CHAPTER IV
53

withstand what might follow. After Mrs. Park’s
arrest and trip to police headquarters, she
called E. D. Nixon for whom she had worked
as a secretary of NAACP. Nixon contacted
Clifford Durr and his wife, Virginia, to meet
him at headquarters. Durr, an attorney and
Montgomery native, and his wife, also an
Alabamian, were among the white liberals
who worked alongside blacks on various
issues. The Durrs had spent twenty years in
Washington where he worked for the Federal
Communications Commission and she as a
volunteer for liberal causes.
Nixon and the Durrs had Parks released
with a trial date of December 5. Parks agreed
to be the trial case, and Nixon began calling
black leaders, including Alabama State
English professor Jo Ann Robinson, president
of the Women’s Political Council. She rallied
her WPC co-members who agreed that now
was the time to boycott. Robinson wrote
out the call, ran the notices on the college
mimeograph and with the help of two
students cut and bundled what, according to
her memoir, The Montgomery Bus Boycott
and the Women Who Started It, were 52,500
pieces stating the situation and the plans.
These were delivered to black churches,
individuals, businesses and neighborhoods.
The word spread that on Monday, December
5, Mrs. Parks’ municipal court day, no
black would ride the buses. The newspapers,
radio and television stations, WSFA and
WCOV, alerted blacks and whites of the
one-day boycott.
Sunday afternoon, December 4, black
ministers met with others to organize and
choose a leader for the upcoming boycott.
These elected a young newcomer to the city,
Dr. Martin Luther King, minister of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church, to head the new
Montgomery Improvement Association, the
MIA. King accepted somewhat reluctantly.
The group also decided to have a follow-up
meeting to the boycott on the night of
December 5 at the Holt Street Baptist Church.
With notices to black car owners, drivers,
and black taxis to help transport workers to
jobs and assist in any way possible, blacks
awaited Monday with anticipation, fear and
courage. The city assigned two policemen to
trail buses picking up in majority black
neighborhoods, while officials, too, awaited
the day with heightened concerns.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
54

Amazingly, the boycott was a rousing
success, and the night’s meeting, attracting an
estimated five thousand, was an outpouring of
support for continuing it until the city and
black leaders could come to terms on better
treatment for black passengers. The plan
called for revised seating and black bus drivers
for routes through black neighborhoods.
As the boycott wore on, organized car pools
with a main station on the corner of Monroe
and McDonough Streets, carried people to
work, white employers picked up their
employees, and white and black volunteers
assisted with car pooling or contributed funds.
Hundreds of people walked.
Differences on solving the problems
continued even though there were
meetings between blacks, white supporters,
intermediaries, and city officials. White
resistance hardened and White Citizen
Councils attracted both moderate and
hard-nosed anti-integrationists. In January,
violence erupted when the Ku Klux Klan
bombed King’s Jackson Street house.
Although King was not at home and no one
was hurt, an angry black crowd gathered.
Upon King’s arrival his talk to the throng on
his doorstep stressing non-violence calmed
and dispersed the group. Around the city,
leaders received threats, and bombs damaged
churches and Nixon’s home.
In February, Fred Gray, a young black
attorney, filed a suit, Browder vs. Gayle, in
federal court for an end to segregation on
public transportation in the city and state.
Four women who had been arrested or
mistreated on the bus were the plaintiffs, the
mayor of Montgomery, W. A. “Tacky” Gayle
was the defendant. In late 1956, The Supreme
Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, declaring
the laws governing segregation on public
transportation were unconstitutional. As Burt
Rieff so succinctly stated in his essay “Browder
V. Gayle” in the July 1988 Alabama Review:
“The Supreme Court decision gave legal
approval to the dismantling of racial barriers
but did not solve the problems of racism.”
Twice in 1957, Klansmen bombed the
home of the Reverend Robert Graetz, the
white minister of the black Lutheran Trinity
Church on Cleveland Avenue. Bombs also
damaged the home and church of Ralph
Abernathy, King’s right-hand man and minister
of Ripley Street’s First Baptist Church.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott gave rise to
other moves against segregation and has been
declared the beginning of the Civil Rights
Movement of the twentieth century. True in
that it gained more publicity because of
the numbers involved, their sacrifices and
hardships, but the multitude of other efforts
for civil rights made over time cannot be
forgotten. The Civil War was, as it turned out,
Opposite, top: Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and family lived in the Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church Parsonage from 1954
to 1960.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Opposite, middle: Rosa Parks waited at
Court Square bus stop.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
Opposite, bottom: Rosa Parks and Mrs.
Johnnie Carr ride city bus after 1956
Supreme Court ruling.
COURTESY OF: NEWSOUTH BOOKS.
Above: Trinity Lutheran Church was
bombed during the Bus Boycott.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Left: Reverend Bob Graetz and Martin
Luther King, Jr., discuss the bombing of
Trinity Lutheran Church.
COURTESY OF: NEWSOUTH BOOKS.
CHAPTER IV
55

Above: It is a quiet Sunday morning on
Dexter Avenue in the 1950s.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
Below: Much of life centered around Monroe
Street in the 1940s and ’50s.
PHOTO BY DAVE SAVLAR. COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Bottom, right: Todd’s Gun Store is one of
Montgomery’s oldest, continuously
operated businesses.
COURTESY OF THE COLLIER COLLECTION.
in the opinion of some, the first modern
movement in the search for human rights.
The Bus Boycott spurred moves toward
human rights in many cultures and are
ongoing into the twenty-first century.
GROWTH
CONTINUES
As boycott problems absorbed the center city,
the growing suburbs were attracting new families
and those who saw opportunities and perhaps
a more secure existence away from the angst
of racial difficulties. Extending residential
Montgomery south and east, new suburbs
centered around the Atlanta Highway. These
included Eastbrook, and Forest Hills, with their
commercial shopping areas, and an expanding
Dalraida. The Southern Bypass, under
development as a segment of a ring around the
city, also spawned new residential and
commercial districts south along Woodley and
Narrow Lane Roads. Extending southward and
eastward from Cloverdale, McGehee Estates,
Myrtlewood, and older Allendale attracted the
more affluent. Colonial Acres had both expensive
and more modest houses which appealed to
many who were buying their first homes. The
people of these new residential quarters were
white in this time when segregated housing had
not been seriously challenged.
An exciting new shopping center,
Normandale, opened in the fall of 1954 with
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
56

great celebration in the midst of an expanding
suburb of homes designed to offer housing,
moderately priced and well designed.
Downtown merchants watched with trepidation
as this was the first major challenge to its retail
market since the city’s birth. Some, such as
A. Nachman, a popular women’s apparel shop,
and the Francis Cafeteria, a downtown
favorite, opened branches in the shopping
mecca. From Birmingham came Loveman’s,
a fine department store whose Christmas
displays and Santa Claus, enthroned in a large
show window, brought families from afar into
Montgomery for holiday shopping.
Black customers were, of course, welcomed
in stores and shops but not in white eating
establishments. The downtown movies and
the newer suburban theaters like Clover on
Fairview and Highland (State) on Highland
Avenue were still white. The Pekin, the Carver
on Holt Street, and the Ritz on Coosa Street
were black. Monroe Street was still the
meeting place for the black population with
its special, syncopated ambience.
Scattered throughout the black neighborhoods
were commercial areas such as those
along West Jeff Davis Avenue where a number
of influential black families lived. Cleveland
Avenue from Fairview north was home to
such professionals as Alabama State professors
Dr. Zelia Evans and her husband, Dr. and
Mrs. Alfred Nixon, and other prominent individuals.
Rosa Parks, her husband, and mother
lived in Cleveland Courts. On Holt Street
were the Holt Street Baptist Church and
Mt. Zion AME Zion Church. Businesses and
residences were intermingled as they were
along Day Street and other thoroughfares.
On the east side was Centennial Hill sporting
the new Ben Moore Hotel at Jackson and High,
and north on Jackson Street the family home
of Richard Harris, a Tuskegee Airman during
WWII, a druggist on Monroe Street, and a
major player as the dispatcher for the boycott
carpool. A close neighbor in the 1950s was the
M. L. King family in the parsonage of his
church. The homes of Coach Rufus Lewis and
Georgia Gilmore, famous for her kitchen, were
on Dericote Street. On Jackson, south of High,
were homes of professionals including Dr. Willis
Wood, a dentist, churches, and the entrance to
Alabama State College.
Under construction before the end of
the decade were the Victor Tulane Courts, a
housing project stretching east and west of Hall
Street. Further south along Hall was the home
of Mrs. Johnny Carr, a future president of the
MIA who filed the lawsuit for the integration
of public schools. Close by was the St. Paul
AME Church to which Rosa Parks belonged.
Bel-Aire, a substantial black residential
neighborhood along the southern reaches of
Hall Street, dated from the early 1900s. On
St. John’s Street in 1919 the future Nat “King”
Cole was born, but he did not grow up in
Montgomery as his parents moved to Chicago
when he was about two. Also on Hall Street
was the favorite ASC hang-out, Gordon’s Patio.
Gordon’s Patio was a favorite hang-out for
Alabama State students.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER IV
57

Oakwood Annex is the site of
Hank Williams’ grave.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
SHIFTING
POLITICAL POWER
The first break in the old machine’s power
within Montgomery was the 1947 election to
the City Commission of Earl James, a coach at
Capitol Heights Junior High, defeating General
W. P. Screws who served from 1931. Although
James resigned in 1953, he reappeared as a
mayoral candidate in 1958. Dave Birmingham
in 1953 defeated old-guard candidate Joe
Dawkins. Birmingham assured blacks of
his support for hiring black policeman.
Throughout the next municipal elections, there
were ups and downs, but in the long run, it
was the east side which won more than the
south. Tacky Gayle was re-elected in 1955, but
the small black vote was gaining influence,
as were those of less affluent whites. It was
evident that the two new elements, if working
in tandem, could become a power within
city politics, but there was great irony if
one examined the social aspects closely.
(Dr. Thornton’s Dividing Lines provides succinct
and detailed information on the era. See Endnotes
for other sources that are extremely useful
and informative for understanding the times).
HANK
WILLIAMS’ DEATH
Even during these shifting social and
political scenes, the town and nation had
moments of deep sadness when the star of
country music, Hank Williams, died just
before New Years in 1953. His funeral at
Montgomery’s City Hall auditorium was
reputedly the largest gathering of people the
city had seen up to that time. His musical legacy
lives on, and his grave in Oakwood Annex
Cemetery is the most visited in Montgomery.
WOMEN IN THE FIFTIES
Rosa Parks was a giant of the Civil Rights
Movement. As the turmoil continued after the
Boycott, she and her husband moved to Detroit
in 1957 where she worked in Congressman
John Conyer’s office and continued her Civil
Rights efforts. Parks’ friend Jo Ann Robinson,
president of the Women’s Political Council in
1955, resigned her position with Alabama
State University in 1960, as the state’s pressure
mounted on the school, and left Montgomery.
Juliette Hampton Morgan, a native
Montgomerian, spoke out against the abusive
treatment many blacks received at the hands
of bus drivers, witnessed as she rode the bus
to work at the Montgomery Public Library in
the early 1950s. Juliette’s letter writing and
association with liberal movements placed
extreme pressure on her from conservative
circles, including the Ku Klux Klan. In
despair, she resigned her job and took her
own life in 1957.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
58

C HAPTER
AFTERMATH OF THE ’50S AND
THE STRIDENT ’60S
V
The 1950s and its issues remained well into the Sixties. In addition to these, ironically, the
nation and city were also looking back one hundred years to the start of the Civil War. For the
next four years there would be various observances of events, especially in the South.
An aerial view of downtown Montgomery
in 1963.
AFTERMATH OF THE BUS BOYCOTT
The violence that followed the end of the Boycott, the Klan’s bombing of homes and churches,
and their killing of an innocent black truck driver by forcing him to jump off a bridge, had
brought about denunciation of the perpetrators by moderate businessmen, concerned citizens
and the local papers. The Men of Montgomery, who had tried to mediate between the authorities
and the boycotters, spoke out in a newspaper ad calling for the cessation of violence. A vigorous
police investigation led to the arrest of Klan members, two of whom were put on trial. Even
though there was evidence of their guilt, including written confessions, both were found innocent
by what must have been, indeed, “a jury of their peers.” The state then dropped charges against
others for the same crimes, and those arrested under the anti-boycott law. Dr. King, already
convicted under the same law and having been turned down by the State Court of Appeals, paid
his fine and agreed to not take his case further.
CHAPTER V
59

The home of Civil Rights activist
Rufus Lewis was on Dericote Street.
Professor Thornton stated in Dividing Lines
(pp. 96-97) on Montgomery’s situation at these
turn of events:
The events surrounding the bombings and
the trial and acquittal of the first two men
indicted for them had the effect of completely
silencing moderate white opinion in
Montgomery. It was not to be heard again for
four years. During the years from 1957 to
1961, the city slipped into a surreal dimension
in which only extremist views were publicly
voiced among whites, and any hint of deviation
from white supremacist orthodoxy would
incur both active harassment and social
ostracism. As the expression of moderate white
opinion disappeared, the apparent uniformity
of segregationist convictions encouraged the
peculiar notion among segregationist true
believers that they were winning—and winning
because they were succeeding in preventing
any cracks forming in the solid white phalanx.
The White Citizen Council’s activities were
clearly aimed at stilling any opposition to its
dictates, and extremist actions moved in
many circles. There was publication in the
Montgomery Home News, edited by a supposed
Klansman, of the names of white women
who met with their black counterparts for
prayer and fellowship through the Boycott
and beyond. This was a direct aim at
them individually and at their husbands’
businesses. There was a call for a boycott of
the Pepsi Cola Company for hiring black
drivers before white drivers which caused the
company to drop the hiring practice. The
state’s librarian, Emily W. Reed, resigned and
left the state after harassment for circulation
of the children’s book, The Rabbits’ Wedding,
and for the distribution of a list of books that
included King’s Stride for Freedom. These few
examples represent many extreme measures
taken to silence and intimidate moderates.
The ranks of the MIA were also troubled
over dissension within their organization
E. D. Nixon, long-time treasurer, disturbed
about practices and distribution of funds,
resigned and with this, the influence of
the west Montgomery blacks declined. Rufus
Lewis worked tirelessly on black voter
registration, but, perhaps for fear of
retribution, there was little progress as
individuals shied from actually signing up.
CLOSING OF CITY PARKS
The City closed all thirteen city parks in
December 1957 in reaction to the continuing
pressure exerted by the MIA to gain a seat for
blacks on the parks’ board and for the opening
of the venues to blacks. Earlier, Mark Gilmore,
son of activist Georgia Gilmore, had been
arrested for crossing Oak Park on his way
to work, and the subsequent case against
the City had been part of the trigger for
integration. These actions resulted in Federal
Judge Frank Johnson’s issuing a permanent
injunction against the segregating of public
parks, but he could not force Montgomery for
their reopening. It was not until February 25,
1965, that the public could again enter them.
King faced opposition amidst accusations of
mishandling of MIA funds, Based on this information,
Alabama indicted him for tax evasion.
After the parks’ disappointment, the MIA
leader announced that the organization’s next
action would be to register black children
under the provisions of the new Alabama
Public Placement Act, and if they were
not allowed to enter school, the MIA would
file suit charging discrimination. The Act
had been declared constitutional unless used
to discriminate on a school application.
Incoming Governor John Patterson, in his
inaugural address in January 1959, stated he
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
60

would order Montgomery schools closed
before he would submit to their integration.
The Klan’s grand dragon, Robert Shelton,
stated his group would resort to violence to
stop integration.
It was against this background that the
private Montgomery Academy opened in
September 1959 and St. James, a Methodist
school of kindergarten through second grade,
announced it would expand to include the
third through sixth grades.
RESIGNATION OF KING
With black teachers concerned over threats
to close public schools, their loss of jobs,
and no education for black children, Dr. King
had another problem to add to those already
on his table. Realizing that perhaps it was
time to go, in November 1959 he announced
his resignation as minister of Dexter Avenue
Baptist Church and turned over his duties
with the MIA to his friend and second-incommand,
Dr. Ralph Abernathy, Both of these
were to take effect January 1, 1960.
EAST SIDE VICTORY
A municipal election in September 1959
pitted the east side against the south with the
return of Earl James as a challenger for the
office of mayor. Tacky Gayle, the incumbent,
John Crommelin with his anti-black, anti-
Jewish, and anti-Communist stance, and Dave
Birmingham were all in the mayoral race.
Clyde Sellers and L. B. Sullivan were vying
for a commission seat. Sullivan and James
won, ironically, with the help of the small, but
significant, black vote. Thus the ’60s really
began with an eastside administration in City
Hall for Frank Parks, too, was from that area.
The old “machine” was truly a thing of the past
STUDENT
UNREST
Segregationists might have felt the enemy
had retreated from the field, but this was not
the case. A February sit-in by Alabama State
students in the basement lunch room of the
county court house ushered in a new attempt
to test the laws. Governor John Patterson,
who had won election on a strong
anti-integrationist platform, ordered them
expelled; this just challenged the students to
other measures. The dangers of mounting
tensions were apparent as further intimidation
and arrests followed a variety of protests.
Students’ unrest and boycotting of classes
at Alabama State led Patterson and state
authorities to focus on the college, calling
for the firing of faculty members including
Jo Ann Robinson and historian Lawrence D.
Reddick. Finally, they forced Alabama State’s
president, H. Councill Trenholm, from the
position he had held since 1925.
The jury in Dr. King’s trial for evasion
of Alabama income tax found him innocent
of all charges. This was a setback for
the segregationists who had hoped for a
different decision.
The City closed Oak Park in 1957 when
faced by activists’ efforts to integrate.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
CHAPTER V
61

A mob attacked Freedom Riders when
they arrived at Montgomery’s Greyhound
Bus Station, flanked here by the U.S.
Federal Courthouse and its recent additions.
COURTESY OF MARY ELLEN NEELEY.
For a brief few days, Montgomerians, in
1961, put Civil Rights issues aside as
Alabamians became involved in international
affairs. The Bay of Pigs failure to upset
Fidel Castro and his new Cuban government
occurred in April 1961 with Alabama
National Guardsmen providing support to
Cuban expatriots in their attempt to overthrow
Castro; four Alabamians were killed
during this mission.
FREEDOM
RIDES
In May 1961 a group of Freedom Riders
arrived in Montgomery after a journey from
Nashville, Tennessee. The mission of a similar
group of young blacks and whites, under the
auspices of CORE, The Congress for Racial
Equality, was to test the laws regarding
the integration of transportation and its
associated facilities. Two groups would travel
from Washington to New Orleans, to see if
the law was being implemented in the Deep
South. A group from Washington suffered
injury from a mob near Anniston and another
in Birmingham found an angry crowd which
attacked as police stood idly by. These two
groups flew on to New Orleans on the orders
of the federal government.
The Nashville group, organized by John
Lewis, a native of Pike County, Alabama,
independent of the others but determined to
carry on the test, arrived in Montgomery on
May 20 after having been escorted by highway
troopers from Birmingham, under orders by
Governor Patterson, to the Montgomery city
limits. Montgomery’s police commissioner
had assured Patterson and his highway patrol
director, Floyd Mann, that Montgomery
police would protect the bus. Yet, when it
pulled into the Greyhound station, an
assembled mob launched an attack. No police
were on hand initially, and when they arrived
did nothing to stop the violence against
the students and Robert Kennedy’s deputy,
John Seigenthaler. Fortunately, Floyd Mann,
arrived, and began trying to stop the
savage beatings by klansmen as he called
the highway patrol to the rescue. It, the
sheriff’s mounted posse, and, eventually, the
Montgomery police dispersed the attackers.
The local white ambulance company refused
to take the wounded to the hospital, claiming
their vehicles were out of order. The black
ambulance company took the seriously
injured to St. Jude’s Hospital. To further quell
the chaos, President John Kennedy ordered
four hundred U.S. marshals to Montgomery.
The next afternoon, Sunday May 21, Dr.
King came from Atlanta to speak at Ralph
Abernathy’s First Baptist Church. A mob soon
gathered, composed at first mostly of teenagers,
who were throwing rocks and attacking
cars, including that of English writer Jessica
Mitford. The newly arrived marshals formed
a cordon around the building, protecting
the many people inside. Once again, the
Montgomery police failed to handle the situation.
However, as the violence increased,
Byron White, head of the marshals, notified
the Kennedys that they were losing control
even though using tear gas.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
62

Meanwhile, inside the church, King had
also called the Kennedys, expressing grave
concern about the outcome of the evening.
Finally, Patterson declared martial law in
Montgomery and ordered out the National
Guard who arrived and began restoring order.
Elements of the mob continued their destructiveness
through the church’s neighborhood.
At dawn the thousand people penned inside
were able to leave. Seventeen rioters were
arrested. May 20 and 21, 1961, were not the
Capitol City’s finest hours. The Kennedys had
found themselves in a delicate situation as
John Patterson had been an early supporter,
and they initially had not wanted to put him
in a politically harmful position. However,
because of the violence they felt it necessary
to avert further harm.
Sometimes the circumstances that seem the
worst possible can lead to a change. Such was
the Freedom Riders visit to Montgomery. On
the night of their arrival and the ensuing riot,
industrialist Winton Blount called together a
group of business and professional men and,
with Chamber of Commerce President Edgar
Stuart, urged that they unite in their
condemnation of violence and the inaction of
local law enforcement. Although there were
those who argued that the Freedom Riders’
intention in coming was to disrupt the
community, almost all accepted and signed a
compromise statement.
PROGRESS, CRISIS,
TRAGEDY
After the second riot at the church on
Sunday, the Chamber of Commerce, Rotary
and Kiwanis clubs accepted and signed the
statement. The tables were beginning to turn
as the white and black ministerial associations
and other influential community groups
joined in the proposal that Montgomery must
move away from the image that it had
achieved in the last few years when the voices
of moderation had been silent.
Within the black community there was a
change of MIA leadership when Abernathy left
Montgomery for Atlanta and Solomon Seay,
Sr., became its new president. Seay’s approach
to issues was more restrained with a focus on
working out the differences between the races.
In the next few years, strides were made in
the integration of local institutions such as the
museum and the library, although there were
no tables and chairs in the library so that
there would be no mixed-race sitting. Black
policeman were again on duty and black bus
drivers were on board.
In October 1962, Montgomerians realized
once again that international affairs could be
quite close to home when the Cuban Missile
Crisis broke upon the world. Montgomery
with SAGE, an early warning system in a
blockhouse on Gunter, could be a target.
During the few days of extreme nervousness,
an Alabama native piloted one of the naval
aircraft sent out from Jacksonville, Florida, to
Left: In May 1961 a violent mob kept
people from attending a meeting at the First
Baptist Church on Ripley Street hostage
until Governor Patterson declared martial
law and sent in the National Guard.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Pictured here as a cadet, Lt. Wallace
Neeley flew a PV2 Neptune over Atlantic
waters off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida,
during Cuban Missile Crisis. His orders
were to watch the Russian ships heading
toward Cuba with reinforcements. Had
the ships not turned around, they were to
be attacked. At the time, his wife, Joyce,
was giving birth to their first child in the
base hospital.
COURTESY OF NEELEY COLLECTION.
CHAPTER V
63

Above: The U.S. government issued
booklets explaining what to do in case of a
missile attack.
COURTESY OF THE WILBANKS COLLECTION.
Below: George Wallace, in his
inaugural address, proclaimed,
“Segregation Now, Segregation Tomorrow,
Segregation Forever!”
COURTESY OF THE FOUTS COLLECTION.
observe the Russian ships moving toward
Cuba. The world waited and then rejoiced
as the vessels turned around as their leaders
had promised.
In January 1963, in his first inaugural
address, George Wallace emphatically
proclaimed: “Segregation Today, Segregation
Tomorrow, Segregation Forever.” Segregationists
had to have been delighted.
John Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas on
November 22, 1963, was the first in the
1960s. Although some Montgomerians had
issues with the president, the town grieved
with the nation and the world over the
untimely death of this man.
In 1964 the MIA moved on school
integration, retaining attorney Fred Gray who
filed for Mrs. Johnny Carr on behalf of her
son Arlam. The court ruled in the Carrs’ favor,
declaring that the Montgomery County
Board of Education was operating a dual
school system in defiance of the Brown
decision that had declared segregation in
public schools unconstitutional. This led to
the gradual integration of the schools in
Montgomery County.
It was after Birmingham’s strident
efforts for integration that King received
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The next
year, the Selma-Montgomery Voting Rights
March brought new attention to Civil Rights
in Montgomery.
Voter registration in the Black Belt counties
of Dallas, Lowndes, and Marion was running
into difficulties with resistance from registrars
whom the black civil rights organization,
the Dallas County Voters League, believed
were discriminatory and invited the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference to join
them in demonstrating against the Board
of Registrars. Beginning on January 18, 1965,
they soon created tension throughout the
community. In response to law suits, U.S.
Judge Daniel Thomas had detailed the rules
the registrars had to use. Put into practice,
these discouraged demonstrations in Dallas
County. The focus of the action then turned to
the nearby counties.
The SCLC had begun demonstrations on
February 1 in Marion, Perry County’s seat, and
continued until February 18 when violent
riots erupted. During these state trooper
J. Bonard Fowler, shot Jimmy Lee Jackson who
died later from his wounds. Others were also
injured. Fowler said he shot in self-defense
and was not indicted for the murder at that
time. However, in 2010, forty-five years later,
he pled guilty to second-degree manslaughter
and received a six-month sentence.
SELMA TO
MONTGOMERY MARCH
With the murder, SCLC and the Student
for Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) called for a march from Selma to
Montgomery. Forbidden by Governor George
Wallace to march, activists defied the order
and on March 7 moved onto Selma’s Edmund
Pettus bridge and met a large contingent
of ninety highway patrolmen, police, and
deputies who stopped them with tear gas and
beat them back across the bridge. A large
number of marchers were hospitalized. King
then led twenty-five hundred onto the bridge
but did not go further than the previous
ones because of a restraining order on the
demonstrators issued by U.S Judge Frank
Johnson while he studied a petition filed in
his court forbidding Wallace to interfere with
the protests. An attack on white ministers
who had come to participate in the march
resulted in one of the group’s death. Three
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
64

adicals were charged but later were found
innocent in a December trial.
On March 17, Judge Johnson gave
permission for the march. On March 21, King
led 8,000 demonstrators across the bridge
under the eyes of 2,000 National Guard
troops and U.S. marshals. Not all walked
the entire way. On the night of March 24, the
marchers reached Montgomery and spent the
evenings on the grounds of St. Jude campus
where well-known stars provided music and
entertainment. On the morning of March 25,
the estimated crowd of twenty-five thousand
moved into Montgomery and up to the
Alabama Capitol where they were not allowed
to set foot on state property. Dr. King made
his famous speech from the back of a truck
parked at the bottom of the steps.
The march itself was relatively peaceful,
but along Highway 80 in Lowndes County,
klansmen killed Viola Liuzzo, a volunteer
THE MAYORS
OF MONTGOMERY,
1955-2009
Earl D. James 1959-1971
Jim Robinson 1971-1977
Emory Folmar 1977-1999
Bobby Bright 1999-2009
Todd Strange 2009-
from Detroit, as she drove tired march
participants back to Selma.
When their trial began in the antebellum
Lowndes County Courthouse, the square outside
was bustling with activity and food booths,
as though it were a fair day. The jury found the
klansmen innocent. A federal court later convicted
them of depriving Mrs. Liuzzo of her civil
rights to life. They received ten-year sentences.
In July, the U.S. Congress passed the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 that removed
literacy test requirements for registration to
vote. Federal authorities presided over Selma’s
voting procedures for a period of time.
For more detailed information on the Civil
Rights issues, please refer to Professor J. Mills
Thornton’s book, Dividing Lines, published
in 2002 by the University of Alabama Press,
from which much of the above information is
taken (pp. 98-140, 478-583). Other sources
are in the Endnotes.
INTERSTATES I-65 & I -85
Meantime, there were other things happening
in the community. On June 30, 1956,
President Dwight D. Eisenhower had signed
the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956
designed for the development of the interstate
highways system. I-85 and I-65 were to
have profound effects on the landscape of
Montgomery as I-85 bisected the community
from east to west, and I-65 did the same
Mrs. Johnnie Carr and her family lived on
Hall Street when she filed for school
integration on behalf of her son, Arlam.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER V
65

was a factor in its collapse. This story would
be repeated at a later date in regard to the
Montgomery Mall. Urban renewal’s role was to
reinvigorate inner city life. Sadly that was not
to be the case as merchants either moved to the
malls entirely or temporarily worked to sustain
both their downtown and mall locations.
The Chamber of Commerce remained
downtown, joined by a group dedicated to
retaining the old atmosphere and spirit,
Downtown Unlimited. Although the original
organization lost its steam, a new one is
engaged in the renewed downtown of 2011.
THE LATER SIXTIES
Above: The Key House, on Lawrence Street,
was a casualty of I-85.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES
AND HISTORY.
Below: The Chamber of Commerce remains
downtown in its restored 1916 building,
but later lost its two nineteenthcentury
neighbors.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
from north to south. By the mid-1960s the
interstates had plowed through, leaving
former residential neighborhoods devastated
in their wakes.
URBAN
RENEWAL
“Urban Renewal,” which got underway
about 1965, also had a devastating effect on
Montgomery’s center city. Strip malls and
Normandale, a major suburban mall, and a
smaller one, Eastbrook, were taking their tolls
on the downtown retail scene while another
large shopping arena, the Montgomery Mall,
was in its initial stages. The latter would
eventually take away Normandale’s luster and
On February 1967, a tragic fire in the
popular Dale’s Penthouse, located on the top
of the Walter-Bragg Smith Apartments on the
corner of Clayton and Court Streets, killed
26 patrons and workers among the 100 or so
people there. A worker, Jessie Williams, was
the hero of the evening as he managed to lead
two elevators of people from the conflagration
to safety. The fire caused the City to reassess
its fire codes and other measures to hopefully
prevent another such disaster.
Later, in the summer of the same year,
there was another major fire, this time on the
south side of the first block of Dexter Avenue.
Two historic antebellum buildings and a
portion of another left a large hole in the
landscape that was closed with new buildings
and a repair to the third.
The next year, beginning on April 4, 1968,
three tragedies occurred within two months,
causing people to recall the old adage that
things happen in threes.
Leading this tragic trio of events was the
assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King on
April 4, 1968. He was in Memphis in support
of sanitation workers on strike because of
discrimination on the job. Following his
death, rioting broke out in many parts of the
country. Montgomery, where many were in
deep mourning, did not react so violently.
The second was the death of Alabama’s
Governor Lurleen Wallace. Unable to run for
a second term under the laws of Alabama,
George Wallace had encouraged his wife,
Lurleen, to succeed him. Already suffering
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
66

from cancer, but eager to do George’s will,
Lurleen ran and won; her inauguration was in
January 1967. She died May 7, 1968.
After midnight on June 5, 1968, Robert
Kennedy having won the California Democratic
primary nomination in preparation for a
presidential run, had just finished speaking.
He was walking towards a press conference
through the kitchen when Sirhan Sirhan, a
Palestinian immigrant, shot him in the head.
He lived for twenty-six hours before dying
from the wound.
In 1969, as though to exit the 1960s on a
more positive note, the United States won the
space race to the moon when Neil Armstrong
set foot on the lunar surface on July 21, 1969.
PRESERVATION
Although the Preservation Movement
really began in the 1960s, it continues up to
the present time
While the interstates ravaged older
residential areas of Montgomery, urban
renewal disrupted the center city; both took
down antebellum buildings from as early as
the founding days of the town. The scenes
and airs from the early 1960s and into the
’70s were heavy and colorful with the dust of
upheaval—rich red clay, black belt sooty soil,
yellow pine splinters still oozing with resin,
lime-cement gray, shades of red, pink, and
creamy brick shards, hints of shutter and
louver green and asphalt blue and black.
As Interstate 85 made its ruthless way
westward through former cotton lands and
pastures, rural homesteads, dogtrot and shotgun
houses, antebellum cottages, smokehouses,
barns, and even a log cabin or two, it reached
the eastern outskirts of Montgomery.
The transgressor’s path now lay through
older neighborhoods where, practicing no
discrimination, it tore through homes of
blacks and whites, large and small, loved and
unloved—on its way to join Interstate 65, a
fellow perpetrator of destruction moving
southward through west Montgomery. This
was not just happening in Montgomery,
Alabama, for it was happening across the
nation. The roads cared not. They were
Progress. Of course, we have all utilized and
found them of value since.
There were tears, entreaties, and some
disgusted cursing as the 1830s federal land
office and the west side of Court Square joined
the debris of other demolished historic
structures in the early days of urban renewal.
Dexter Avenue, the broad thoroughfare laid
out by Andrew Dexter’s surveyor in 1817-18
was plowed up and narrowed so that
sidewalks could be wider. Heavy, unsightly
concrete canopies were placed over the
outsized sidewalks Older, wiser citizens
moaned, proclaiming this was the end of
Montgomery as they knew it. Younger people,
mindful that this was the way other cities were
treating their towns and realizing the drag
shopping centers and malls were having on
retailers, joined in the enthusiasm of making
Above: The loss of this 1830s federal
building to urban renewal was a
disappointment to preservationists.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Photographs document restoration of
the Ordeman-Shaw House, before (left) and
after (right).
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER V
67

Top: Milo Howard (left) and James Loeb led
the way in the founding of Landmarks
Foundation of Montgomery, Inc.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Middle: Stephen Decatur Button designed
Knox Hall for William and Anna Knox in
the late 1840s.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Bottom: The Landmarks Foundation rescued
Knox Hall from demolition in the 1970s
and completed its restoration in 1984.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
way for the “new” look. It was not that they
did not care—this, too, was Progress.
Fortunately, there were those who did care
and even in the face of Progress did relish
the senses of time and place that are essential
for peace of mind and security. People
began realizing the importance of being
surrounded by the familiar as well as the new.
In 1966, Congress passed the National
Historic Preservation Act, an entitlement bill
that enabled states to do the same. and the
National Trust for Historic Preservation came
into existence. Alabama’s legislature embraced
the idea, created the Alabama Historical
Commission and entitled municipalities to
form their own preservation agencies.
Montgomery, spurred by local preservationists
and historians, in 1967 formed
twin commissions, the Montgomery Historic
Development Commission, empowered to
research and recommend to the city commission
(later city council) properties to be designated
as historic sites for recognition and
protection by the Architectural Review Board.
The latter had authority to deny permission
for demolition and to protect the integrity and
character of structures and sites.
Since the City did not have the power to
acquire property under these commissions,
Horace Perry, city attorney, suggested that a
non-profit entity join hands with the City for
the purposes of preservation. This appealing
idea led to the 1967 formation of Landmarks
Foundation of Montgomery, Inc. Leaders in this
effort were cotton merchant/visionary Jimmy
Loeb and historian/archivist Milo Howard.
Eagerly joined by enthusiastic historians and
preservation-minded citizens, the organization
received its charter in 1968. Its first action, after
carefully looking over historic properties
available in the downtown sector, was, with
the help of the City, to purchase the 1850s
Ordeman-Shaw Townhouse, with its kitchen
and slave quarters still standing.
Extensive research into every facet of the
property including historical, archeological,
architectural, landscaping and furnishings
revealed secrets and details that were carefully
incorporated into the restoration. The
Ordeman-Shaw Complex opened to acclaim
in 1972; John Vaughan and his wife, Liz, were
the first director and volunteer co-ordinator.
This first restoration was the nucleus for the
subsequent moving and development of the
fifty structures that comprise Old Alabama
Town and its interpretation of 19th and early
20th century Central Alabama’s architecture
and history. Landmarks continues its working
relationship with the City.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
68

In addition to Old Alabama Town,
Landmarks has acquired and/or helped in the
preservation of Knox Hall, the Griel Mansion,
the Confederate Post Office, the House of the
Mayors. and the National Historic Landmark
Train Shed. Landmarks Foundation’s influence,
and that of its founders and board, have
extended into the preservation of buildings and
districts throughout the community.
Preservationists hold James (Jim) Loeb and
Milo Howard in high esteem for their early
motivation and leadership. Although Howard
died much too early, Loeb shared his
enthusiasm for, and knowledge of, all things
cultural until his death in 2010. He and his
wife, Joan, who shared and now continues his
work have been actively involved in musical,
artistic and literary circles as well as in the
preservation life of Montgomery.
CIVIC
CENTER
In the early Seventies, Mayors Earl James
and Jim Robinson, the City, and the Chamber
of Commerce felt a civic center was a priority,
and the west side of Lower Commerce Street
was the ideal location. Major problems were
the historic buildings in the affected blocks.
Realizing that preservationists could stymie
the whole idea, meetings took place to
accommodate both interests. The Civic
Center would go up on the west side of
Commerce, and city fathers made a firm
commitment to not touch the handsome
structures on the east side of Commerce.
REVITALIZATION ON
COMMERCE STREET
led the way with the restoration of the
McIntyre Building on northeast corner of
Commerce and Tallapoosa. Immediately
behind was Rushton, Stakely, Johnston, and
Garrett’s restoration of the Steiner-Lobman
Building on the opposite corner. Others soon
joined in the preservation adventure.
In the chapters dealing with 1900-1930s,
the preservation of buildings in the Lower
Commerce Street area was noted, but
preservation is ongoing and with recent interest
for inner-city loft living, there are exciting plans
for other restorations of historic structures The
adaptation of the Western Railroad’s freight
house and warehouses for the Biscuits Baseball
Above: The McIntyre Building on
Lower Commerce Street was a target
of restoration efforts.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Brick work and arches define
Commerce Street.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
In 1976, the Federal government offered a
twenty-percent tax deduction for commercial
restorations of structures listed in, or eligible
for, the National Register of Historic Places.
With preservationists, knowledgeable architects
and business people working hand-inhand,
the Lower Commerce Street restorations
began. The legislature also offered a tax reduction
for materials purchased under the
auspices of the Lower Commerce Street
Preservation Authority. Accountant Lanny
Crane and his company, Jackson-Thornton,
CHAPTER V
69

Above: Alberta Williams has lived in
Montgomery all her life.
COURTESY OF ALBERTA WILLIAMS.
Below: The Renaissance Hotel is located
near The Alley, an area that has benefited
from local restoration efforts.
COURTESY OF THE FOUTS COLLECTION.
Stadium renewed interest in the historic
structures along Tallapoosa and Coosa Streets.
Their restorations and earlier ones encouraged
the creation of The Alley, now a bustling,
popular entertainment venue in conjunction
with the nearby Renaissance Hotel and
Performing Arts Center, new restaurants and the
Hampton Suites in the historic Greystone Hotel.
Across the city, there are nine local historic
districts, of which six are also in the National
Register. Incorporated in these are approximately
2,002 individual designations. There
are other areas eligible for designation as
historic districts or as individual structures.
Preservation has been a most successful
undertaking initiated in the 1960s and
continues on today. In 2011, work is going on
in the city center with the municipal
government’s purchase of a number of historic
buildings on Dexter Avenue to be resold for
private restorations. Neighborhoods are also
busy with new restoration and maintenance
projects. It is an established fact that
preservation is financially, aesthetically and
historically good for the well-being of a
community and the quality of life for its
citizens, Montgomery’s mayors since the
beginning of the preservation movement—
Earl James, Jim Robinson, Emory Folmar,
Bobby Bright, and Todd Strange have been
participants, supporters and contributors to
its success.
WOMEN
IN
THE 1950S A N D ’60S
Alberta Johnson was now Alberta
Williams. In 1955 she lived in Tulane Court;
the youngest of her six children was three
months old when the Boycott began. Her
husband worked at the Electric Maid Bakery
on Court Square and walked or rode a bicycle
to work. Alberta attended some of the mass
meetings during the Boycott. It was necessary
to go early to get a seat, and sometimes
the wait for King was long. To pass the time,
there was singing, praying, and occasionally
eating. When King arrived, there was
always cheering.
The night after the Freedom Riders came,
Mr. Williams went down to the First Baptist
Church and could not leave, nor could
the women who were cooking. Later, in
1965, when the Selma-Montgomery marchers
arrived, Mrs. Williams told her children to
stay in school, but some slipped out and
joined the march.
Alberta was not personally afraid except
on one occasion. She was a domestic worker
for a lady with children who were very
attached to her. Once the lady said, “Y’all
could not get along without us,” and
Alberta replied, “And y’all could not get
along without us.” She was nervous, afraid
she had said too much, but there were no
repercussions. Now eighty-three, Alberta is
proud of what has been accomplished in
the past sixty years, and she is happy of
having been a part of it.
Virginia Foster Durr, born in Birmingham
in 1903, attended Wellesley and married
attorney Clifford Durr of Montgomery in
1933. Moving to Washington, Durr worked
as a “New Dealer.” Virginia joined liberal
groups, including the Southern Conference
on Human Rights and the Woman’s National
Democratic Club. In 1951 the Durrs returned
to Montgomery where, for the rest of her
life, Virginia was involved in the Civil Rights
struggle, and with her husband and
E. D. Nixon played a pivotal role in the Bus
Boycott. Her autobiography, Outside the
Magic Circle, documents her life. Virginia
died in 1999.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
70

C HAPTER
VI
CHANGE AND THE CITY:
THE 1970S AND BEYOND
The stridency and challenges of the 1960s brought about dramatic changes; the ’60s were the
opening days of “modern” Montgomery. The twentieth century for Montgomery, for Alabama and
for the South had two defining elements: segregation for the first half and integration for the latter
half. Within those two time frames, we lived and changed through good and bad economic times,
war and peace, and all the facets that characterize humanity. However, throughout there were
certain stable aspects of what Montgomery is, and who its citizens were and are, that have enabled
us to remain as “US” and not “us and them.”
The Water Tower identifies the entrance to
The Alley.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
CHAPTER VI
71

NEW FACES AT CITY HALL
Above: Jim Robinson served as mayor of
Montgomery from 1971 to 1977.
COURTESY OF MRS. JIM ROBINSON.
Below: Emory Folmer served as mayor of
Montgomery from 1977 to 1999.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Elected mayor in 1971, businessman Jim
Robinson worked diligently to administer
fairly. As an example and in a move to do
this, he appointed Montgomery’s first black
city department head. Viewing the past and
answering to current calls for reforms, he
encouraged the redistricting of Montgomery
and a return to the mayor-council form of
government. More representation would
encourage voters to participate and give all a
voice in government. The division into nine
districts with a representative from each was an
exciting prospect for candidates who began
filing for the September 2, 1975, election. With
ninety or so candidates for council seats and
several for mayor, there were sure to be runoffs.
Robinson won his race, but with the
exception of two council seats, the others
required run-offs scheduled for September 16.
As the count came in that night, blacks again
sat on Montgomery’s City Council; they had
not served in that position since the days of
Reconstruction. It was also the first time that
women were on Montgomery’s governing body.
Elected were Willie D. Peak, District
1.(W); Louis Golson, District 2 (W); Joe Reed,
District 3 (B); Catherine Caswell, District 4
(B); Luther Oliver, District 5 (B); Herman
Harris, District 6 (B); Larry Dixon, District 7
(W); Emory Folmar, District 8 (W); and Pat
Williamson, District 9 (W). The tally was
4 white men, 1 white woman, 3 black men,
1 black woman. Since that time, the City
Council has had a 5-4 racial count with many
votes through the years being on that ratio.
There have also been numerous times that the
vote was not along racial lines.
There was a new spirit of optimism running
through the city. In 1976, Montgomery joined
the Nation in celebrating the Bicentennial of
the country, but all was not to remain peaceful
on the Montgomery political scene. In 1977 a
crisis erupted in City Hall surrounding the
shooting of a black man, Bernard Whitehurst,
by a policeman in a case of mistaken identity.
The policeman stated he thought Whitehurst
shot at him, but no gun was found. Later
a detective discovered a gun near the body.
Upon investigation it was one that had been in
police custody for a year. It had been fired, but
there was a question as to when and by whom.
The victim’s mother filed an unlawful death
suit against Mayor Robinson, the department
head of public safety and the chief of police.
The circuit and appeals courts found the
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
72

defendants innocent. However, because of the
case’s nature, all resigned their positions.
Mayor Robinson’s resignation was effective
on March 3, 1977, and Emory Folmar,
president of the City Council, became acting
mayor until a special election could take
place. With its results, Folmar was elected to
complete Robinson’s term and then won in
his own right in the next general election.
Willie Peak assumed the office as council
president serving until 1983. Folmar won
every four years until 1999. In those twentytwo
years, there were moments of triumph as
well as defeats.
Folmar, a Korean War veteran, had been in
the construction and real estate business. When
he became mayor, he brought his experiences,
his determination and his hard-headed manner
of “getting the job done” to the position. A
hands-on person, he became involved in every
aspect of city government, some thought to
the extreme. There were new racial issues in a
somewhat different world because the black
population had a stronger voice—represented
by four blacks on the City Council. The days
of civil rights conflicts were not over, and there
were incidents involving police that continued
to create problems. In 1987 the McPhillips
law firm sued the city on behalf of people
arrested and charged for not having proper
identification under an old vagrancy law. The
courts declared the law unconstitutional.
Undeterred by criticism, Folmar continued
to exert a powerful influence within the
city and the Republican Party. In 1982 he
challenged George Wallace for governor as
the Republican nominee. Although defeated,
Folmar won over forty percent of the vote.
From 1985-1989, he served as state chairman
of the Republican Party and was state chair
for George H. W. Bush’s 1988 and 1992
presidential campaigns.
Through the 1990s, a period of economic
stability, Folmar led the city. The integration
efforts had made vast differences and all aspects
of the city were now considered integrated, or
could be done so legally. Many churches, black
and white, were separate, but by choice as were
many residential neighborhoods; in most cases
the causes were probably as much economic
and preference as racial. Naturally, there were
differences among the mayor and council
members, especially between Folmar and Joe
Reed, a powerful figure on the council as well
as in the community.
Joe L. Reed actively promoted the change
to the mayor-council form of government and
was elected to the City Council at the same
time as Folmar. As chairman of the Alabama
Democratic Conference, assistant executive
secretary of the AEA, and on the board of
Alabama State University, Reed was known
for his determination and forcefulness. He
and Folmar were dynamic figures in city
politics and did not always see issues in
the same light. However, they both worked
for Montgomery’s good and accomplished
much, together and separately. When Folmar
and Reed both lost their 1999 races for
re-election, there was a certain poignancy in
that end of an era scenario.
In 1999, Bobby Bright, Jim Robinson,
and Emory Folmar ran for mayor. A run-off
between Folmar and Bright resulted in
Bright’s winning the office. A lawyer who
grew up in southeast Alabama, Bright had
lived and practiced law in Montgomery for
years, but had never previously run for office.
Bright ran again in 2003 and won a second
term. In 2008, he ran for Congress, was
elected, and resigned as mayor. Charles
Jinright, council president, served as interim
until the called election brought Todd Strange
to the mayor’s office.
During Bright’s six-plus years in office,
baseball returned to Montgomery when the
Biscuits began playing in the newly developed
River Walk Stadium. Riverfront development
continued with the Amphitheater, River Walk
and Harriott II. All of Montgomery’s mayors
THE POPULATION
OF MONTGOMERY,
1970-2010
1970 133,386
1980 177,857
1990 187,106
2000 201,568
2010 205,764
Above: Bobby Bright served as mayor of
Montgomery from 1999 to 2008.
COURTESY OF CITY OF MONTGOMERY.
Below: Todd Strange became mayor of
Montgomery in 2008.
COURTESY OF CITY OF MONTGOMERY.
CHAPTER VI
73

Below: Court Square in 1978.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Bottom: Court Square in 2011.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
since Earl James had a hand in bringing the
River back into Montgomery’s recreational
and economic picture.
Realizing the need for revitalization along
Dexter Avenue and in west Montgomery, the
City retained the services of Dover-Kohl,
nationally recognized urban planners, to
study and develop a plan for Montgomery.
The resulting Downtown Master Plan
establishes as a primary goal to Preserve,
Protect and Restore. The Smart Code has also
been adopted which sets standards for
building within designated areas. In 2006-07,
the Dover-Kohl Downtown Master Plan was
initiated with the re-opening of the traditional
round-about on Court Square and the
reopening of South Court Street.
Preservation and revitalization moved
forward in the Lower Commerce Street
area with major restoration and projects
bringing business, restaurants, bars, and
the Renaissance Hotel, Performing Arts, and
Convention Center together, enhancing
the economy through various venues.
Montgomerians and tourists embrace the
recreational and entertainment aspects
enthusiastically with the lively Alley
surrounded by historic, restored buildings.
Todd Strange continued the work when
the City purchased nine historic buildings
along the distressed lower block of Dexter
Avenue. With their eventual renovation,
the town will see the important district
move back into productive life along with
Court Square’s Dexter Plaza One’s renovation
as the main library and the Junior League’s
children’s museum. West Montgomery is also
undergoing changes with the implementation
of plans for revitalizing business and
residential blocks.
PUBLIC
SCHOOLS
A most significant change was school
integration, and by the end of the sixties it
was part of most public school students’ lives.
Begun gradually, the process eventually
extended through all the grades for teachers
and students; white teachers moved to
formerly black schools and vice versa.
During the transition period, a white teacher
in a large white junior high school, formerly
more neighborhood oriented, encountered few
problems stemming from race. Some rural
students had longer bus rides than previously,
and those from across town had the same
problems, while others had never ridden buses
before. The troubles that are universal to a
school day did occur, but nine times out of ten
they had no basis in racial differences.
Today, some schools have become
segregated again but not for the same reasons
as they were before. There is still great
racial diversity in the lower grades and in the
magnet programs.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
74

MAGNET
SCHOOLS
Since the 1990s the magnet school
program has served thousands of students,
providing avenues in the arts, academics, and
technology for students eager and willing to
go the extra mile. There are four elementary,
two middle, and three high schools that
are magnets. The 2010-2011 Magnet and
public school graduates had $15 million
in scholarship offers at the conclusion of
the year. This seems to indicate that the
Montgomery Public Schools, while there are
multiple problems, funding being high on the
list, are succeeding in this area.
Montgomery has quality private schools
from kindergarten through the twelve grade.
The majority are church affiliated. Home
schooling has grown in the past thirty years.
These and private schools have to meet
standards set by the State Department of
Education for accreditation.
TRADITIONAL UNIVERSITIES
AND COLLEGES
University was the first-state supported
educational institution for blacks. In 1887 it
moved to Montgomery as State Normal
School, for training teachers. As its mission
and curriculum expanded, it became Alabama
State University. A current building program
includes facilities for most areas of school life.
Founded in Tuskegee as the Tuskegee
Female College, Huntingdon College, a fouryear
liberal arts school affiliated with the
Methodist Church, came to Montgomery in
1909 as Woman’s College of Alabama. It
changed its name to Huntingdon in 1935 as it
opened admissions to men. After acquiring
the nearby Cloverdale property, Huntingdon
put its first football team on the field, the
Huntingdon Hawks, in 2004.
Above: In 1946, Booker T. Washington
opened as the first black high school in the
city of Montgomery. In 2011, B.T.W. is the
Arts Magnet High School of Montgomery.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
Below: Alabama State Turkey Day Parade
on Montgomery Street in the 1960s.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
AND ARCHIVES.
As a center for traditional higher education,
Montgomery has three state universities, one
private university, and one private college.
While three schools have been in Montgomery
for years, two— Auburn and Troy—came to
the Capitol City in the late 1960s. All are
accredited, flourishing, and growing with a
variety of programs leading to degrees.
Founded in Marion, Alabama in 1874 the
school that would become Alabama State
CHAPTER VI
75

John M. Patterson Technical School
opened for white students in 1964. In 1966
it was joined by the H. Councill Trenholm
State Technical School for black students.
In 1974 they were certified as technical
colleges, and could offer associate degrees
in applied technology as a part of the
Alabama Community College System. In
2002 the schools consolidated under one
name, H. Councill Trenholm Technical College.
Maxwell-Gunter and the Air University
have made tremendous impacts on the
community’s life. Not only are they one of
the biggest employers in the area, but there
is a personal relationship through contacts
between military personnel, community
leaders and civilians, creating a strong bond.
CHANGE NEVER STOPS
Above: Flowers Hall dates from 1909 and
is the administrative building for
Huntingdon College.
COURTESY OF HUNTINGDON COLLEGE.
Below: The Trojan Warrior stands tall on
Troy Campus in downtown Montgomery.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
Faulkner University, founded in Montgomery
in 1942 as the Montgomery Bible School, grew
and changed its name to Alabama Christian
College in 1953. An affiliate of the Church of
Christ, the school took another name in
1985, Faulkner University, honoring longtime
supporter and Chairman of the Board
Dr. James H. Faulkner, as it expanded its
curriculum and services. The Thomas Goode
Jones School of Law located on the campus,
has received full accreditation from the
American Bar Association.
Troy University was founded in 1887 by
the Alabama Legislature as a state normal
school for training teachers in Troy, Alabama.
Troy has broadened its curriculum far
beyond its original mission and has stretched
its campus to many states and foreign
countries. It first came to Montgomery in
1965, offering courses on Maxwell Air Force
Base and then moved into downtown
Montgomery, establishing its identity as Troy
University-Montgomery.
In 1967, the Alabama Legislature established
Auburn University at Montgomery which
opened its doors to the public in 1969. In two
years, a campus came into being on former
cotton fields east of town. Although governed
by the Auburn Board of Trustees, Auburn
Montgomery is not a branch of the larger
school, but an entity within itself.
In 1972, George Wallace moved ahead in
his plans to run for president. On May 15,
1972, accompanied by his second wife,
Cornelia, he was in Laurel, Maryland,
speaking to an enthusiastic crowd when
Arthur Bremer, a psychopathic loner, shot
him. There was an outpouring of sympathy
from Montgomery and across the nation. Even
though the shot paralyzed and confined him
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
76

to a wheelchair for life, it did not end his
political determination and career as he
finished out that term and served two more
as governor He also gave serious thought
to making another run for the presidency
in 1976, but did not do so. However, his
raging segregationist stance calmed in the
late 1970s as he apologized for earlier
fierce stands against integration. During
his last term as governor, 1983 to 1987, he
worked to stabilize the economy within state
government, especially the education budget.
Plagued by health problems since being
shot, Wallace died in 1998, having made his
peace with most of the people of the state.
THE MONTGOMERY AREA
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The Chamber has long been a force within
the city since businessmen organized an
association in 1873 to promote the city and
its assets, encourage new businesses and, to
develop Montgomery as a manufacturing city.
By the early 1880s, they were reaping the
benefits of their planning even having some
small manufacturers at work.
In 1910, now named the Commercial
Men’s Club, it pulled off a coup when it
opened the door to the Wright Brothers and
their flying school. A few years later, the
group helped work out complicated land
leases between the federal government, the
city and private owners for Camp Sheridan,
ARDMONT, and Taylor Field. After World
War I and World War II, the Chamber was
one of the factors that played a large part
in Maxwell’s and Gunter’s developments and
their relationships with Montgomery. Today,
the Air University, Maxwell, Gunter, and the
Chamber continue their work together.
CONVENTION AND
VISITOR CENTER
direction. In 1986, an outreaching Visitor
and Information Center opened in Old
Alabama Town’s Campbell Cottage, and in
1991, the Center moved into the historic
Thompson House, enlarging its goals,
functions and space. With Union Station’s
renovation in the late 1990s, the Center
moved in and again increased its work in
bringing tourists and conventions to
Montgomery. With the Renaissance Hotel
capacity for conventions, the new spots along
historic Commerce Street and the Alley,
the plans for Dexter Avenue’s revitalization,
and the opening of the new Freedom Rides
Museum, plus all of the existing venues,
tourism is on the move.
In 1992, Will Hill Tankersley was president
of the Chamber. A Montgomerian, Will Hill
has great concern for its well-being, so
during his presidency, in addition to his
drive for new businesses, he also promoted
the city’s history, and the roles it played
during the cataclysmic periods of Civil War
and Civil Rights. Fully aware that people
want to know what happened at a given
place, he encouraged the establishment of
a fund within the organization to assist in
erecting historic markers and often took a
hand in their writing.
Above: George Wallace apologized for his
strong stance on the issue of segregation.
COURTESY OF THE FOUTS COLLECTION.
Below: Union Station is the Convention and
Visitor Center for Montgomery.
COURTESY OF THE FOUTS COLLECTION.
Through the years, the focus of the
Chamber of Commerce was, and is, business
development for the good of the community;
tourism in general and historic tourism in
particular plays a large part. In the past two
decades, it has expanded efforts in that
CHAPTER VI
77

HYUNDAI MOTOR
MANUFACTURING
ALABAMA
Retirement Systems of Alabama built the
Regions Tower in the late 1990s.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
RETIREMENT SYSTEMS
OF ALABAMA
A major player on the Montgomery scene,
the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA)
has changed the skyline and streetscape in
the past twenty years with the addition of
seven major buildings, including the Regions
Tower, a history park and several parking
decks. Under the direction of Dr. David
Bronner since 1973, RSA is also owner of
newspapers; Raycom which manages fortythree
television stations; buildings in New
York and Mobile; and the vastly popular
Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail consisting
of eleven golf and resort areas located the
length of the state. While there is not always
total accord about some buildings, there is
appreciation for the money poured back into
the city from construction projects, for touristgenerated
revenues, and from the thousands
of residents across the state for whom RSA
skillfully handles retirement funds.
The state and city were jubilant when
Korea’s Hyundai Motor Company announced
in 2002 that it would build its first U.S.
automotive assembly and manufacturing
plant in Montgomery. Located southwest
of the city, the $1.4-billion plant began
production in May 2005. By May 29,
2011, the 3.2-million-square-foot plant had
produced 1,455,268 Hyundai cars. Originally
employing twenty-five hundred people,
today the operations has expanded and now
manufactures three engines in addition to
the Elantra and Sonata cars. Hyundai, and
its 72 suppliers located in the area, provide
6,000 jobs.
In addition to its manufacturing, the
Korean community has shared its culture
with Montgomery. Beautiful quilts recently
displayed at Old Alabama Town reflect their
traditions and talents while students in
schools enhance local activities with their
knowledge and abilities.
ENVISION 2020
Envision 2020 is an outgrowth of
Leadership Montgomery, a non-profit which
conducts intensive training programs for
people interested in the city and its wellbeing.
Four alumni got together with Bobby
Bright in 1999 and began discussing how they
could share what they learned in the mother
program; Envision 2020 began to take shape.
Rallying around the concept of the River
Region, meetings in Montgomery, Macon,
Lowndes, Autauga, and Elmore Counties
resulted in 25 goals and 82 strategies, with
Envision 2020 as the engine to organize
and work toward achieving them. The
participants’ overall desires were excellent
public schools, accessible healthcare and
recreation, vibrant downtowns and strong
public officials. It was within these that goals
and strategies were developed. A board of
community leaders head Envision 2020 with
Lynn Beshear, founding director, as it meets
some goals and others evolve.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
78

SOUTHERN POVERTY
LAW CENTER
In 1971, attorneys Morris Dees and Joe
Levin founded the Southern Poverty Law
Center; their mission and that of the
Center was to work for the underprivileged
and take on the fight against discrimination.
In Montgomery, some causes were not the
most popular, but the lawyers persevered
and have been successful in many
ventures including severely damaging the
power of the Ku Klux Klan and other
radical white supremacist groups across
the country.
RESIDENTIAL
DEVELOPMENT
Montgomery has been moving eastward
since the 1880s, but in the last fifty years,
it has made massive moves with the
Atlanta Highway as the first major artery.
In the late 1970s, Eastdale Mall vied with the
Montgomery Mall as it provided convenient
shopping for an expanding east side. AUM
stands on former cotton plantations, as do
many of the residential areas. Baptist East
Hospital has its nearby medical neighborhood
where once the cotton grew.
A southeastward move began out the
Vaughn Road with more expensive neighborhoods
leapfrogging each other, competing
for prime former cotton and pasturelands.
The Shoppes at East Chase are slowly
eroding Eastdale as it did the Montgomery
Mall which led to Normandale’s sad end.
Where next as Montgomery County only
has a few miles left before Line Creek, its
eastern boundary? The Waters residential
community nearly borders the creek. Already
the town of Pike Road has incorporated
and is competing with the City for taxes as
“big box” stores line up to claim business.
REVITALIZATION:
DEXTER AVENUE AND
WEST MONTGOMERY
Revitalization is ongoing as the city enters
the second decade of the twenty-first century.
The purchase of Court Square One, renamed
as Dexter Plaza One, and its designation as
a new main library and the Junior League’s
Children’s Museum emphasizes Mayor Todd
Strange’s commitment to the importance
of downtown. Emphasis is being placed
on downtown living with loft space
and apartment renovations answering the
growing demand for residential space and
encouraging the use of old buildings in
bringing people back into the downtown
area. New apartments may be on the horizon
with the development of the area now
known as the Warehouse District, west of Old
Alabama Town and between Columbus and
Randolph Streets.
West Montgomery is also undergoing
changes with the implementation of plans
for revitalizing business and residential
blocks. Along with the renovation and
new construction, there is also cooperation
between city government and nonprofit
organizations.
CULTURAL
LIFE,
1977-2011
During Folmar’s watch, there were positive
cultural improvements that benefitted blacks
and whites Through his support, cooperation
and encouragement, and that of his wife,
Anita, there was a renaissance effect with the
expansion of the arts and public educational
venues throughout the community. The
institutions that came into existence or
expanded during their tenure continue to
bring cultural entertainment and education
to the city. In addition, other sites and
institutions have since opened that are
making their own contributions to the
enlightenment and pleasure of Montgomery
and her visitors. Few small cities have
the wide diversity in the cultural realm
as does Montgomery. The following
information only touches on the depth
that these organizations have, for some
have satellite groups within themselves. For
instance, the Symphony sponsors the Youth
Symphony and the Montgomery Music
Project where students learn skills, music
appreciation and how an orchestra works.
Anita Folmar introduces a program in
Old Alabama Town’s Church.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER VI
79

The Amphitheater hosts many
outdoor events including concerts and
firework displays.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
HISTORICAL AND
PATRIOTIC SOCIETIES OF
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
There have been numerous historical
groups organized formally and informally
over time. Patriotic groups, with their own
special interests and organized on national
levels, are generally older than historic
groups. In all probability the following list
is incomplete and for any omissions, the
author apologizes.
Area historical societies include the Society
of Pioneers (1955); Old South Historical
Society, Landmarks Foundation (1968); Pintlala
Historical Association (1987); Montgomery
County Historical Society (1992); and East
Montgomery County Historical Society (1995).
Area patriotic societies include Jamestowne
Society; Society of Mayflower Descendants;
Colonial Dames XVII Century; Society of
Colonial Dames; Daughters of American
Colonists; Society of the Cincinati; Sons of
the American Revolution; Daughters of the
American Revolution; Children of the American
Revolution; United Daughters of 1812; United
Daughters of the Civil War; Sons of Confederate
Veterans; Children of the Civil War; American
Legion; and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
ALABAMA STATE
COUNCIL ON THE ARTS
With programs designed to give artists
visibility and the public access to the rich
trove of artists of many kinds in the state,
Alabama State Council on the Arts provides
grants, sponsors exhibitions, encourages
local communities to present their talents
and manages a gallery in the heart of
downtown Montgomery that show cases
Alabama’s talents.
AMPHITHEATER AND
RIVER WALK
One of Montgomery’s newest venues for
entertainment is the Amphitheater on the
river. During the year a variety of music
programs, fishing rodeos, boat races, and
other events take place on the Alabama River
or under the Amphitheater’s elegant “sail.”
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
80

ARMORY LEARNING ARTS
CENTER AND ALABAMA
DANCE THEATER
In 1983 the City’s innovative adaptation of
a 1930s National Guards Armory as a learning
arts center for children and adults was eagerly
endorsed by the public. It has been the
longtime home of the Alabama Dance Theater
whose founder and director, Kitty Seale,
has led its corps and visiting dancers to
national recognition. Art classes, gymnastics,
writing—all are a part of the Armory’s
reaching out to the community. Anita Folmar
was a leader in this undertaking.
ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE
FESTIVAL
In the early 1980s, Wynton Blount began
donating land east of town to the City. The
Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the sixth
largest in the world, was the first building
to grace the pastoral landscape. Blount’s
son, architect Thomas Blount, designed the
building which houses two stages—the
Festival for large productions and the smaller
Octagon for more intimate theatre. Rave
reviews heralded its premier, A Midsummer
Night’s Dream, in 1985, and the applause
continues today. One of the theater’s missions
is the award-winning Southern Writers’
Project which produces original plays,
selectively chosen, that deal with the South,
its people, and their predicaments.
MONTGOMERY
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
The next structure in Blount Park was
the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, a city
sponsored institution since its founding
in 1930. Originally housed in an 1890s
school building, a new museum, in
conjunction with the Montgomery Public
Library, opened in 1959-60. In 1988 an
edifice, designed by architects Barganier,
McKee, Sims, became the Museum’s new
home. Blount then donated a $15-million
collection of American art. The Weil Family
gave a major collection of old master
prints and the Adolph “Bucks” Weil Graphic
Arts Study Center. Ida Belle Young was
another generous donor; a new wing bears
her name.
ALABAMA STATE
CAPITOL RESTORATION
It took a number of years, much research,
and incredibly hard work for the state’s
restoration of the Alabama Capitol to reach
completion and reopen. The Alabama Historical
Commission invited the public to share the
treasures it had discovered inside the old
building through its intensive research, historical
and architectural. At the same time
the state renovated and enlarged the Highway
Building on Union Street as offices and
chambers for the legislature. The restored
capitol reopened on December 12, 1992. The
Capitol is a National Historic Landmark and
is open Monday-Saturday.
FIRST WHITE HOUSE
OF THE CONFEDERACY
The White House Association is the
manager of the First White House which
originally stood on Bibb Street. Jefferson
Davis and his family lived there March-May
1861. The Association organized in 1901
and in 1919 purchased the house and a lot
on Washington Street with a grant from
the state. The Association then moved,
restored, and opened the house on June 3,
1921. Under the dedicated supervision of
Regent Cameron Freeman Napier for over
twenty years, the House has been carefully
interpreted and maintained. Anne Tidmore is
now regent and continues the same level of
care as that of earlier leaders.
ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF
ARCHIVES AND HISTORY
Established in 1901, the Alabama
Department of Archives and History is the
oldest state archives in the country and
has had only five directors in its long history.
It was director Marie Bankhead Owen, wife
of the first director, Thomas M. Owen,
CHAPTER VI
81

CATTLEMEN’ S
MOOSEUM
The Alabama Cattlemen’s Association
created an exhibition of cow-related materials
that is educational and entertaining for all
ages. You will wish you had a cow before you
leave! This cleverly-named museum opened
in 1995 in the Association headquarters on
Adams Avenue.
THE CIVIL RIGHTS
MEMORIAL
Above: Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald
lived in the house that is now the
Fitzgerald Museum.
COURTESY OF MARY ELLEN NEELEY.
Below: The Hank Williams Museum honors
the life of Alabama’s greatest contribution to
country music.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
who used her Washington connections
(two brothers in Congress) in the 1930s
to get WPA funds for constructing the
original portion of the building. Other
directors were historian Peter Brannon and
his successor Milo Howard. With legislative
grants and contributions the east wing was
built. Dr. Ed Bridges, director since 1982,
acquired funding for the west wing and
the new state museum. The Archives’ vast
collections interpret Alabama’s prehistoric
realm to the present day.
In 1989 the Southern Poverty Law Center
unveiled the Civil Rights Memorial, designed
by Maya Lin, designer of the Viet Nam
Memorial. Inscribed on a water table are
the names of individuals killed in the Civil
Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
A suggestion to visitors; place a hand on a
name and let the water run over it. Adjacent
is the Civil Rights Museum with photographs
depicting events of the time.
DEXTER AVENUE
KING MEMORIAL BAPTIST
CHURCH AND PARSONAGE
A National Historic Landmark, the Dexter
Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church
dates from 1885-1889. In 1955, its minister,
Martin Luther King, became president of the
Montgomery Improvement Association as
the Bus Boycott began. King’s vision and
leadership were major factors in its success.
The church, restored in 1978 under the
guidance of Dr. Zelia Evans, interprets its
historic past and the movement. The
parsonage, where the Kings lived during their
Montgomery years, reflects on King’s family
life and his early work.
FITZGERALD
MUSEUM
In the Cloverdale Historic District, a house
once occupied by Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald—
the only house in Montgomery in which Zelda
lived that still stands—escaped demolition
in 1986 through the generous efforts of
Julian and Leslie McPhillips. They envisioned
a museum dedicated to Scott and Zelda
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
82

Fitzgerald in the house at 919 Felder Avenue
and have amassed a collection that depicts the
lives and works of both Fitzgeralds; Zelda
wrote much of Save Me the Waltz while in
residence October 1931-April 1932. This is
the only museum in the world dedicated to
the pair who personified the Jazz Age.
FREEDOM RIDES MUSEUM
Opened in May 2011 on the fiftieth
anniversary of the 1961 Freedom Rides, the
museum, located in the old Greyhound
terminal, tells the story of what happened
there the day Freedom Riders arrived in
Montgomery on a Greyhound bus. An angry
mob, including Klansmen, beat and kicked
the riders until the Alabama Highway Patrol
quelled the assaults. Exhibits and varied
media interpret this 2011 museum.
HANK WILLIAMS MUSEUM
Cecil Jackson’s dream finally came to life
when the Hank Williams Museum opened
in 1999 on Commerce Street. Dedicated to
the life and music of Hank Williams, the
museum’s collection includes Hank’s clothing,
music, instruments, and the Cadillac in which
he died. The City Hall Auditorium, where his
funeral took place, has been renovated, and a
statue across the street from City Hall and his
grave in the Oakwood Annex Cemetery are in
close proximity to the museum.
HYUNDAI
TOUR
Hyundai, Montgomery’s automobile manufacturer,
invites the public to come see how
a car is made—with real people and robots,
too. From start to finish visitors can follow a
car, almost from the drawing board until it
rolls out the door. The tours are free, but
reservations are necessary.
LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION
Landmarks and the City continue their joint
project in the outdoor history museum, Old
Alabama Town, with restoration, interpretation
and maintenance projects. Landmarks funds
the projects from a variety
of sources, including
membership, tourism,
and rental office space.
The City provides support
through various services
and for restoration and
community development
grants. In addition to
tours, the Foundation
sponsors a great variety of
exhibits, talks, musical
concerts, and cemetery and downtown specialty
walking tours during the spring and fall.
MONTGOMERY AREA
BUSINESS COMMITTEE
FOR THE ARTS
The Business Committee for the Arts
encourages the relationship between business
and the arts in the community. Montgomery’s
committee sponsors an annual event that
honors businesses in the area that have
contributed time and treasure to further the
work of non-profits in the arts.
MONTGOMERY ART GUILD
Organized in the 1950s by volunteers, the
Art Guild incorporated in 1968 and is still
a volunteer organization whose mission is
to promote appreciation, enjoyment, and
distribution of art. It sponsors three shows a
year for the public’s enjoyment with some of
the works for sale.
MONTGOMERY
BALLET
Since 1958, the Montgomery Ballet has
brought beautiful dance to the city and
inspired interest in hundreds of youth
and adults in the fine art of classical
dance. Its annual Christmas performance of
The Nutcracker is a highlight of the season.
Its executive director since 2007, Priscilla
Crommelin-Ball, a professional dancer, has led
the corps as it expanded in dancers and
performances. The artistic director, Elie Lazar,
also a professional dancer, served 2007-2011.
Darren Christian McIntyre followed him.
Lucas Tavern is in Old Alabama Town.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER VI
83

Top, left: The Montgomery Curb Market
has served its costumers with vegetables,
cakes, and flowers since 1924.
COURTESY OF THE ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF
ARCHIVES AND HISTORY.
Top, right: The masonry background for the
high water markers are parts of the old
cotton slide.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
Below: The main library honors
Juliette Hampton Morgan.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
MONTGOMERY CHAMBER
MUSIC ORGANIZATION
The Montgomery Chamber Music
Organization celebrated its fiftieth year 2010-
2011. Dedicated to bringing the finest chamber
music possible to Montgomery, it hosts four
concerts annually of internationally known
chamber ensembles at the Montgomery
Museum of Fine Arts. The Julliard Quartet and
the Kremlin Orchestra were two of the fine
performances during the 2010-2011 season.
THE
MONTGOMERY
CHORALE
The oldest performing arts organization in
the city, the Montgomery Chorale began in
1974 under the guidance of Dr. James Elson,
chairman of the Huntingdon College Music
Department. Composed of trained, volunteer
singers, it gives several programs annually
and has performed in Europe on several
occasions and in the Washington Cathedral.
MONTGOMERY CURB MARKET
From 1924 until today, the Curb Market
has put on fine performances every Tuesday,
Thursday, and Saturday mornings with seasonal
offerings, baked goods, handmade items, flowers
and wonderful folks to help its customers.
Originally at the corner of Washington and
South Perry in large canvas tents, the group
moved to the present location in 1947. Open
throughout the year, the Curb Market is a
tradition for thousands of Montgomerians who
visit, shop, sample the wares, meet with
friends, and look forward to the next visit.
MONTGOMERY
HERITAGE MUSEUM
Montgomerian Bobby Jackson has devoted
his life to Montgomery’s past and culture. His
Heritage Museum on West Jeff Davis Avenue
is a contribution to the community.
MONTGOMERY
PUBLIC LIBRARY
In early Montgomery there was interest in
a town library and periodically one came into
existence to last for a time and then disband.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the
Montgomery Library Association organized
to comply with Andrew Carnegie’s promise
of a $50,000 grant for a building if they
would acquire a lot. Appealing for donations,
the group raised $12,500 for the northeast
corner of Perry and Washington. The Beaux
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
84

Arts-Style Carnegie Library became a reality
in 1904. By the 1950s, the Library had
expanded and, in 1959-60, the Library and
the Museum of Fine Arts moved into a new
shared building at Lawrence and High Streets.
In 2007 the main library was renamed the
Juliet Hampton Morgan Library in memory of
the white librarian who rode the busses and
observed the treatment accorded black riders,
wrote and spoke out about it, but became so
harassed by the Klan and others that she took
her own life in 1957. The library has plans for
a new facility in the future.
MONTGOMERY
RIVERBOAT
The first steamboat to reach Montgomery
was the Harriott on October 22, 1821, and
until the early 1920s steamboats plied the
Alabama River, taking cotton to market and
bringing goods for the town. Today, the
Harriott II promises a variety of relaxing, fun
cruises on the same river as the Harriott I. The
whole family will enjoy this pleasant getaway!
MONTGOMERY
SYMPHONY
Begun in 1976 under the auspices of the
Department of Parks and Recreation, the
Montgomery Symphony has flourished as
a volunteer orchestra led by Maestro Tom
Hines since 1983 and managed by Helen
Steineker since 1986. Its season includes
five formal concerts and two free outdoor
public events. The Fellowship Program and
Blount-Slauson Competition have brought
international recognition.
MONTGOMERY
ZOO
Montgomery’s first zoo was in Oak Park
from 1935-1957 when the Park closed
because of civil rights issues. The animals
were sold or given away and when the
Park reopened,the animals were not returned.
In 1976, the City opened a new zoo near
Chisholm. In 1989 it expanded from six
to forty acres with new vision and
direction, and in 1991 opened new exhibits
featuring five continents with animals
from each living in barrier free natural
environments. It is considered one of the
finest zoos in the region.
DAVIS THEATER
FOR THE
PERFORMING ARTS
In addition to its academic mission,
Troy University has also contributed three
educational and entertaining venues. Through
the generosity of Mr. and Mrs. Tine Davis,
the Paramount Theater, showplace of
Montgomery when it opened in January
1930, was restored to its original elegance.
It reopened as the Davis Theater for the
Performing Arts in 1983 under the auspices
of its new owner, Troy University. Talented
Helen Bern directed the renovation of this
historic site.
GAYLE
PLANETARIUM
In 1965, upon the reopening of Oak
Park, the city planned and invested in a
very innovative venture—a planetarium in
the park. Now under the direction and
guidance of Troy University, the W. A. Gayle
Planetarium, which opened in 1969, offers
views of the universe unavailable anywhere
else in the state. It is in Oak Park which is
continuously maintained by the City and is a
beautiful and historic place for the enjoyment
of all.
Top, left: The Harriott II bears the name of
the first steamboat to reach Montgomery
in 1821.
COURTESY OF GRAHAM NEELEY.
Top, right: Troy University manages the
Planetarium in Oak Park.
COURTESY OF THE LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION COLLECTION.
CHAPTER VI
85

1756. After the battle of Horseshoe Bend in
1814, Andrew Jackson established a fort as he
negotiated with the defeated Creeks for land
cessions. Reconstructed structures and an
Indian mound depict its diverse nature and
missions. Alabama Historical Commission
manages and interprets the site.
JASMINE GILL GARDENS
The Rosa Parks Museum stands near the
spot where Mrs. Parks refused to give up
her seat.
ROSA PARKS MUSEUM
Work and planning for the Rosa Parks
Museum was underway in the late 1990s on
the former site of the Empire Theater in front
of which Rosa Parks refused to give up her
seat on the bus. The museum opened in 2000
for tours and exhibits on the Montgomery Bus
Boycott and Mrs. Parks’ role. The dedicated
Georgette Norman continues her work as
founding director.
CLOVERDALE
PLAYHOUSE
The Cloverdale Playhouse, located in the
former Christian Church at Fairview Avenue
and Cloverdale Road, offers a variety of
programs. Little theater productions, speaking
and musical events, children’s art classes and
plays are parts of this exciting new venture in
entertainment and the arts.
FT. TOULOUSE:
FORT JACKSON
Located on a strategic bluff near the
junction of the Tallapoosa and Coosa Rivers,
Ft. Toulouse was a French outpost and
trading site with the Creek Indians from 1717
until the end of the French and Indian War in
Jasmine Hill Gardens date to the 1920s
when the Benjamin Fitzpatricks landscaped
their yard. There is a great variety of plant
materials amidst Greek statuary, fountains,
and a temple pool. Privately owned, it is
opened at certain times of the year, especially
in the spring when azaleas and cherry trees,
joined by other flowering plants, put on a
glorious display.
AND
AHEAD?
A city is a diverse, complicated, restless,
proud being, and Montgomery is typical of all
others in those respects. Montgomery’s history,
rooted in the Creek Indians, cotton, slavery,
states rights, human rights, trolleys, and
airplanes, does set her apart from all others for
nowhere has there been two such powerful
events as the birth of both Civil War and Civil
Rights in one small city. The twentieth century’s
Civil Rights Movement is ingrained in the
other’s fabric, for without one, there could not
have been the other. Both were catalysts that
changed and shaped the course of local,
national and international affairs. Montgomery
is learning to live with both in its integrated
society while remembering that much of
significance took place before, between, and
after the Civil War and Civil Rights.
AUTHOR’ S
NOTE
This overview of Montgomery is like any
other history book. No matter how much an
author tries to be objective, his own area of
interests will be visible, his own perspective
will somehow creep into the work. Also, no
matter how an author tries, there is no way
that every topic can be covered to his or any
reader’s complete satisfaction.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
86

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOOKS
Atkins, Leah Rawls. Developed for the Service of Alabama: The Centennial of the Alabama Power Company, 1906-2006. Birmingham, Alabama:
The Alabama Power Company, 2006.
Bailey, Richard. They Too Called Alabama Home. Montgomery, Alabama: Pyramid Books, 1999.
Benton, Jeffrey C. A Sense of Place. Montgomery’s Architectural Heritage,1821-1951. River City Publishing, 2001.
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: the King Years, 1954-63, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Bruccoli, Matthew, and Scottie F. Smith, eds. The Romantic Egoists, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. New York: Charles Scribners and Son, 1974.
Bush, George S. The American Harvest: The Story of Weil Brothers Cotton. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentiss-Hll, 1982.
Caver, Joseph, Ennels, Jerome, Haulman, Daniel. The Tuskegee Airman: An Illustrated History, 1939-1949. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011.
Conner, Tom. Remember When…? Montgomery, Alabama: The Advertiser Company, n.d.
Conner, Tom. Remember When, Part II. Montgomery, Alabama: The Advertiser Company, n.d.
Dattel, Gene. Cotton and Race in the Making of America. Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 2009.
Dees, Morris and Fiffer, Steve. A Lawyer’s Journey. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2001.
Ennels, Jerome A, and Wesley P. Newton. The Wisdom of Eagles: A History of Maxwell Air Force Base. Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt
Press, 1997.
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery. Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications. Inc., 1980.
Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2004.
Flynt, Wayne. Mine, Mill and Microchip. Northridge, California: Windsor Publications, 1987.
Garrraty, John A. The American Nation: A History of the United States Since 1865. New York City, New York: Harper-Collins, 1991.
Graetz, Robert S. The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A White Preacher’s Memoir. Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt Press.
Gray, Fred. Bus Ride to Justice. Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1895.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery; The Biography of a City. Montgomery, Alabama: The Advertiser Co., 1993.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City. Montgomery, Alabama: River City Press, 2002.
Griffith, Lucille. Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1968.
Haynes, Fairlie Lane. Green Are The Memories: A Memoir of the Gunter Family of Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery, Alabama: Southern Life
Publishing Services LLC, 2001
King, Carole A. and Karren I. Pell. Montgomery’s Historic Neighborhoods. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2010.
Matteson, Noelle. The Freedom Rides in Alabama. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011.
Milford, Nancy. Zelda. New York City, New York: Harper and Rowe, 1970.
Muskat, Beth Taylor and Mary Ann Neeley. The Way It Was, Montgomery and Her Central Alabama Neighbors. Montgomery, Alabama: Paragon Press, 1985.
Neeley, Mary Ann. Capital City Corners. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 1997.
Neeley, Mary Ann. Old Alabama Town. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2003.
Neeley, Mary Ann. The Works of Matthew Blue. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010.
Neeley, Mary Ann and Robert Fouts. Montgomery and the River Region. Montgomery, Alabama: Beers and Associates, 2007.
Newton, Wesley Phillips. Montgomery in the Good War. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2000.
Owen, Mrs. Thomas M., compiler. The Blue Book, Montgomery, Alabama 1909-1910. Montgomery, Alabama: Paragon Press, 1909.
Robinson, JoAnn. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee, 2009.
Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth, ed. Mencken and Sara: A Life in Letters. New York City, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987.
Rogers, William Warren, and Robert David Ward, Leah Rawls Atkins, and Wayne Flynt. The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa,
Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1994.
Seibels, Fannie Marks. Wishes Are Horses. New York City, New York: Exposition Press, 1958.
Short, Carroll Dale. The People’s Lawyer: The Colorful Life and Times of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2000.
Singleton, Billy J. Montgomery Aviation. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.
Stanton, Mary. Journey Toward Justice: Juliet Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
Stone, Lessie Mae. Hold Fast to the Faith. Montgomery, Alabama: Walker Printing Co.
Thornton, J. Mills, III. Dividing Lines. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
Trest, Warren and Dodd, Donald. Wings of Denial. Montgomery, NewSouth Books, 2001.
Williams, Julie Hedgepeth. Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama, 1910. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010.
Windham, Kathryn Tucker. Odd Egg Editor. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Zellner, Robert. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2008.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
87

MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
88
ENCYCLOPEDIAS
Encyclopedia of Alabama (www.encyclopediaofalabama.org). Articles on “Winton M. Blount” and “Selma to Montgomery March.”
Ferris, William, Wilson, Charles, co-eds. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Articles:
• Napier, Cameron Freeman. “Debutantes” and “United Daughters of the Confederacy”
• Napier, John Hawkins. “Military Bases,” “Military Schools,” and “Military Tradition.”
• Napier, John Hawkins with Cameron Freeman Napier. “Montgomery” and “Patriotic Societies.”
JOURNALS
Harkey, Gordon. “Lister Hill, Godfather of Maxwell Field: A Case Study in Southern Economic Development.” Alabama Review LIII,
January 2000, pp. 3-28.
Neeley, Mary Ann. “The Years of Jubilee, 1885-1887. in Alabama Review 32 (April 1979). 108-118.
Rieff, Burt M. “Browder vs. Gayle: The Legal Vehicle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Alabama Review XLI, July 1988, pp. 193-208.
Thornton, J. Mills. “Challenge and Response in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56,” in Alabama Review 33 (July 1980), 163-235.
“Fire on Commerce.” The Herald, IV 2, Spring 2006.
n.a. “America’s 100 Best High Schools.” Newsweek, June 27, 2011
Alabama Journal. Selected issues, 1940-1969.
Colored Alabamian. Selected issues, 1908-1912.
Montgomery Advertiser. Selected issues, 1880-2011.
Wall Street Journal. June 30, 2011.
NEWSLETTERS
MAGAZINES
NEWSPAPERS
INTERVIEWS
Alberta Williams, author’s home, February 2011.
Mary Lett Neeley, private home, most recent interview, July 4, 2011.
Wallace Neeley, most recent interview by phone, July 6, 2011.
W. D. Peak, by phone. June 19, 2011.
Vickie Williams, daughter of Jim Robinson, by phone, July 8, 2011.
REPORTS
Cramton, Fred. Through the Years,1893-1943, privately published, 1943.
Evans, Zelia. Montgomery Education of Blacks, unpublished, in Landmarks Foundation Files, 1980.
Sullivan, Marilyn. Dexter Avenue Historic Survey. Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery files, 1981.
Sullivan, Marilyn. Old West Boylston Manufacturing Company. National Register Nomination. December 3, 1984.
WEBSITES
Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce: www.montgomerychamber.com
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama: www.hmmausa.com
Retirements Systems of Alabama: www.rsa-al.gov
Southern Poverty Law Center: www.splcenter.org
United Biscuits: www.biscuits.com/team/history
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs: www.nacwc.org

ENDNOTES
Designed for further information, reading and research, the Endnotes suggest the page numbers where specific data may be found.
The authors cited are all informative with certain ones highlighted for the importance of their work to a specific subject.
PROLOGUE
Andy Anderson painting of the Winter Building (page 4): Located on the second floor west of the Winter Building, the Magnetic
Telegraph Company began serving Montgomery about 1848. The 1840s Winter Building also housed offices, shops, and a photographic
studio on the skylighted third floor.
Andy Anderson painting of the Belshaw Building (page 6): The scene dates from 1885, soon after the inauguration of the street railway
known as “Jingle Bells.” The building housed a large number of businesses during its lifetime, including grocers, jewelers, clothiers,
photographers, printers, and others. It was razed in the late 1880s to make way for the Moses Building.
CHAPTER
I
Andy Anderson painting of the Moses Building (page 10): The Moses family had many interests, including real estate, insurance, and
investing, and were prominent citizens in Montgomery. One member of the family, Mordecai Moses, served as the city’s first democratic
mayor after the Civil War; his 1875 election signaled the end of Reconstruction in Montgomery. The family businesses lost heavily in
the Panic of 1893, including the Moses Building seen in the painting. William F. Vandiver, a businessman, acquired the building, but in
1905-06, in an exchange with the First National Bank, the bank got the Moses Building while Vandiver received the bank’s 1901 six-story
office building a short distance down Commerce Street. When Vandiver announced he was adding two stories to his new acquisition, the
bank, fearing it would no longer be the tallest structure in town, searched for an answer to their dilemma. After finding that adding to
the Moses Building would not be possible and the decision by a local company to not move into their property two blocks down
Montgomery Street, the bank demolished the Moses Building. Only twenty years old, the Moses Building, a masonry structure, was already
outdated. The FNB built Montgomery’s first steel and concrete skyscraper on this important site.
SOURCES FOR PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER I
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Author’s files
Dattle, Gene. Cotton and Race in the Making of America. Chicago, Illinois: Ivan R. Dee, 2009, 42-48.
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery. Woodland Hills, California: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1978, 1-65.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City. Montgomery, Alabama: The Advertiser Company, 1993, 43-60.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City. Montgomery, Alabama: River City Press, 2002.
Griffith, Lucille. Alabama: A Documentary History to 1900. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1968.
Montgomery Advertiser. Selected issues, 1880s-2011.
Napier, Cameron Freeman. “United Daughters of Confederacy” in Ferris, William and Wilson, Charles. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989, 706.
Neeley, Mary Ann. “The Years of Jubilee, 1885-87” in Alabama Review 32 (April 1979), 108-118.
Neeley, Mary Ann. The Works of Matthew Blue. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010. Montgomery to 1880.
Rogers, William Warren, et al. The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1994, 3-343.
Alabama History by Four Premier Historians to 1994.
SOURCES FOR CHAPTER II
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Author’s files
Bailey, Hugh C. Edgar Gardner Murphy. Tuscaloosa:University of Alabama Press, 2003, 52-53.
Dattle, Gene. Cotton and Race in the Making of America.
Ennels, Jerome A, and Wesley P. Newton. The Wisdom of Eagles: A History of Maxwell Air Force Base. Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt Press, 1997, 13-22.
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery, 70-83.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City. Montgomery, Alabama: The Advertiser Company, 1993.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City. Montgomery, Alabama: River City Press, 2002, 101-116.
ENDNOTES
89

Milford, Nancy. Zelda. New York City, New York: Harper and Rowe, 1970, 30, 38-52.
Montgomery Advertiser, Selected Issues, 1900-1920, including detailed information, November 24, 1906, on Trolley Strike.
n.a. Children Eligible for Employment in the Mines, Factories and Manufacturing Establishments in the State of Alabama 1913. Montgomery,
Alabama: Brown Printing Company, 1913.
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs—www.nacwc.org
Owen, Mrs. Thomas M., compiler. The Blue Book, Montgomery, Alabama 1909-1910. Montgomery, Alabama: Paragon Press, 1909.
Rogers, William Warren, et al. The History of a Deep South State. 343-354, 376-391.
Singleton, Billy J. Montgomery Aviation. Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2007, 11-22.
Thornton, J. Mills. Dividing Lines. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002, 42-43.
Williams, Julie Hedgepeth. Wings of Opportunity: The Wright Brothers in Montgomery, Alabama, 1910. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2010.
SOURCES FOR CHAPTER III
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Alabama Capitol Building Commission, Folder #24, Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Author’s files
Atkins, Leah Rawls. Developed for the Service of Alabama: The Centennial of the Alabama Power Company, 1906-2006. Birmingham, Alabama:
The Alabama Power Company, 2006, 114, 116, 124.
Ennels, Jerome A, and Wesley P. Newton. The Wisdom of Eagles: A History of Maxwell Air Force Base. 25-68.
“Fire on Commerce.” The Herald, IV 2, Spring 2006.
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery. 85-93.
Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2004, 29-64, 267-279.
Flynt, Wayne. Mine, Mill and Microchip. Northridge, California: Windsor Publications, 1987.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City. 71-80.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City. 130-137.
Harkey, Gordon. “Lister Hill, Godfather of Maxwell Field: A Case Study in Southern Economic Development.” Alabama Review LIII,
January 2000, pp. 3-28.
Haynes, Fairlie Lane. Green Are The Memories: A Memoir of the Gunter Family of Montgomery, Alabama. Montgomery, Alabama: Southern Life
Publishing Services LLC, 2001, 213-260.
Milford, Nancy. Zelda. 197-246.
Rodgers, Marion Elizabeth, ed. Mencken and Sara: A Life in Letters. New York City,. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1987.
Rogers, William Warren, et al. The History of a Deep South State. 418-464, 477-480.
Singleton, Billy J. Montgomery Aviation. 33-36.
Stone, Lessie Mae. Hold Fast to the Faith. Montgomery, Alabama: Walker Printing Co. 105-116.
Sullivan, Marilyn. Old West Boylston Manufacturing Company. National Register Nomination. December 3, 1984.
SOURCES FOR CHAPTER IV
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Author’s files
Alabama Journal. Selected issues.
Bailey, Richard. They Too Called Alabama Home. Montgomery, Alabama: Pyramid Books, 1999, 4-5, 231-234, quote 285-286, 301-302.
Branch, Taylor. Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988, 112-198.
Caver, Joseph, Ennels, Jerome, Haulman, Daniel. The Tuskegee Airman, an Illustrated History: 1939-1949. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011.
Ennels, Jerome A, and Wesley P. Newton. The Wisdom of Eagles: A History of Maxwell Air Force Base. 69-104, 115-146.
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery. 115-125.
Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century. 393-395.
Graetz, Robert S. The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A White Preacher’s Memoir. Montgomery, Alabama: Black Belt Press. 56-135.
Gray, Fred. Bus Ride to Justice. Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1985, 36-97.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City. 91-94.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City.
Milford, Zelda. 349-350, 382-383.
Montgomery Advertiser. Selected issues.
Neeley, Mary Lett. Private home interview. Most recent interview, July 4, 2011.
Newton, Wesley Phillips. Montgomery in the Good War. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2000. A Definitive Study.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
90

Robinson, JoAnn. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It. Knoxville, Tennessee: University of Tennessee, 2009.
Rogers, et al. History of Deep South State. 446-510, 544-554.
Singleton, Billy J. Montgomery Aviation.
Stanton, Mary. Journey Toward Justice: Juliet Hampton Morgan and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 2006.
Thornton, J. Mills. “Challenge and Response in Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955” in Alabama Review 33, July 1980, 163-235.
Thornton, J. Mills, III. Dividing Lines. Tuscaloosa, Alabama:University of Alabama Press, 2002. A Detailed Definitive Work.
Windham, Kathryn Tucker. Odd-Egg Editor. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
SOURCES FOR CHAPTER V
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Author’s files
Alabama Journal, selected issues, 1949-1975.
Branch. Parting the Waters. 412-474.
Benton, Jeffrey C. A Sense of Place. Montgomery’s Architectural Heritage,1821-1951. River City Publishing, 2001.
Encyclopedia of Alabama (www.encyclopediaofalabama.org). Article “Selma to Montgomery March.”
Flynt, Wayne. Montgomery. 107-129.
Graetz, Robert S. The Montgomery Bus Boycott: A White Preacher’s Memoir. 136-149.
Gray. Bus Ride. 219-226.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City.
Matteson, Noelle. The Freedom Rides and Alabama. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2011. Concise information.
Montgomery Advertiser. Selected issues, 1950s-1970s. Quote January 15, 1963.
Neeley, Mary Ann. Old Alabama Town. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2003.
Neeley, Wallace. Interview. Most recent interview by phone, July 6, 2011.
Rieff, Burt M. “Browder vs. Gayle: The Legal Vehicle of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Alabama Review XLI, July 1988, pp. 193-208.
Rogers, William Warren, et al. The History of a Deep South State. 561-565.
Short, Carroll Dale. The People’s Lawyer: The Colorful Life and Times of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr. Montgomery, Alabama: NewSouth Books, 2000.
Sullivan, Marilyn. Dexter Avenue Historic Survey. Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery files, 1981.
Thornton, J. Mills, III. Dividing Lines. Quote 96-97, 98-140, 478-583.
Trest. Warren and Dodd, Donald. Wings of Denial. Montgomery. NewSouth Books, 2001.
Williams, Alberta. Author’s home interview. February 2011.
SOURCES FOR CHAPTER VI
Landmark Foundation of Montgomery files
Author’s files
Alabama Journal, selected issues, 1960-1980.
Benton, Jeffrey C. A Sense of Place.
Dees, Morris and Fiffer, Steve. A Lawyer’s Journey. Chicago: American Bar Association, 2001, 43-60.
Encyclopedia of Alabama (www.encyclopediaofalabama.org). Article “Winton M. Blount, Jr.”
Flynt, Wayne. Alabama in the Twentieth Century.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The Biography of a City. 114-118.
Greenhaw, Wayne. Montgomery: The River City. 197-206.
Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Alabama: www.hmmausa.com
Montgomery Advertiser. Selected issues, 1960-2011.
Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce: www.montgomerychamber.com
n.a. “America’s 100 Best High Schools.” Newsweek, June 27, 2011
Napier, John with Napier, Cameron Freeman. Patriotic Societies in Ferris and Wilson. Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 698-699.
Peak, W. D. Interview by phone. June 19, 2011.
Retirements Systems of Alabama: www.rsa-al.gov
Southern Poverty Law Center: splcenter.org
United Biscuits: www.biscuits.com/team/history
Wall Street Journal. June 30, 2011.
Williams, Vickie. Interview by phone. July 8, 2011.
ENDNOTES
91

MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
92

SHARING THE HERITAGE
Historic profiles of businesses, organizations, and
families that have contributed to the development
and economic base of Montgomery County
JRB Associates, Inc. .....................................................................94
The Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention Center ...98
Landmarks Foundation-Old Alabama Town ....................................101
Brown Chambless Architects ........................................................102
Alabama Power Company ............................................................105
MAX Credit Union .....................................................................106
Red Bluff Cottage Bed & Breakfast ...............................................109
Montgomery Regional Airport ......................................................110
Montgomery Aviation Corporation ................................................112
Ace Supply, Inc. ........................................................................113
Troy University .........................................................................114
WFSA 12 News..........................................................................116
Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C..........................118
Jack Ingram Motors ...................................................................120
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum ...........................................122
McPhillips Shinbaum, LLP...........................................................123
Weiss Flooring, Inc. ...................................................................124
Alabama Shakespeare Festival .....................................................125
Pickwick Antiques......................................................................126
Jackson Thornton & Co. .............................................................127
Baptist Health...........................................................................128
Crosby Electric Company, Inc. .....................................................129
Ross-Clayton Funeral Home ........................................................130
Hodgson Concrete Company.........................................................131
Sabel Steel ...............................................................................132
Isaiah’s Restaurant
Butterfly Inn Bed & Breakfast ................................................133
Drug Research and Analysis Corporation .......................................134
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts ................................................135
Frazier Memorial United Methodist Church ...................................136
Richardson’s Pharmacy ...............................................................137
Dozier Warehouses.....................................................................138
SPECIAL
THANKS TO
The City of Montgomery
SHARING THE HERITAGE
93

JRB
ASSOCIATES,
INC.
Above: RSA Headquarters.
Below: Ron Blount.
JRB Associates, Inc., was incorporated in
Montgomery County, Alabama on September
21, 1989, and created to provide preconstruction,
construction and post-construction
phase services as well as assistance in purchasing
furniture, fixture and equipment, network
and technology and all other owner needs.
For many years the company’s founder,
J. Ronald Blount, had encountered owners
with great ideas, but who lacked the internal
expertise to implement their projects without
incurring significant additional cost. Likewise,
there was a unique need among many contractors
struggling while attempting to do
larger, more complex projects than they had
previously done, without the experience or
knowledge of what it took.
Based on Blount’s twenty-two years in the
construction industry and after providing
project executive leadership while building
the corporate headquarters for two of the
largest developers at the time, Lincoln
Property Company and the Trammel Crow
Company in Dallas, Texas, he felt it was time
to offer this type of hands-on service.
The company’s first project was to provide
program management services to the Home
Builders Association of Alabama for their new
office facility on Monroe Street in downtown
Montgomery, Alabama. This project, for
which JRB Associates provided program
management services, was a significant first
step for the new company. They were able to
assist the owner in reducing the initial
estimate for the project by thirty percent and
prevent the project from stopping.
Today, JRB Associates, Inc. remains
uniquely qualified to provide Program
Management Services for office facilities
and has been personally involved in the
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
94

development of several landmark projects in
the Montgomery area. In the past, they have
been in direct control, providing Program
Management Services for several high profile
projects on behalf of the Retirement Systems
of Alabama and others, as well as providing
lender representation for the Montgomery,
Alabama Embassy Suites Hotel.
In Montgomery these projects include the
Home Builders Association of Alabama, RSA
Capital Deck, RSA Union Building, RSA Union
Deck, RSA Tower, RSA Activity Center &
Park, RSA Child Learning Center, RSA Park
Pavilion, RSA Headquarters Project, RSA
Judicial Building Project, Embassy Suites
Hotel, Southern Poverty Law Center, Alabama
Association of Realtors, Heflin Torbert
Supreme Court Renovation, and the renovation
of the Public Safety Building. These projects
alone have exceeded approximately $1 billion
worth of development costs in Montgomery.
In Mobile, projects have included RSA Battle
House Hotel, RSA Battle House Office Tower,
RSA Riverview Plaza Hotel, and the Alabama
Cruise Terminal; and the Robert Trent Jones
Prattville Clubhouse in Prattville, Alabama.
The firm has a proven track record in
handling large, tough projects from budget
restraints to complicated site issues and offers
hands-on experience in dealing day-to-day
with the architects and contractors necessary
to develop the project. Simply stated, “they
talk the talk and walk the walk.”
In 2002 the Retirement Systems of Alabama
selected the firm to represent them in Mobile,
Alabama for the development of the $200-million
RSA Battle House Tower, which is
Alabama’s tallest building. Also, in 2004 they
provided program management services for
the development of the $20-million award
winning Alabama Cruise Terminal at Mobile
developed in an unbelievable 232 days, on
time, within budget. They also provided program
management services for the $60-million
renovation of the Riverview Plaza Hotel, also
owned by the Retirement Systems of Alabama.
During 2005 the Retirement Systems of
Alabama selected JRB Associates to represent
them in Montgomery, Alabama for the
development of the $150-million RSA
Headquarters project. In 2006 the State of
Alabama selected them to provide program
management services for the $25-million
renovation of the Alabama Public Safety
Building. In 2007 the Retirement Systems of
Alabama once again selected JRB Associates
to represent them for the $200-million RSA
Judicial Building Project in Montgomery,
Alabama. In 2008 they were once again
selected to provide program management
RSA Activity Center.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
95

RSA Tower.
services for the new Alabama Criminal Justice
Training Center in Selma, Alabama and the
Alabama Association of Realtors new office
facility in downtown Montgomery, Alabama.
In 1992, JRB Associates was asked by the
Retirement Systems of Alabama to provide
program management services for their
new seven block downtown development.
This project consisted of the RSA Tower’s 23
stories and 700,000 square feet; RSA Union
Building’s 9 stories with 400,000 square feet;
3 parking decks for over 2,300 cars; RSA
Activity Center & Plaza; Helen Hunt Child
Learning Center; and the RSA Pavilion Park.
The total development costs’ exceeded $165
million and was completed without one
contractor claim or lawsuit.
In October of 1993, JRB Associates was
asked by New Water Street Corporation, an
affiliate of the Retirement Systems of Alabama
to provide program management services for
the renovation and expansion of the 3.7 million
square feet at the 55 Water Street project
in New York, New York. This $156-million
project involved a new never-done-before
Redundant Power System constructed while
the building was still occupied, and provided
over $2 million worth of savings to the owner,
New Water Street Corporation. Once again,
JRB Associates was able to provide program
management services without one single
claim or lawsuit.
From 1992 to 2001, JRB Associates provided
lender representation services to the
Retirement Systems of Alabama through
the developers that developed the projects.
These projects included Embassy Suites,
John Q. Hammons Hotels in Montgomery and
Huntsville; Luxury Apartments-Wheat First
Butcher; World Golf Village Hotel, John Q.
Hammons Hotels in St. Augustine, Florida;
and Daniel Senior Living, Daniel Corporation,
in Birmingham and Huntsville.
In 1998 the Southern Poverty Law Center
retained JRB Associates to provide program
management services for the pre-construction
and construction phase for their new office
facility located in Montgomery. JRB Associates
provided program management services that
included purchasing all FF&E items for the
building as well as traditional construction
management responsibilities.
At approximately the same time the company
became involved with a new firm, Point
Clear Holdings, Inc. to provide Developer
Management services for hotel projects which
the firm was planning to undertake. The first
project was the Marriott Grand Hotel located
in Point Clear, Alabama and the second was
the Grand National Hotel & Conference
Center located in Opelika, Alabama. JRB
Associates completed the master planning
phase for the Grand Hotel and was providing
preplanning services in Opelika.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
96

JRB Associates is prepared to continue
offering the same type of services for which
it has been well-lauded. Their philosophy also
remains the same, “When you retain our firm,
you’re getting forty-two years of personal experience.
Unlike many others, we don’t show you
one face (mine) during the sale and then send
you a young fresh (inexperienced) face during
the project. When you retain our firm you get all
of our forty-two years of industry experience.”
JRB Associates continues to offer the very
best in project management services by
ensuring its available time and manpower
for every project. They have an intimate
knowledge of the state and its players, both
architects and contractors and share the
vision of a better Alabama through quality
development. JRB Associates is capable of
implementing that vision and will take the
project from vision to reality.
Above: Southern Poverty Law Center.
Below RSA Union.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
97

THE RENAISSANCE MONTGOMERY HOTEL &
SPA AT THE CONVENTION CENTER
The history that can be found in nearly
every inch of downtown is what makes
Montgomery an incredible centerpiece for
Alabama. Finished in February 2008 the
Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the
Convention Center serves as a gateway to
Montgomery’s past and a vehicle for the
future of downtown. The hotel has become
the capital city’s great cultural, culinary
and corporate hub. With a rare combination
of unparalleled Renaissance ambiance and
a prime downtown location, this Four
Diamond–AAA hotel provides distinction
that is difficult to duplicate. With everything
from an award-winning spa to innovative
cuisine, the Renaissance Montgomery has
it all.
Modern décor is only the beginning of
the unique experience at Renaissance
Montgomery. The hotel literally glows in the
heart of downtown. The signature tower that
changes from pink to green to blue is an
unmistakable presence when crossing into
Montgomery. The grand entryway paves the
way into a forward-thinking lobby, complete
with unconventional art, many of which are
by Alabama’s renowned artist, Nall. Tradition
Above: Elegance is found in every detail of
the Renaissance Montgomery, while still
providing the casual ambiance of home.
Right: The rooftop pool and pool bar provide
breathtaking views of historic downtown
and outstanding privacy from the bustling
streets below.
Opposite, top: The quiet rooms in the Spa at
the Renaissance provide a serene oasis
before and after your treatments.
Opposite, bottom: Uniquely designed
restaurants and bars add an extra edge of
luxury and style to your stay.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
98

meets contemporary ideas in the giant
display that greets guests as they enter the
hotel. This Nall designed piece reflects
significant parts of Montgomery heritage and
can be seen in the details throughout the
hotel as well.
Specializing in meticulous attention to
detail and professional service, Renaissance
Montgomery has 346 luxurious guest rooms
and suites, each beckoning its guests to relax
and enjoy the comforts of life. The House
and The Exchange at the Renaissance provide
exquisite cuisine and entertaining nightlife
only steps away from your room. The House
provides a menu that is truly a Renaissance
Montgomery signature. Small plates
presented in uniform fashion encourage
guests to enjoy their meal in family style,
where sharing is encouraged. Every dish is
uniquely delicious; it is hard not try them all.
And the best part is that the prices are
affordable, so indulge. For a slightly more
casual atmosphere, try The Exchange. This
bar and restaurant also boasts an exciting
menu and complements the atmosphere with
live music. It is the perfect place to enjoy a
night cap or to celebrate the end of a long
day at work. Renaissance Montgomery is
walking distance to the Alabama River, the
Biscuits’ Riverwalk Stadium, Riverwalk
Amphitheater and endless other bars,
restaurants and nightlife.
With a total of over 140,000 square feet
of hotel and conference meeting space,
Renaissance Montgomery has gained a
reputation for being the place to hold an
event. Ranging from intimate boardrooms
to a 14,000 square-foot Grand Ballroom,
Renaissance Montgomery can accommodate
just about any agenda. This versatility is
part of what attracted Hyundai’s National
Convention, which was held at the hotel and
convention center in May 2010. Featured
cars were found throughout the hotel lobby
and one was even strategically placed in the
fountain at the entrance of the hotel. The
exhibit hall in the convention center provides
the largest amount of space in the hotel with
72,520 square feet. It can be divided into
three sections or used in its entirety for a
maximum seating capacity of 10,360
SHARING THE HERITAGE
99

The 1,800 seat performing arts centre has
entertained audiences with concerts,
Broadway shows, and endless entertainment
for children and adults alike.
The Montgomery Performing Arts Centre,
which is adjacent to the hotel, is a multimillion
dollar facility that has the amenities and
capabilities of some of the most prestigious
theaters in the Southeast, such as the Fox
Theatre in Atlanta and the Alabama Theatre
in Birmingham. As a Level One theater, the
1,800-seat performing arts centre is built to
accommodate first run Broadway touring
shows, which normally involve multiple trucks
of equipment, props, cast and crew. Since
MPAC’s completion, the theatre has been
the center of entertainment in downtown
Montgomery. Stars like Little Big Town, George
Jones and Willie Nelson have graced the
MPAC stage, as well as award-winning shows
like Cabaret and Fiddler on the Roof. Leading
up to the holidays, MPAC invites those in
Montgomery to enjoy their favorite Christmas
movies on the MPAC movie screen.
A 9,000 square foot European-style spa,
complete with treatment rooms, men’s and
ladies’ quiet rooms, steam rooms, an exercise
and fitness center, a movement studio and a
full-service salon, promises to melt your stress
away. An oasis in the middle of downtown,
the spa provides a long list of treatments
including signature massages, facials and
treatments that are the highest caliber and
quality. Hidden on the roof of the hotel,
guests will also find a refreshing pool and
waterfall with views of historic downtown.
A full service rooftop bar completes the
relaxation experience.
Renaissance Montgomery is part of the
Resort Collection on Alabama’s Robert Trent
Jones Golf Trail. All of the hotels carry the
Marriott or Renaissance flags. Five of the eight
hotels, including Renaissance Montgomery,
have received the coveted AAA-Four Diamond
rating. Renaissance Montgomery is located
only a short distance from the Robert Trent
Jones Golf Trail at Capitol Hill. With three
exceptional golf courses, Capitol Hill has won
numerous awards and is continually named a
top golf location throughout the nation. RTJ
at Capitol Hill is home to the Navistar LPGA
Classic which is played in October. During the
tournament, Renaissance Montgomery provides
lodging to numerous LPGA players,
national and international media, tournament
staff, volunteers and fans.
For more information on the Renaissance
Montgomery Hotel & Spa at the Convention
Center, visit www.renaissancemontgomery.com
or call 334.481.5000. Also, Renaissance
Montgomery has made its way into the social
media world and can be found on both
Facebook and Twitter. You can follow us for
up-to-the-minute information, deals and exciting
news at facebook.com/renaissancemontgomeryhotel
and twitter.com/renaissancemgm.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
100

Landmarks Foundation, the leader in
Montgomery’s preservation efforts, is a
nonprofit organization charted in 1968 for
the purposes of fostering and encouraging
the preservation and restoration of Central
Alabama’s historic architecture and the
interpretation of its history. Landmarks
has carried out a part of its mission in
cooperation with the City of Montgomery,
through the development of Old Alabama
Town, an outdoor history village composed
of over forty nineteenth and early twentieth
century authentic structures, in the heart of
downtown Montgomery.
It has actively engaged in preservation
around the city, acquiring and overseeing
the restoration of several significant buildings.
It has also encouraged restorations by
individuals and businesses, served as an
example to other municipalities, offered
advice and acted as a consultant when-ever
called upon in those capacities.
Old Alabama Town began its existence
when Landmarks Foundation and the City of
Montgomery acquired the Ordeman-Shaw
House in 1967 and began an intensive
research and restoration project of the 1850s
townhouse, outbuildings and grounds.
With the guidance of experts, including
James Loeb, Milo Howard, preservation
architect Nick Holmes, historian Mills
Thornton and Marvin Schwartz of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, it opened to
wide acclaim in 1972. As the Foundation
acquired adjacent lands, which it deeded to
the City, some with original buildings, it
moved in and restored other endangered
structures from around Montgomery and
other Central Alabama counties. Some of
the restored structures are museums, and
others are rented as offices; thus each is
contributing to the community and to the
maintenance/preservation of O.A.T. While
preservation and restoration are two key
duties, the third is historical and architectural
interpretations, which are essential to
make the site live and breathe. Each structure
has a story to tell and each has its
own significance.
Although there is not time and space
to discuss each building, a case study is
the 1850s Thompson House, which came
from Tuskegee. Landmarks was looking for
a columned house as an example of
Alabama architecture and lifestyle. When
the Foundation heard of the Thompson
House, it was already being skillfully
dismantled to be taken to Georgia for
restoration. It was the perfect house for
the corner site reserved for a columned
house, but it had already been claimed.
Nearly two years went by, and then a board
member received a call one night from the
then owner, unable to restore the house,
offering all the pieces of the house to the
Foundation for a sum of money which it
did not have. However, a former Landmarks’
president and current board member
belonged to the Montgomery Kiwanis Club
and suggested applying for a grant for
the amount needed. The Kiwanis Club
generously contributed the funds; the
Foundation acquired the thousands of pieces
of the dismantled house, which then were
brought to Old Alabama Town where, under
the guidance of John Shaffer, Tommy Oliver,
Jimmy Loeb and other interested volunteers,
the Foundation’s crew reassembled the fine
old house to its former appearance.
This is the story of one structure; there are
forty-nine more. We invite people to come
enjoy the buildings, their histories and
the grounds of Old Alabama Town—a
treasury of southern history and architecture
from 1815-1915—big houses, small cottages,
a cotton gin, doctor’s office—and so many
more. The address is 301 Columbus Street;
the telephone number is 334-240-4500.
Additional information is also available on
the Internet at www.oldalabamatown.com.
LANDMARKS
FOUNDATION-
OLD ALABAMA
The Thompson Mansion.
TOWN
SHARING THE HERITAGE
101

BROWN
CHAMBLESS
ARCHITECTS
Brown Chambless Architects (BCA) is an
award-winning, multifaceted architectural
design firm located in Montgomery,
Alabama. With over forty-five years of
seasoned knowledge and experience,
we provide clients with a variety of
services pertaining to architecture, interior
design, project management, programming,
furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E),
urban planning/master planning and
cost management.
Don Brown is a principal and owner
of Brown Chambless Architects. He has been
a principal and owner of an architecture
firm since 1977 and holds architectural
licenses in a dozen southeastern states.
Don received his professional degree in
architecture from Auburn University in 1971
after undergraduate education in art history
from Williams College.
the International Code Conference. This code
creates new national standards for resource
conservation, energy-conscious design, and
sustainability. Over the past several years he
has authored and moderated AIA’s videotaped
series on advocacy. He currently chairs
ArchiPAC for AIA, the national federal political
action committee for AIA.
Don has chaired the Montgomery Historic
Development Commission and authored city
legislation for historic designation and
architectural review.
Since beginning his professional career in
1980, John R. Chambless, Jr., AIA, has had a
wide range of architectural experience, from
working on the design team of Alabama’s
largest office building to designing healthcare
facilities in fifteen states and leading the
architectural team on a 400,000 square foot
luxury resort and casino.
Don currently serves as Director for the
five-state Gulf States Region on the national
American Institute of Architects Board. He has
held every AIA office in both chapter and state
components in Alabama. Currently, Don
serves the Alabama Council AIA as the
government relations chair, which carries the
responsibility for advocacy and legislative
activity. He is the lead architect on the
Alabama Legislature’s permanent committee to
create new energy legislation. He is currently a
member of the national AIA working group of
John is also active in community and
professional organizations. He served as the
local AIA Chapter Director and is a former
Chairman of the City of Montgomery
Architectural Review Board. John began
his education in the Montgomery Public
School System and continued his studies
at Auburn University as an architecture
student. He furthered his architectural
studies as an exchange student in Italy and
England. He is now principal and partner at
Brown Chambless Architects.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
102

Today, the firm specializes in a variety of
architectural needs including master/community
planning, historic renovation, healthcare,
education, housing, cultural, religious, hospitality,
commercial, government, athletic facilities,
and parking structures. They are wellknown
throughout the area for timeless
design and intricate work for groups such as
Jack Ingram Motors, Wind Creek Casino and
Hotel, and the Spa at Wind Creek, and can be
seen by visitors as they walk through the
columns of Alabama’s State Capitol building.
Brown Chambless Architects is located
at 260 Commerce Street, Suite 200 in
Montgomery and at www.brownchambless.com
on the Internet.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
103

MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
104

Electric lights came to Montgomery in 1883,
and on April 15, 1886, an electric street railway
system was in operation, the first in the Western
Hemisphere. The state’s first hydroelectric dam
was on the Tallapoosa River at Tallassee and
began producing electricity for the Montgomery
market November 11, 1902. A flood destroyed
the dam in 1919. Competition between two
companies weakened both so that neither could
secure capital for expansion. Threatened with
the loss of service, on December 29, 1922, the
Chamber of Commerce invited Alabama Power
Company to come to Montgomery.
Alabama Power, incorporated in 1906 in
Gadsden, was acquired by Alabama Traction
Light & Power Company, a holding company
that established its headquarters in 1912
in Montgomery’s Bell Building. Montgomery
was always important to Alabama Power, not
only was it the capital but it was the home of
Alabama Power’s longtime leader, Thomas W.
Martin, who served the company from 1911 to
his death in 1964. By December 1913, Alabama
Power had completed a hydroelectric plant on
the Coosa River, and by 1915 was serving the
Birmingham, Anniston, and Gadsden areas.
After Alabama Power secured the franchise to
provide Montgomery with electricity in 1923,
the company sent James M. Barry to supervise
Alabama Power’s integration of the two
distribution systems, upgrades of substations,
construction of new distribution lines, and
transmission lines to the Coosa dams. This
hydro power was originally backed up by two
small coal-fired generation plants in the city.
The Southern Division serves Auburn
University, Auburn University at Montgomery,
Alabama State University, Troy University, and
Huntingdon College, as well as Maxwell and
Gunter Air Force Bases. In 2010 the electrical
demand of these bases was 31.2 megawatts,
which places the combined military load among
the top five customers of the Southern Division.
A. Sidney Coleman, the Southern Division
leader with the longest tenure (1925–1957),
was active in economic development programs
that Alabama Power initiated in 1920. Hugh P.
Foreman, division vice president for seventeen
years (1965–1982), believed that the state
capitol’s location influenced the division
and its responsibilities within the company.
Executives and management staffs spent more
time in the division working with the Public
Service Commission and state government.
They knew Southern Division personnel better
than people in other divisions.
In 2010, the Southern Division was led by
Vice President Kenneth E. Coleman, who came
to Montgomery in 2008 from Mississippi Power
Company. He brought years of experience with
business development, marketing and sales. In
2010, the Southern Division had 221,765 customers
and sold of 8.2 billion in kilowatt hours.
ALABAMA
POWER
COMPANY
Above: Montgomery distribution system
along Dexter Avenue in 1923 before
Alabama Power began upgrading the
system and in 1924 after the upgrades
were completed.
Below: Alabama Power Company building
on the corner of Lawrence and Dexter.
Built in 1855, it was the home of the
Montgomery Advertiser until 1986 when
it became the home of Alabama Power.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
105

MAX
CREDIT UNION
Above: Mamie S. Maples, founder of MAX.
Below: The 1960s credit union office on
Maxwell Air Force Base.
MAX was born in a cigar box, locked in the
desk drawer of a woman who did not know
what a credit union was when she started one.
Fifty-five years ago, a group of airmen
stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base in
Montgomery approached Mamie Maples, the
then director of the base’s management
training office, to see if she would consider
organizing a credit union. They wanted an
organization devoted to lending money to—
and saving money for—each other.
Maples did not know what a credit union
was, but she did know that helping the airmen
avoid high-interest loans was a good cause, so
she agreed to tackle the task. With fifteen other
men and women participating, Maxwell Federal
Credit Union was brought into existence on
April 27, 1955. The first loan was granted to a
technical sergeant in the amount of $125—the
entirety of the credit union’s holdings, kept in a
cigar box in a locked desk drawer.
Maples worked to promote the credit
union to civilians and Air Force officers alike,
and it was not long before a steady stream of
members were depositing money with the
group. The growth of the small credit union
was swift—a trend that continues today, five
decades after the first loan was approved.
Each year, MAX has opened more doors for
members to benefit from the credit union’s
products and services. From its humble
beginnings on Maxwell Air Force Base, the
credit union has grown by adding more
branches and credit union services. In 1979,
MAX introduced its first checking account,
MAXI-Chek. In 1981, MAX introduced its
first credit cards. In 1995, MAX opened
JennyMAX ® allowing members to conduct
their transactions twenty-four hours per day,
seven days a week through a touch-tone
phone. In 1997, myMAX.com was introduced
allowing members to conduct their financial
business over the Internet.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
106

In 1998, MAX was approved for a
community charter, allowing the credit union
to extend its field of membership to serving
anyone who lived, worked, worshiped, or
attended school in Autauga, Elmore or
Montgomery counties.
In November of 2006, MAX unveiled
myMAX Business Services offering a suite of
financial products to meet the needs of its
business members. myMAX Business Services
includes business loans, checking accounts,
and merchant services.
In August of 2007, MAX members voted to
convert to a State Charter allowing MAX to continue
to grow and provide additional services to
its credit union members. The conversion to a
state charter allowed MAX to expand its community
to include Bullock, Butler, Chambers,
Chilton, Coosa, Crenshaw, Dallas, Lee, Lowndes,
Macon, Pike and Tallapoosa Counties.
As MAX has evolved over the years, it has
remained true to the credit union philosophy
of “People Helping People.” MAX has grown
from a credit union offering only savings and
loans at a single location to one that offers a
multitude of products and services through
a vast delivery channel of physical branches
and electronic means. In 2008, MAX opened
its newest branch in the Tallassee community,
making thirteen physical branch locations
open to serve members.
MAX has continued to be a strong, sound
and service-oriented credit union that prides
itself on being “Your Community Credit Union.”
Community involvement is part of what
makes MAX special. Whether it is pledging
money to the River Region United Way,
sponsoring breathtaking fireworks displays at
the Montgomery Biscuits baseball games, or
hosting the MAX Capital City Classic, MAX is
a force for good in the community.
The MAX4Kids Foundation is one of the
main means of community outreach for MAX.
The Foundation is a charitable organization
devoted to help children in the River Region.
Since its beginning in 2000, the MAX4Kids
Foundation has donated over $451,000 to
benefit children’s charities in the River Region.
In 2001, the MAX4Kids Foundation began
a scholarship program to help graduating
high school seniors further their education.
The MAX4Kids Foundation has awarded over
$120,000 in college scholarships.
The MAX4Kids Foundation is unique in
that it was founded by the associates of
MAX Credit Union. The MAX associates are the
key to the Foundation’s successful fundraising
efforts. Organizing fundraisers, hosting golf
tournaments and collecting pledges may not
seem like the typical duties of credit union
employees, but MAX associates have made the
MAX4Kids Foundation a priority.
In 2005, the MAX Community Achievement
Award was established to honor organizations
and individuals who have made a difference in
our community and increased our quality of
life. The MAX Community Achievement Award
symbolizes those who work toward making our
communities a better place to live, work, and
worship. Recipients of the MAX Community
Achievement Award include: the Montgomery
Biscuits and Hyundai Motor Manufacturing of
Alabama; 754th Electronic Systems Group; Joint
Forces Headquarters, Alabama National Guard;
Alabama Wildlife Federation; Troy University
Montgomery; and Pastor Edward Nettles
visionary of the Enough is Enough campaign.
In 2007, MAX launched the EcoMAX ®
HomeExpo focused on energy-efficient home
products, and eco-friendly building materials.
The EcoMAX ® HomeExpo was the first event
of its kind to be held in the River Region and
offered ideas for reducing energy costs while
making homes healthier and safer with
energy-efficient products and services.
MyEcoMAX.com was launched in 2009
to provide information on how to live
more sustainably.
Above: The stainless sculptures of the MAX
Community Achievement Award captures
the community spirit as the sphere on the
top represents our community. The figures
underneath represents those who move with
agility over obstacles and leap toward
their goals.
Below: In 2009 the MAX4Kids Foundation
awarded ten graduating high school seniors
each with a $2,000 scholarship.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
107

Above: The EcoMAX HomeExpo was the
first event of its kind to be held in the River
Region and offered ideas for reducing energy
costs while making homes healthier and
safer with energy-efficient products
and services.
Below: MAX member T. C. Schwindling.
EcoMAX ® is an educational initiative by MAX
Credit Union to help educate the River Region
about sustainable living solutions, energyefficient
and eco-friendly home building.
Since its initial beginning, EcoMAX ® has
evolved to focus more on all aspects of a
sustainable living from all things energyefficiency
related to eating healthier by buying
local produce
The EcoMAX ® Green Leadership award was
created in 2008 to recognize individuals or
organizations for their commitment to lead the
way with sustainable living initiatives. Past
recipients of the EcoMAX ® Green Leadership
Award include: Senator Wendell Mitchell and
Representative Greg Wren for statewide energy
initiatives that help all Alabamians to achieve
affordable energy alternatives; Jenkins Brick
and Tile Company for conserving energy by
using methane gas from local landfills to
fuel its production; The Waters for being a
residential leader in energy-efficiency and
green home building; and Davis Direct, Inc.
for its sustainable business practices including
FSC Certification.
The strength of MAX is found in its
members. MAX is committed to its community
and providing quality products and services to
help its members ‘get ahead’. MAX Credit
Union exists to serve the needs of its members.
“I have been a personal member of MAX
for many years. In 2001, I used a bank for a
business loan. I was always dealing with a
different person and would usually just get their
voice mail. When MAX began offering business
services I switched. The people at MAX make
the difference. I deal with one person and if I
have a problem, it is taken care of quickly. This
is essential for a small business owner,” stated
Jody Wolf, owner of American Oak.
“MAX gave me my first auto loan when I
was twenty-two years old. It was so nice to
walk in and be met by a concierge at the front
door. It was just that nice warm touch that
made everything different for me. It made me
want to stay with MAX,” stated MAX member
T. C. Schwindling.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
108

“Heavenly beds! The most comfortable
accommodations on our whole trip!” That is
just one of numerous glowing comments
posted on the web from guests who have
discovered Red Bluff Cottage Bed & Breakfast in
Montgomery, Alabama.
Innkeepers Barry and Bonnie Ponstein have
filled their establishment with warmth, comfort
and an abundance of thoughtful touches that
guarantee a good night’s sleep and a delightful
stay. Guests agree that their motto: “Arrive as
guests, depart as friends” is absolutely true.
Overlooking the Alabama River plain in
historic Cottage Hill, Red Bluff Cottage Bed &
Breakfast is located downtown near the heart
of the Montgomery business district, where
from fall until early spring visitors can see the
state capital building from the veranda. Many
of Montgomery’s favorite tourist attractions
are within walking distance of the inn.
Yet, what sets the spacious cottage apart is the
Southern charm and welcoming atmosphere
that not only attracts local residents who want to
get away for a change of pace, but also attracts
guests from around the world.
Guests relax in clean, comfortable and cozy
rooms or unwind from the day’s activities in the
peaceful gazebo on the lush cottage grounds.
And after a peaceful night’s rest, guests begin the
morning with an amazing breakfast—a homecooked
feast so beautifully presented that they
are inclined not to devour such a work of art.
There are amenities galore at Red Bluff
Cottage Bed & Breakfast and many that guests
have never experienced before at other inns and
hotels. Guests can drift away in luxury under a
blanket encased between high thread count
sheets and topped with the softest and finest
quality matelasse´ coverlets. Upon request,
guests may also enjoy the fragrance of fresh-cut
flowers. For special occasions, the Ponsteins
take their ambiance a step higher by offering
special packages. Another perk includes
wireless Internet, fax, and copier services,
which allow business guests to work efficiently
and without interruption during their stay.
Barry and Bonnie acquired Red Bluff Cottage
Bed & Breakfast in 2001 and began refurbishing
the cottage and filling it with beautiful antiques.
They renamed the guest rooms, each with a
signature theme: The Rose, The Riverboat, The
Stitch In Time, and The Great Gatsby. The latter
honors one of Montgomery’s most famous
daughters, Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and captures
the opulence of the Roaring Twenties and the
Jazz Age, two themes immortalized in novels and
short stories by her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The Ponsteins also offer several special
packages that appeal to the individual needs and
tastes of their guests. The Alabama Lifestyles
Package for two requires a two-night minimum
stay and includes a romantic dinner at a fine
dining restaurant, tickets for a trolley tour of
downtown attractions and a walking tour of Old
Alabama Town.
“We’re always looking for ways to offer
more than a typical overnight’s stay by
continually adding features and amenities,”
says Bonnie. “Our goal is to “wow” our guests
so they will regret having to leave and want to
return to our B&B often.”
For reservations, please call 334-264-0056
or visit www.redbluffcottage.com.
RED BLUFF
COTTAGE
BED &
BREAKFAST
SHARING THE HERITAGE
109

MONTGOMERY
REGIONAL
AIRPORT
Montgomery Regional Airport—Dannelly
Field–has always had big dreams in spite of its
humble beginnings. In 1910, with the aid of
the Montgomery Commercial Club—forerunner
of today’s Montgomery Chamber of
Commerce, the Wright brothers established
a school for teaching civilians to fly. It lasted
a few months. In 1912 a team of touring
barnstormers with Wright-built planes put on
an occasional show at the Montgomery
Fairgrounds, but it was in 1918, after the
United States entered World War I, that military
aircraft flew from a flight training field
near Pike Road and from what had been
known locally since 1910 as Wright’s Field,
which later became known as Maxwell Field
and moved to today’s Maxwell Air Force Base
after the Army downsizing following the war.
It thereafter became the site of the first airlinetype
operation in Montgomery after the introduction
of airmail in the mid 1920s.
Embarrassed because Montgomery still
had no commercial airport, since the Wright
Brothers introduced the airplane to Alabama
here, Montgomery Mayor William A. Gunter
was determined to create a municipal airport.
The mayor subsequently announced the City
Commission had purchased a privately owned
1,000 acre tract near Kilby prison, which was
ultimately opened in 1929. After some slow
starts, the new airport was called “one of the
largest and most outstanding airports in the
United States.” For a while, Montgomery was
the home to an aeronautical school, hub of
several regional airlines and a stop-over for
others from Miami to Cleveland. After Mayor
Gunter was made a vice president of Southern
Air Express and several prominent businessmen
and local professionals were named to its
board of directors, Montgomery was the hub
of its passenger service.
Later, a Montgomery delegation led by
Congressman Lister Hill and Major Weaver
declared in a talk to the Birmingham Kiwanis
Club that “now is the time for Alabama to take
the lead in aviation.” The meeting ended with
the passage of a set of resolutions that identified
Montgomery as the state’s flying and
aircraft manufacturing center because of its
“climatic, topographical and other physical
and natural advantages” and called for
Birmingham to supply the raw materials for
the manufacture of aircraft frames, engines
and other parts. The Birmingham Kiwanis
Club gave Montgomery Municipal Airport a
big boost calling it “one of the largest and most
outstanding airports in the United States.”
It was headed high until October 1929
when the stock market crashed and air travel
suffered in the depression. Eastern wanted
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
110

paved runways and a new terminal. Air mail
contracts were cancelled. Later, the Air Corp
wanted Gunter as new training base, but
allowed Eastern Air Lines to continue flights
until it became too congested and the search
for a new municipal airport was completed and
funded with the help of the Civil Aeronautics
Administration and WPA funds in 1943.
The commission named the new airport
along the Selma Highway west of the city for
Ensign Clarence M. Dannelly, Jr., a Navy pilot
and son of the Montgomery County superintendent
of Education. Ensign Dannelly was
considered the first Montgomerian to lose his
life in defense preparations, when he crashed
in a training accident at Pensacola Naval Air
Station in December 1940.
The employment of many of the airlines’
aircraft and crews for military transport duty,
along with military and government passenger
priority use, lead to a diminishing number
of civilian passengers during World War II.
As the war wound down, the resources for
commercial began to return and passenger
volume increased. By 1945, Montgomery
leaders began to have rosy dreams about the
new airport. The city seemed certain to
become a hub of Eastern’s plans to connect
North and South America. Soon, the Atlanta
based regional carrier Delta Air Lines helped
put Montgomery on the air maps as a
commercial, as well as a military air center.
In spite of good intent, it was Atlanta that
became the regional hub and Birmingham
that became the state’s primary airport.
Sixty years later, in February, the Airport
Authority and the Montgomery Chamber,
spurred by the challenge of Senator Richard
Shelby that the city deserved first class operation
at its airport, got going toward fulfilling its
long-awaited dream. Shelby said, “The airport
needs lots of modernization. You’ve got ambitions.
This is the Capitol of Alabama. You
cannot move back. You’ve got to go forward.”
The Senator’s challenge, combined with the
vision and support of Federal, State, City and
County leaders, has at last come to fruition. In
the fall 2006, the Airport Authority completed
a three-phase, $40-million expansion and
renovation project, which is only the first step
toward fulfilling its future dreams. The new
terminal facility includes many amenities of a
larger world class airport yet with the ease of
getting through without extra hassles. The renovation
and expansion turned MGM into a
beautiful open facility with extra-seating, additional
gates that include new jet bridges, escalators,
customer service information center and
more. Construction of a modern up-to-date
parking system that includes an intermodal
facility for taxis, shuttles, buses and passenger
pick-up was completed in the fall of 2010.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
111

MONTGOMERY
AVIATION
CORPORATION
Headquartered at the Montgomery
Regional Airport and founded in October
1945, Montgomery Aviation Corporation is
a fixed-base operation for general aviation
aircraft, based and transient. A group of
Montgomery area men that included the
Hall brothers, Charles Womack, and Robert
Hudgens were interested in civil aviation
after World War II and formed the company
on the grounds of the Hall Brothers Dairy
Farm south of Montgomery on Norman
Bridge Road.
With an early emphasis on flight training,
the “cow pasture” operation eventually developed
into a modern corporation, at times in its
history serving as a Beechcraft dealer, a Piper
dealer and distributor, as well as fixed base
operations in Birmingham and Huntsville.
An Avis Rent A Car franchise was added
in Montgomery in 1952; and in Columbia,
South Carolina in 1972, later joined by
Budget Rent A Car franchises in those two
cities. Montgomery Aviation has represented
Standard Oil of Kentucky, then Chevron,
Exxon, ExxonMobil, and currently AvFuel.
With over a half century of service to the
region, Montgomery Aviation Corporation has
welcomed many of the country’s most influential
icons, pop culture entertainers, and visionary
business people through their lobby: Elvis,
Hank Williams and Hank Williams, Jr., and
the Commodores; leaders such as Secretary
of State Colin Powell, U.S. Presidents Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush, George H. W. Bush,
and others. Legendary company aviator Ed
Long continues to hold the highest total flight
time flown by a pilot in world history.
Montgomery Aviation Corporation remains a
dedicated supporter of many local community
organizations and city efforts including Rotary,
the Montgomery Ballet, the Montgomery
Symphony, Chamber of Commerce efforts, and
major events in the city.
For more information about the company,
visit them at www.montgomeryaviation.com.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
112

Ace Supply, Inc. is a living tribute to the
founder John H. Price. Price began his pursuit of
the Great American Dream from humble origins
as a laborer. Through hard work, discipline and
ingenuity, he eventually developed his own
successful contracting business in 1967 that
affected the landscape of not only the local
Montgomery construction business, but also
many locations across the nation.
Price’s original business address was located
on Panama Street rented from J. Frank “Tobe”
Stallings. Price, like the City of Montgomery,
eventually moved east and was one of the first
contractors located in East Montgomery in
an area now referred to as contractor row
on George Todd Drive, which was formerly
George Todd Farms. Price was one of the first
in Alabama to install acoustical ceilings having
made contacts through the labor hall in Calera,
Alabama thus peaking his curiosity and
voracious appetite for learning new things.
Always a quick study especially with new
trends in construction which acoustical
ceilings were at the time, Price quickly
mastered the 12x12 glue up, concealed metal
spline systems, Z bar system and later the
suspended lay in ceiling systems we are all
familiar with today. Price developed this
novel construction innovation and traveled
throughout the country installing these
systems in malls and other buildings.
Price also contributed to local projects such
as the Civic Center in Montgomery, Garrett
Coliseum, various state buildings, Jackson
Hospital, Baptist Hospital, Eastdale Mall, and
Auburn University in Montgomery. Price had a
can-do attitude and rather than ever accept no,
he would study any challenge with ingenuity
and creative thinking to find a solution.
Perhaps Price’s greatest contribution was
his ability to identify talented people, inspire
them to be their best and develop their talents
to the fullest potential in his family, friends,
employees and coworkers. Many successful
acoustical and drywall professionals’ careers
were launched by the training, inspiration
and mentoring of John H. Price.
Price parlayed his contracting business
into the successor corporation, Ace Supply,
Inc., which was the first and only drywall and
acoustical distributor in the Montgomery
area. Again a pioneer and innovator in the
drywall and acoustical supply business, Price
was a recognized authority and expert on
acoustical and drywall construction, which
was invaluable on the job sites he worked on
and to the customers he supplied.
Ace Supply, Inc. was the first regional drywall
distributor to use the boom truck, which
allowed precise delivery to even elevated floors
of buildings increasing efficiency and speed in
the delivery of materials. Price was again a
pioneer and innovator in construction by
making the unconventional selection of a
female, his daughter, Sandra Hayes, as the
manager and co-owner of Ace Supply, Inc. in
1984 at a time when there were very few women
in the industry. Sandra attended an industry
convention wherein of over 400 industry
representatives attending, she was the only
female. Under her leadership, Ace Supply, Inc.
tripled its business in the first year of her
management, obtained large coveted contracts
such as the Gordon Persons Building in
downtown Montgomery consisting of in excess
of a million square feet of drywall, and
recognition of national construction supply
organizations as a company with excellent
market reputation and a high profile of quality
management with strong principles for their
customers and vendors.
Sandra with her father’s can-do attitude
overcame the drywall shortages during
allocation to be able to complete jobs bid for
her customers in the prior year without
compromising the quality of the products she
sold or buying inferior products from overseas.
Ace Supply, Inc. remains a living tribute to
its founder by remaining a pioneer and
innovator in the industry committed to quality
and excellence in servicing its customers even
after the loss of its founder in July of 2005.
ACE SUPPLY,
INC.
Above: John H. Price.
Below: Ace Supply is located in Montgomery
at 520 George Todd Drive and online at
www.acesupplyinc.net.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
113

TROY
UNIVERSITY
Troy University’s Montgomery Campus, situated
in the heart of Alabama’s capitol city, is a
leading provider of higher education committed
to meeting the needs of working adults
in the River Region. The campus’ continued
growth and development has played an influential
role in the revitalization of Montgomery’s
urban landscape, and through the outreach
of the Rosa Parks Library and Museum and
the Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts,
the Montgomery Campus makes significant
cultural and artistic contributions to the city.
The development of TROY’s Montgomery
Campus has brought new life to numerous
long-neglected parts of downtown. The campus’
expansion has included the restoration of
several historic buildings, beginning with the
purchase of the Whitley Hotel in 1972, which
was extensively renovated over an eleven year
period starting in 1989. Opened in the 1920s,
the Whitley was one of Montgomery’s premier
hotels, and saw such famous guests as Eleanor
Roosevelt, Katherine Hepburn and Clark
Gable. Today, Whitley Hall is TROY’s main
building on the Montgomery Campus and
one of several notable structures that have
been put to new use, including the Bartlett
Building, the Capilouto-Berns Building and
the Executive Building (formerly called the
Shepherd Building).
Troy University began offering classes in
Montgomery in 1957 at St. Margaret’s
Hospital, an initiative that developed into
what is now the University’s School of
Nursing. In 1965 the U.S. Air Force asked
TROY (then known as Troy State College) to
begin offering classes at Maxwell Air Force
Base, expanding to Gunter Air Force Base
the following year. In the fall of 1966, Troy
State University at Montgomery (TSUM) was
officially designated a branch campus and
authorized to offer undergraduate and
graduate degrees. The first TSUM students
graduated in 1968. TROY continues to
maintain a close relationship with Maxwell/
Gunter, offering classes to military and
civilian students in fifteen classrooms and
computer labs located at the base. In addition,
TROY continues to show that it is a military
friendly university by participating in the
Veterans Affairs’ Yellow Ribbon Program.
TROY matches 100 percent of the amount
provided by the Office of Veteran Affairs, thus
ensuring that veterans attending TROY have
no out-of-pocket costs for tuition.
TROY purchased the former Paramount
Theatre in 1976, and after an extensive
restoration, reopened it in 1983 as the Davis
Theatre for the Performing Arts. First opened
in 1929 as a venue for early films and
Vaudeville productions, the Davis Theatre
remains an important artistic venue for
Montgomery, and has been the home of the
Alabama Dance Theatre, the Montgomery
Ballet and the Montgomery Symphony.
Located across from the Davis Theatre is the
site of the Empire Theatre where Rosa Parks
was famously arrested for refusing to give up
her seat on a Montgomery bus. By 1997, however,
the Empire Theater building had fallen
into unsalvageable disrepair. The University
made the decision to demolish the crumbling
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
114

theatre along with other dilapidated structures
in the area to make way for the construction of
a more fitting tribute to Parks’ legacy—the
Rosa Parks Library and Museum. Parks herself
dug the first shovel of dirt during the groundbreaking
ceremony for the museum in 1998.
On December 1, 2000, several luminary figures
from the civil rights movement, including
Parks, Coretta Scott King and their families,
gathered for the grand opening of the museum.
With a mission of preserving and interpreting
the story and lasting legacy of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Rosa Parks
Library and Museum has become a major
downtown landmark and receives thousands
of visitors each year from around the world.
The museum has garnered state and national
recognition, including an award in 2008 from
the Themed Entertainment Association for
the museum’s interactive children’s exhibit, the
“Cleveland Avenue Time Machine.”
TROY’s community outreach in Montgomery
also includes the W. A. Gayle Planetarium located
in Oak Park. Operated by the University for
the city of Montgomery since 1976, the planetarium
is one of the largest facilities of its type
between Atlanta and New Orleans. Nearly
100,000 Kindergarten through twelfth grade
students have attended daily education programs
at the planetarium over the last five years.
The Montgomery Campus’ academic mission
is designed to meet the needs of working
adults by offering a variety of learning options,
including twenty-nine degree programs
that can be completed via evening classes.
Weekend, online and televised classes further
supplement the flexible learning options
available to TROY students in Montgomery.
More than 4,000 students enroll at the
Montgomery Campus each year. The average
age for a student at the Montgomery Campus
is twenty-eight, and most are employed at
Maxwell-Gunter Air Force base or in the civilian
workforce throughout the tri-county area.
The quality of TROY’s educational programs
has been consistently recognized as being
among the best in the region. TROY was
named the top university in Alabama by
Forbes magazine in 2010 and has been named
among the Princeton Review’s “Best in the
Southeast” for the past six years.
Troy University makes a significant economic
impact within the city of Montgomery
and the surrounding area. TROY employs
about 500 faculty and staff members at the
Montgomery Campus and spends more than
$2 million each year at area businesses for an
annual economic impact of more than $67
million in Montgomery County alone.
The Montgomery Campus, along with the
Troy, Dothan and Phenix City campuses, was
originally part of a system of separately accredited
institutions known collectively as the Troy
State University System. In 2004 the Board of
Trustees voted to drop “State” from the name
to better reflect the institution’s worldwide
mission. Starting in August 2005 all of TROY’s
campuses was unified with a single
accreditation under the banner
of “Troy University.” Students
may take courses and complete
their degrees at any TROY campus
or site anywhere in the world
without losing course credit.
Launched by a mandate of
the state legislature in 1887 as
a college for teachers, today Troy
University serves more than
31,000 students at its 4 Alabama
campuses and more than 60
teaching sites in 14 U.S. states and
12 nations.
Additional information is
available at www.troy.edu.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
115

WSFA 12 NEWS
WSFA-TV signed on the air Christmas Day
1954. A brief sign-on announcement by
announcer Ralph Williams led into the first
program, A Christmas Carol.
The call letters WSFA were already a landmark
in Montgomery. Gordon Persons (later
to become governor of Alabama) opened
Alabama’s fourth radio station in 1930. The
station was located in what is now the Gunter
Annex, but then was the city’s airport. He
publicized the station with the slogan, “With
the South’s Finest Airport” (WSFA). When the
television studios were built in 1954, the
radio station moved into the facility along
with the new television station.
In February of 1955, just two months after
going on the air, the radio and television
stations were purchased by the Oklahoma
Publishing Company. In 1956 the radio
station was sold, changed its call letters to
WHHY and moved to a downtown location.
The television station has expanded to two
large state-of-the-art studios on East Delano
Avenue in West Montgomery.
From the beginning, WSFA has had a serious
commitment to news coverage. Former
WSFA News Director and Anchor Charles
Caton said, “The Oklahoma Broadcasting people
had a newspaper background and news
was big with them, unlike a lot of stations at
the time. Many stations had no local news
programming at first. WSFA, however, had
the ingredients for an outstanding news operation:
the commitment of ownership, the
most advanced equipment available, talented
leadership in the person of first News Director
Frank McGee, and perhaps most importantly,
a riveting story to tell.” The story was the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, which launched
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to national prominence.
It also was a proving ground for
McGee, who later anchored NBC’s Today show
and all the early space shots.
WSFA was one of the first stations outside
the top ten markets to own film processing
equipment. During the late 1950s, WSFA fed
many stories to the networks each week and
processed more film than any station south of
the nation’s Capitol. During the early years of
the Civil Rights movement, NBC, CBS, ABC,
and the Canadian Broadcasting Company
used the WSFA facilities to transmit stories.
The Broadcasting Company of the South
purchased WSFA in 1959. The 1960s were
exciting times in television. The old black and
white pictures gave way to color, and videotape
changed the way stations operated. In
the mid-1970s, WSFA erected its “tall tower.”
At the time, it was the third tallest man-made
structure in the world.
In addition to outstanding news coverage,
WSFA presented many live programs still
remembered fondly in Central and South
Alabama. Children’s programming included
Fun for the Young and Young World with Marge
Payne, Cartoon Carl, Popeye Theater, Adventure,
and Junior Auction. Betsy Plummer, the first
lady of Montgomery television, was host of
How Do You Do It? Catherine Wright interviewed
many nationally-known guests on
the Guest Room and her teenaged daughter
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
116

Toni Tennille played the piano and sang on
many of the local programs. She later became
world famous as part of Captain and Tennille.
The Auburn Football Review was one of the
first coach’s shows in the nation, going on the
air with Coach “Shug” Jordan in 1955.
WSFA has continually built its news
department. In the early days, it was one halfhour
newscast a day. Now, WSFA airs more
than thirty hours of local newscasts each week
over two channels, WSFA and WSFA 12.2 as
well as news coverage 24/7 on WSFA.COM
and 12 On Your Cell. WSFA was the first
television station in Alabama to upgrade to
digital, non-linear video news gathering
equipment in August 2006, the first television
station in Montgomery to begin broadcasting
in High-Definition in August 2008, the first
television station in the state to broadcast
mobile television in January 2010 and partnered
with Backchannel Media to enable
Montgomery to be the first city in the nation
to offer digital interactive broadcast television
in January 2011. WSFA has produced
hundreds of live webcasts on WSFA.COM,
including several high school and college
sporting events since 2007. Hyper-local news
coverage with cutting edge technology are
mainstays at WSFA 12 News. The station
is equally committed to community support
projects throughout the year.
Raycom Media, headquartered in
Montgomery and one of the largest broadcast
groups in America, has owned WSFA since
January 2006. The WSFA signal reaches more
than half of the counties in Alabama and its
newscasts are among the most highly rated in
the nation.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
117

Above: Pictured is Beasley Allen’s Board of
Directors, from left, W. Daniel “Dee” Miles,
III; J. Greg Allen, Thomas J. Methvin,
Jere L. Beasley and J. Cole Portis.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF STEPHEN POFF.
Below: Beasley Allen was instrumental in
the development of Montgomery’s downtown
entertainment district, including the
Montgomery Biscuits stadium. Pictured
having a bit of fun on the field are the firm’s
founding shareholder, Jere L. Beasley, and
his daughter and Beasley Allen shareholder,
Julia Anne Beasley.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF STEPHEN POFF.
BEASLEY, ALLEN, CROW,
METHVIN, PORTIS & MILES, P.C.
In January 1979, Jere Locke Beasley considered
his options for making a future in
Alabama’s capital city. With a lifelong love
of politics and a spirit for public service,
he served as Lieutenant Governor under
Governor George Wallace, and filled the
Governor’s shoes briefly. In 1978, Beasley
made a bid for the Governor’s permanent
position, but was defeated in the race.
Although his political career ended, he has
remained a vocal campaigner for others, and
believed working as a plaintiff’s lawyer would
allow him to continue his mission of service.
It has been thirty years since he began with the
intent of “helping those who need it most.”
“It’s one of the greatest pleasures of my job
to know when people leave here, they are in
better shape, and that you’ve helped to make
their lives better,” he says.
Today, the firm operates as Beasley, Allen,
Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., and is
one of the largest plaintiff’s law firms in the
country. Beasley Allen is one of Montgomery’s
largest employers, with forty-four attorneys
and more than 200 support staff. One of
the country’s leaders in civil litigation,
Beasley Allen has successfully represented
hundreds of thousands of people across the
United States.
Beasley Allen currently holds U.S. records for
the largest verdicts/settlements in four categories:
• Largest verdict against an oil company in
U.S. history—$11.9 billion.
• Largest pharmaceutical drug settlement in
U.S. history—$4.85 billion.
• Largest environmental settlement in U.S.
history—$700 million.
• Largest predatory lending verdict in U.S.
history—$581 million.
Beasley continues to be a leading voice in
legal and political matters by publishing the
Jere Beasley Report each month, distributed to
more than 40,000 subscribers nationally.
Beasley Allen is also a committed community
partner and has donated more than
$1 million to charitable organizations in the
past three years, many in the Montgomery
area. The firm is a Sustaining Founder of the
Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce,
and Jere Beasley is on the Board of Directors.
People visiting downtown Montgomery
today can see the impact of the firm’s commitment
to the city’s heart. In its earliest days,
the firm was located in a house on Hull Street.
As the firm grew, Beasley decided to keep the
location downtown, moving first to offices
in the Bell Building and eventually purchasing
and renovating historic buildings along
Commerce Street. Commerce Street, a jewel of
downtown, was added to the National Register
of Historic places in 1979 with boundary
expansions in 1982 and 1987.
“I always liked downtown, so I felt locating
anywhere else was never really an option for me.
I’m pleased to see downtown prospering now
and really coming back to life,” Beasley says.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
118

Left: A cornerstone of the downtown
entertainment district is Alley Station. The
development, which is owned by Beasley
Allen shareholders J. Greg Allen and Jere L.
Beasley, is a special event space with
ballroom and unique rooftop garden, as well
as space for restaurants and shops.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF STEPHEN POFF.
Below: The Beasley Allen offices occupy
space in several buildings along
Montgomery’s historic Commerce Street. It
was important to Jere L. Beasley when he
founded the firm to remain invested in the
downtown area.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF STEPHEN POFF.
Beasley and partner Greg Allen joined the
city of Montgomery in the development
and creation of the new downtown Alley
Entertainment District area, which connects
Commerce Street with Tallapoosa Street.
Their brainchild, Alley Station, is a development
that will serve as an anchor for the
Alley. Alley Station, which opened in fall
2009, houses restaurants, an event venue
with unique rooftop garden, and loftstyle
apartments.
“Fifteen years ago downtown seemed like
a ghost town,” Allen says. Today he watches
from his law office window and observes,
“Something is going on almost every night.”
Beasley and Allen were also early and
enthusiastic supporters of returning minor
league baseball to the Capital City, and were
instrumental in securing the Montgomery
Biscuits team. The new Biscuits stadium—
Riverwalk Stadium—was respectfully constructed
by preserving a large section of the
original historic building and built on land
owned by the firm. When the new stadium
opened in 2004, it served as a catalyst for the
revitalization of downtown.
“I’ve always felt that whatever community
you are in, you have an obligation to be
involved, and that covers a broad spectrum,”
Beasley says.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
119

JACK INGRAM
MOTORS
Jack Ingram has always loved cars. That love
began in 1933. He discovered a Hupmobile on
the side of the road and contacted the owner,
who stated that the car “just stopped running”
and he had been unable to find anyone to
repair it. The Hupmobile owner asked Ingram
if he would like to purchase the car—so he
did, for $15. Soon after, he began tinkering
with it and had it running satisfactorily within
a couple of days.
Ingram, who was raised in a family of six
children on a farm in Elmore County, soon
began dreaming of a life in the world of
automobiles. He became a Ford salesman in
1949 and later served as the service manager
at that dealership.
In 1959, Ingram formed his own company
and became the dealer for Studebaker-Packard
in Montgomery. At the time, Studebaker-
Packard was the import distributor for
Mercedes-Benz in the United States and
Ingram’s high-performing dealership soon
acquired the Mercedes-Benz franchise in 1961.
Today, Jack Ingram Motors, Inc. is the
second oldest Mercedes-Benz dealer in
the southeast United States and celebrated
the fiftieth anniversary of the dealership in
July 2011. By coincidence, Mercedes-Benz
of Daimler-Benz of Stuttgart, Germany
celebrated their 125th anniversary in 2011.
Jack Ingram Motors of Montgomery,
Alabama, remains a family-owned and
operated premier dealer of luxury cars in
the area, with a large inventory and a great
selection as well as being the exclusive
dealer for Audi, Porsche, Volvo, Volkswagen,
Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz. Maintaining
such an inventory allows customers to find
the perfect new or pre-owned luxury car or
SUV to fit their lifestyle.
Jack Ingram Motors is a dealership who
provides complete vehicle maintenance,
parts, and service to its customers in the
Montgomery area. In addition, the dealership
has a full-service certified body shop providing
body, refinish, mechanical, frame and
paint work. Their collision repair specialists
are skilled in the art of auto restoration.
Jack Ingram Motors prides itself with a
Value Package Proposition for each and every
customer, which includes price assurance
(match or beat competitor’s prices); expedited
vehicle delivery; on-site loan approvals; a
full tank of gas at delivery; free roadside
assistance; shuttle service for sales and
service; free safety inspection; service loaner
cars, free car wash with service;
extended service hours; comfortable
waiting area and
complimentary beverages; free
Wi-Fi Internet access and
television/kids play area.
Jack Ingram’s Signature
Used Car Department sales
staff’s reputation of excellent
product knowledge, professionalism
and an in-depth
knowledge of the area’s economy,
local driving habits, and
superior service after the sale
has become the “Gold Standard
of Alabama’s Used Car Dealers.”
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
120

They know how to match the
demands of the customer’s lifestyle
and needs with a used car they can
afford, scheduled maintenance and
vehicle options. Dependable and
accommodating, these employees
define quality for Jack Ingram and the
company is proud to have them as a
part of Jack Ingram Motors Used Cars
dealership staff. The used car staff will
provide a quick price quote or test
drive of one of the superior quality vehicles
from the in-stock inventory. Jack Ingram
Signature Used Cars is a department carrying
certified Porches, Audis, Volkswagens,
Mercedes-Benz, Nissans and Volvos. Also the
department has in its inventory select other
imports and domestic vehicles.
Jack Ingram Volvo has proudly served
Montgomery and central Alabama offering
quality new Volvos since 1966.
Jack Ingram Nissan has provided superior
sales and service for all Nissan vehicles since
1968, adding the entire Porsche and Audi
product lines in 1983, and offered Volkswagen’s
broad range of vehicles since 1991.
Since its beginning in 1959, Jack Ingram’s
policy has been to secure the services of the
highest caliber people in every area of the
dealerships. Sales representatives spend many
long hours each year at training facilities,
learning every important detail about each car
model they sell. Each customer is important.
The dealership provides modern showrooms
and information areas, so the customer can
discuss their transportation needs and
make important decisions in a relaxed
friendly environment. With Jack Ingram’s
computer locater, the staff can find the
exact color, fabric and style the customer
wants, even if the car is not in
stock. The company continues to strive
for total customer satisfaction.
The Jack Ingram dealerships believe
their employees are its greatest assets. As
such, they treat all employees with respect
and appreciation for their contributions
to the company—believing not only
in providing ongoing training, but also
rewarding outstanding efforts through
bonus and commission programs. The
dealership is also the winner of several of
Montgomery’s “Reader’s Choice Awards,” confirming
customer satisfaction and the dealership’s
dedication to the idea that the
“Customer experience is their first priority.”
Ingram remains committed
to that customer experience as
he reveals the secret of his
success and longevity in the
business, “It is about treating
every customer like you
would want to be treated,
under promising and over
delivering, and always doing
business with integrity.”
For more information
about this historic dealership located in the
heart of Montgomery, visit Jack Ingram Value
Cars at 209 Eastern Boulevard; Mercedes-
Benz at 217 Eastern Boulevard; Nissan at
227 Eastern Boulevard; Porsche, Audi, Volvo
and Signature Used Cars at 241 Eastern
Boulevard; and Volkswagen at 255 Eastern
Boulevard or online at www.jackingram.com.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
121

F. S COTT
AND ZELDA
FITZGERALD
MUSEUM
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum.
He was a dashing World War I Army lieutenant
and a Northerner, already at work on
the novel that would make him famous; she
was the quintessential Southern belle whose
free-spirited behavior often scandalized her
hometown of Montgomery, Alabama. Together
they would personify the Jazz Age and leave a
literary and artistic legacy. They were, of
course, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre,
who met in 1918 while he was stationed at
Montgomery’s Camp Sheridan. They married
in 1920 and spent the next decade in New York
and Europe. By the fall of 1931, their flamboyant
lifestyle had exhausted their health and
finances. Zelda’s father, who was in Alabama,
was dying, so the couple moved home to
Montgomery at the 919 Felder Avenue address.
Though Scott was frequently absent writing
screenplays in Hollywood, the couple
lived in the Felder Avenue home in 1931 and
1932. Parts of his novel, Tender Is the Night,
(1934, Scribner) and hers, Save Me the Waltz
(1932, Scribner)–both dealing with failing
relationships and destructive behavior—were
written in the sprawling two-story home in
Montgomery’s fashionable Old Cloverdale
neighborhood. It was the only home they
ever shared in Alabama, and it is the only
surviving residence in Montgomery from the
couple’s tragic life together.
By 1986 the house was threatened with
demolition. Attorney Julian McPhillips and his
wife, Leslie, bought the property. They established
a nonprofit organization and recruited
local preservationists, writers, and historians
to restore and operate the home as “the world’s
only museum dedicated to celebrating the life
and works of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.”
Over the years, the McPhillips and the
board have sought out Fitzgerald-related
books, letters, manuscripts, photos and artwork,
including many paintings by Zelda herself.
These items are displayed along with
period furnishings in the rooms where the
Fitzgeralds ate, read, wrote, slept, and entertained.
The built-in bookcases in the elegant
parlor contain first editions of the Fitzgeralds’
books, and visitors can examine handwritten
and typed letters from and to the couple.
Each year the museum holds a literary
contest for high school and college students;
the prizes are awarded in a ceremony in the
Fitzgeralds’ parlor. An annual fundraising
gala is held each spring, and a party each July
commemorating Zelda’s birthday, and one in
September commemorating Scott’s birthday.
In 2009 the museum was
added to the Southern
Literary Trail, a collaboration
of locations across the Deep
South with ties to internationally
celebrated writers.
Fitzgerald’s literary reputation
has flowered anew in the
past few decades, and several
new biographies and critical
studies have illuminated
Zelda’s own considerable talents
as a writer and painter.
Fitzgerald fans and scholars
from around the world now
make the pilgrimage to the F.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
Museum—the only one anywhere
exclusively devoted to
the famous couple who met
in Montgomery and briefly
lived in a house that still
bears their imprint.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
122

“To give dignity to a person is above all
things” has long been the motto of
Montgomery’s historic law firm, McPhillips
Shinbaum, LLP. Begun in 1978, the firm has
made groundbreaking efforts in many of
Central Alabama’s landmark cases ranging
from personal injury to employment to constitutional
law and civil rights cases to criminal
defense. Representing average, ordinary people
who are often underdogs, the firm continues
its rich heritage in the twenty-first century.
The firm’s founding partner and president
Julian McPhillips is a native Alabamian raised
in Cullman, where he lived from 1946-1959.
After graduating in 1964 from Sewanee
Military Academy in Tennessee, McPhillips
attended Princeton University, where he graduated
with honors and was a heavyweight
wrestling champion. McPhillips also graduated
from Columbia University Law School in
1971, and was a Wall Street attorney from
1971 to 1975.
In 1975, McPhillips and his wife Leslie
moved to Montgomery, where he served as
Alabama Assistant Attorney General, and
began his life’s work in public service-oriented
law. McPhillips prosecuted white collar crime,
insurance fraud claims and environmental pollution
cases. Leaving the Attorney General’s
Office in 1977, McPhillips opened up a storefront
law practice, and ran for Attorney
General of Alabama, finishing a strong second
out of nine candidates in initial returns, but
losing his run-off in late-changing totals.
In September 1978 the McPhillips
Shinbaum legacy began. McPhillips
committed himself to establishing
a “People’s Law Firm.” After other
partners, Kenneth Shinbaum joined
McPhillips in 1986, Aaron Luck
came in 1994, Jim Bodin in 1995,
and Joe Guillot in 1998.
“We are ‘The People’s Law
Firm,’” says McPhillips, “We don’t
represent any big corporations or
insurance companies; we don’t represent
any agencies or departments
of state, and we don’t represent the
city or county of Montgomery. We
just represent the people who have
problems with them all.”
McPhillips himself was named the Public
Watchdog in 1983 by the Associated Press. In
1984, the Montgomery Advertiser titled him the
Private Attorney General. Today, he is widely
known in Central Alabama as “The People’s
Lawyer,” and his partners, Shinbaum, Luck,
Bodin, and Guillot, together with McPhillips,
have all been recognized in the Montgomery
area for significant victories in personal injury,
employment and criminal defense cases.
The firm has obtained court judgments
against three Alabama Governors (Wallace,
James and Hunt) and one Attorney General
(Graddick) for violating either state or federal
constitutions. The firm brought the race discrimination
class action suit that opened up
the Alabama Highway Department, influenced
employment for minorities generally,
and challenged police brutality. Their sex
discrimination cases have broken glass
ceilings for women in the job market.
Elected delegate to the Democratic
National Conventions in 1980 and 2000,
McPhillips also ran for the United States
Senate in 2002. An extensive biography of his
life, The People’s Lawyer: The Colorful Life and
Times of Julian L. McPhillips, Jr., was written
by distinguished author Carroll Dale Short
in 2000 and was reprinted in 2005.
As the twenty-first century unfolds, and
with a statewide law practice, McPhillips
Shinbaum LLP is primed to continue playing
a substantial role in Alabama’s legal development
and history.
MCPHILLIPS
SHINBAUM,
LLP
SHARING THE HERITAGE
123

WEISS
FLOORING,
INC.
Above: Adam and Robert Weiss.
Founded and incorporated by Robert P.
Weiss III in Montgomery in the spring of
1991, Weiss Flooring, Inc. is a commercial
flooring contractor providing quality installation
services and products to general contractors
and customers in conjunction with
providing professional commercial flooring
advice on various projects. With more
than ninety years of combined commercial
flooring experience, the company provides
materials and installation services to a variety
of commercial projects in Alabama and its
surrounding states, and has completed
projects as far away as Canada.
Weiss’s background in commercial flooring
first began in his high school summers
working for his uncle’s commercial flooring
company. After graduating from Jacksonville
State University, he was employed by and
became president of one of the southeast’s
largest flooring contractors. After much
thought and encouragement from his father,
Robert P. Weiss, Jr., friends and business
associates Weiss decided to start his own
company. His determination to succeed in
establishing a competitive commercial contract
flooring company and his drive to work
harder than the competition have resulted
in Weiss Flooring developing into one of
the largest and most respected commercial
flooring contractors in Alabama.
Weiss Flooring currently specializes in
work for churches, both private and state
office buildings, medical facilities, major
hotels and government projects for which
security clearance for
Weiss Flooring’s employees
is required. Other
typical projects includes
soft and hard tile flooring
products for casinos,
regional banks, theatrical
theaters, college campus
classrooms, administrative
office buildings, airports,
and museums.
From its inception,
Weiss Flooring immediately
started competing
for large and small
projects in the central
Alabama area providing customers with
quality service and products. A lesson well
learned from his father, Robert Weiss, Jr.,
who owned J. A. Weiss & Sons optical
business, that had once been one of
Montgomery’s oldest and highly respected
businesses, was to continuously deliver the
best quality service and products possible. In
the early days bidding on new projects was
difficult, but the company was determined
and soon gained the attention and respect of
general contractors in the area.
Adam Weiss, Robert’s son, is currently the
CFO and one of the vice presidents. Much
like his father, Adam was well acquainted
with the commercial flooring business at an
early age. Adam grew up visiting job sites
with his father so it was no surprise when
he joined the company eleven years ago.
Adam has worked in most of the positions
within the company and is showing the same
leadership and business determination as his
father. When his father retires, Adam will
provide the front line leadership necessary
to ensure that the company continues to
provide the same service to future contractors
and customers.
As the company continued to grow, David
Mills was named vice president in 1998 and
continues in that position today. Throughout
the past two decades, nearly sixty highly
qualified employees and subcontractors of
Weiss Flooring have remained its most
valuable assets. Many of these individuals
first began their careers here twenty years ago.
These highly qualified and valuable employees
are the reason Weiss Flooring excels as one of
the top leaders in its business field and is what
sets Weiss Flooring apart from its competition.
Reflecting on the growth of his company
over the past twenty years, Weiss says, “Many
things change over time with businesses, but
the one thing that will not change is our determination
to provide outstanding quality service
that is exceptional and dependable. Our
future will involve new and innovative products
for commercial buildings and we will continue
to bring new products to our customers.”
Weiss Flooring gratefully appreciates everyone’s
business and support over the past two
decades and looks forward to future business.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
124

For over thirty years, the Alabama
Shakespeare Festival has been stimulating,
embracing, and enlightening young and old
throughout the region and nation by producing
Shakespeare, classical, and contemporary
plays, serving as an educational resource and
lifelong learning center, and fostering the
development of new works.
The Festival is a professional regional theatre
offering world-class theatrical experiences
from Shakespeare to Broadway musicals,
World Premieres to Children’s theatre and
everything in between. ASF also offers student
matinees through the Alfa SchoolFest program,
Summer Theatre Camps, and Acting
Classes through the Academic year. Plus,
many free enrichment opportunities such as
Bard Talk and Theatre In the Mind that allow
audiences an opportunity to dig deeper and
interact directly with the artists and scholars in
the industry.
It was first envisioned in 1972 when
theatre producer Martin Platt dreamed of
bringing a professional classical theatre to
the Southeastern United States. He borrowed
some money from his mother and
combined with a small grant from the
state Arts Council was able to hire a professional
company of actors who performed
in the un-air-conditioned gymnasium
of Anniston High School.
In the 1980s, Carolyn Blount, a former
educator and wife of multimillionaire construction
magnate, Winton M. Blount, joined
the group’s Board of Directors. Seeing the possibility
inherent in the professional company,
the couple offered to donate 300 acres to
build a state-of-the-art facility if the company
would only relocate to Montgomery.
On December 7, 1985, the doors to the
new $21.5-million facility opened to great
fanfare and has been welcoming growing
audiences ever since. The site is extraordinary
in its ability to seemingly transport actors and
audience into the world of the original “Bard
of Avon.” The Blounts loved visiting
Shakespeare’s home, and the places that
Shakespeare lived and worked. These places
in England inspired the English countryside
feel of the Blount Cultural Park and the theatre
facility. So much so, that black swans like
those at Windsor Palace were sought out at
the palace itself. The Queen’s people told
Blount’s people that while they would not
ship any hatchlings to Alabama, but that they
might be able to find the original source in a
small backwoods town near Montgomery at
Pike Road, Alabama.
The statue of William Shakespeare that
stands in the lobby area of the theatre is the
only existing copy of the J.Q.A. Ward sculpture
in Central Park in New York City. Blount
wanted to have a copy of this statue and
sought permission for the Parks and
Recreation Department of New York City.
They were hesitant, but Blount was persuasive.
He offered to keep his copy indoors, free
from the wear and tear that the original will
face outdoors. He also established an endowment
to pay for the upkeep of the statue.
There is now a plaque below the Central Park
original that notes the only copy stands in the
State Theatre of Alabama in Montgomery.
Kent Thompson, Second Artistic Director,
guided the theatre through the middle years
and led the theatre to take the national stage
with the Southern Writers’ Project–an innovative
play development program that focuses
on the work of southern writers, southern
stories and the African American Experience
Currently in its twenty-fifth season in
Montgomery, ASF serves over 300,000 visitors
annually and employs around 100 to 125 people
with an operating budget of nearly $7 million.
In Artist Director Geoffrey Sherman’s first
five years at ASF, the theatre has brought in its
largest audiences and had its most financially
successful productions to date, increased diversity
among its audience members and
increased student attendance from around
25,000 to around 40,000 students annually.
For more information about the worldclass,
once-in-a-lifetime theatre experiences at
ASF, visit the group online at www.asf.net.
ALABAMA
SHAKESPEARE
FESTIVAL
SHARING THE HERITAGE
125

PICKWICK
ANTIQUES
Since 1991, Pickwick
Antiques has developed and
refined a carefully selected
stock of fine quality British
and continental antiques.
In order to specialize in
eighteenth, nineteenth and
early twentieth century
paintings, porcelain, clocks
and furniture, the inventory
has been developed with a
diverse and unique selection
of objects appealing to a
wide range of collectors,
interior designers, and trade buyers from
across the nation.
Among the objects in stock
are excellent paintings by recognized
and collected artists
from British and continental
schools, as well as porcelain
from the finest continental
factories including Meissen
and Sevres.
There are sets of china
by the best English factories,
a wide selection of rare
Staffordshire pottery including
figures and animals from
the nineteenth century, and
long case and bracket clocks
by well known and documented
English clock makers.
Pickwick offers fine antique furniture
including sideboards, chests, secretaries, linen
presses, partners desks, dining tables, sets of
chairs, game tables, architect tables, tip-top
tables, and unique individual display cabinets
ranging from the petite to the extremely large
one-of-a-kind type.
“A world of fine antiques” awaits guests
at Pickwick Antiques on the Internet at
www.pickwickantiques.com; at its original
location in Montgomery at 3851 Interstate
Court; and at The Stalls in Atlanta, Georgia.
Conveniently positioned in the center of
the state and not far from Atlanta, Nashville,
New Orleans, Jackson, and the Florida
panhandle, stores hours are from 9 a.m. to
5 p.m. Monday through Friday and Saturdays
from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. For additional
information please call 334-279-1481.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
126

Jackson Thornton traces its roots to 1919
when Harold Crane, who was born in 1890 in
Grafton, Illinois, moved to Montgomery to
open an accounting office. Crane had previously
been called into military service at the
outbreak of World War I and was assigned as
auditor of the Army’s construction division at
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Before the war was over,
he was released from active duty and joined
a construction company, which had been
granted a government contract to help build
Fort Benning at Columbus, Georgia. The war
ended during the construction of the camp
and all government contracts were cancelled.
Crane’s tenure at Columbus brought him in
contact with several Montgomery businessmen
who convinced him that there was a need
for public accountants in the Montgomery
area. So began the firm’s history.
The first office opened on March 1, 1919 in
the Bell Building in downtown Montgomery.
The firm relocated its offices five times between
1919 and 1980 when it finally moved its main
office to its present location in Montgomery’s
Lower Commerce Street Historic District.
In its early years, the firm’s clients were
mostly located in Montgomery and the surrounding
area. They reflected the economic
activities of the time. These included cotton,
other agricultural crops, lumber, manufacturing,
banking, food processing, automobile dealerships
and various mercantile activities. Some
of those earliest clients are still clients today.
The firm’s name also changed several times
between 1919 and 1965 when it became
Jackson Thornton & Co. Some of the original
partners in the firm were Harold Crane (1919-
1965), Ed Harper (1920-1943), Dudley
Williamson (1930-1941), James Wilson
(1941-1957), Douglass Jackson (1945-1980),
and James Thornton (1946-1970).
Central Alabama experienced a significant
population growth in the 1970-2000 time period.
Much of this happened in Autauga and
Elmore Counties. In the 1980s the firm followed
the population growth and opened branch
offices in Prattville, Wetumpka and Dothan.
The services of local accounting firms were
rather monolithic until the 1980s. Most public
accountants audited financial statements
and prepared business and personal income
tax returns. Starting about that time, Jackson
Thornton began adding specializations and
nontraditional services to its offerings. In the
area of specializations, and as the result of
increasing complexity of accounting rules
and income tax law, the firm’s accountants
began forming work groups focused on
specific industries and services
including: agriculture, automotive
dealerships, banking,
construction, cooperatives,
governmental and not-forprofit
organizations, healthcare
services, manufacturing, and
utility services.
Jackson Thornton also began
adding nontraditional services.
The first such service was in
the area of utility consulting. It
was soon followed by business
valuation, litigation support,
investment advisory services,
information technology,
employee benefit
design/record keeping,
employee training and
medical billing. All of
these services fit well
under the accounting firm
structure as they all tap
into the firm’s deep
knowledge of the client’s
business and organization.
The firm became the
leader in Montgomery’s downtown historic
preservation movement in 1978 when James
Loeb (representing Landmarks Foundation)
asked that the firm purchase a run-down,
vacant, four-story 1890s building on
Commerce Street for rehabilitation as the firm’s
primary office. The challenge was accepted, the
Lower Commerce Street Historic Preservation
Authority was formed and the firm purchased
200 Commerce Street and adjacent parking and
warehouse property. The rehabilitated building
was occupied in 1980 and adjoining property at
210 Commerce Street was purchased in 1997.
Jackson Thornton celebrated its ninetieth
anniversary in 2009. Its nearly 200 employees
look to the future…anticipating what changes
lie ahead.
JACKSON
THORNTON
& CO.
The Jackson Thornton family of companies
now includes:
Jackson Thornton & Co., P.C., (1919)
Jackson Thornton Asset Management, LLC (1999)
Jackson Thornton Technologies, LLC (2001)
Jackson Thornton Benefit Resources, LLC (2001)
Continuum Education & Training, LLC (2001)
Jackson Thornton Risk Management, LLC (2004)
Complete Practice Management, LLC (2009)
SHARING THE HERITAGE
127

BAPTIST
HEALTH
Baptist Health has been a growing organization
since its inception as Montgomery Baptist
Hospital in 1955. According to Expanding the
Dream by Lee Allen, Montgomery Baptist
Hospital was a dream of the Reverend Blount F.
Davidson, and with the help of the
Montgomery Baptist Association, the hospital
became a reality.
Ground was broken for construction of the
hospital in 1961, and the first patients were
admitted to the 127-bed hospital on July 29,
1963, with 131 doctors on staff.
According to Jim Williams, director of Baptist
Health's Pastoral Care Department, it is important
to remember that Baptist Health was born
from the dedication of Montgomery's Baptist
churches. “The Baptist organizations realized the
need for a faith-based hospital," he says. "The
healing ministry was a part of Jesus' ministry."
Williams says the members of local Baptist
churches raised more than $1 million to help
build Montgomery Baptist Hospital.
Being a faith-based organization may have a
slightly different meaning for different people
throughout the Baptist Health organization. Yet
one thing remains the same: Being a faithbased
organization holds Baptist Health to a
higher standard.
Larry Davidson, a chaplain
at Baptist Medical Center
East, explains that how we
treat and interact with people
says as much for us as it says
for the organization.
"We value the person
more than the profit,"
Davidson says. "Because we
are a faith-based organization,
we can truly take care of
the whole person. We balance
the physical and spiritual
well-being of our patients
while providing excellent
patient care."
Growing from a dream of
several local Baptist ministers
and other significant figures
in Montgomery's
Baptist churches, Baptist
Health continues to stay
close to its community ties.
The Baptist Health Board of Directors, the
Baptist Health Care Foundation Board, as well
as the Baptist Medical Center South, Baptist
Medical Center East and Prattville Baptist
Hospital Advisory Boards, all have a local
minister who serves on each board.
According to Russell Tyner, CEO of Baptist
Health, local representation from pastors on
Baptist Health boards helps make sure their
mission remains intact.
"These members are helpful to us as we
grow and continue our efforts in the communities
we serve," Tyner says. "They help us fulfill
our faith-based mission in a fiscally
responsible manner."
The Baptist Health Care Foundation has
helped support the mission of Baptist Health,
yet it has also been able to give help to the
community that has been supportive of the
organization. The foundation helped launch
the Medical Outreach Ministry, helping provide
financial support to other faith-based
organizations that serve the underserved
and uninsured.
Each day visitors, patients and employees
of each of the three Baptist Health hospitals
hear a devotion followed by a prayer. For
many, this brief encounter heard over the
intercom allows for personal reflection and
sets the tone for the day.
For employees, being faith-based allows
many of them to continue their spiritual paths
during their workdays.
"Many employees feel as if they are
involved in a ministry of healing and they feel
called to Baptist Health because it is a faithbased
organization," says Greg Nowell, a
Baptist Health chaplain. "Nurses are hardwired
to do what they do, just as [chaplains]
are. Everyone is called to a different purpose,
and God uses all of us."
Many of Baptist Health's affiliated physicians
and employees take part in medical mission
trips, making a difference in healthcare
across the globe.
It is through faith that Baptist Health continues
serving the people of central Alabama.
They believe that quality healthcare is a vital
part of the community and take great pride in
being able to serve the medical and spiritual
needs of patients now and in the future.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
128

CROSBY
ELECTRIC
COMPANY, INC.
Providing superior electrical work in a safe
and timely manner for nearly a half century,
Crosby Electric Company, Inc. is a privately
held electrical contracting firm specializing in
commercial, industrial and healthcare projects.
Most of its jobs are in central Alabama
and range from $50,000 to $2 million, but the
company’s competitive territory expands to
bordering states for larger projects upward of
5 million.
The company was founded by Kenneth A.
Crosby in 1967 and has flourished from a
one-truck operation to become a regional
electrical construction team. Although semiretired,
Crosby is still involved in daily operations,
primarily public relations work on the
golf course. His tremendous work ethic, coupled
with his reputation for honesty and fairness,
remain benchmarks for every Crosby
Electric employee.
It is not by accident that Crosby’s electric
crew is first on the company’s list of advantages.
There is a core team of electricians that
are among the best in the business. They are a
loyal, committed group who has played a central
role in the life of the company for over
two decades. Crosby says of his “Aces,” “They
work hard, work safely, and they do it right
the first time.”
In recent years, Crosby Electric has
focused on building a first-class electrical
service team. Investing thousands in specialized
diagnostic equipment and specialized
training, the company is now a leading
provider of Electrical Preventive Maintenance
in the state.
Among the company’s foundational principles
is a philosophy that remains primary to
its continued success in the twenty-first century,
“You can have everything you want out
of life (and your job), if you will just help
enough other people get what they want out
of life (and their job). People are more important
than things. Honesty is more important
than profit. Serving God, family, and others is
the key to real success and fulfillment.”
Those who were around “back in the day”
still talk about Crosby’s work ethic and his
ability to “motivate” the Crosby Electric team.
More than work ethic, however, they talk
about his willingness to reach out and help
people in need. Surely that same work ethic
and concern for people that has grown the
company since 1967 will enable it to deliver
superior electrical work to owners and contractors
for years to come.
For more information about Crosby
Electric, visit the company online at
www.crosbyelectric.com.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
129

ROSS-CLAYTON
FUNERAL HOME
New funeral home constructed in 2011.
Among Montgomery’s oldest surviving
minority-owned businesses, Ross-Clayton
Funeral Home was established in 1918 within
a very tiny space on Monroe Street in the
heart of the bustling city.
History records that Robert Ambers Ross,
an insurance agent for Mississippi Life
Insurance, pursued his interest in the undertaking
business in 1918. He obtained both
a Business License and a Funeral Director’s
License and reportedly started the business
with a single gentleman as his colleague.
The union of the two men, formed during
the establishment of the business, was short
lived. According to historical events passed
down through the years, Ross later formed
a partnership with William and Frazzie
Clayton. William later served as the
company’s embalmer.
In 1929 the company became a corporation.
Business at the Monroe Street location
continued until 1939, when the company
relocated to 524 South Union Street. In 1958,
Ross-Clayton moved to its present location at
1412 Adams Avenue in Montgomery.
Ross, founding president, who passed
away in 1945, named his son David Calloway
Ross Sr., a graduate of Worsham College,
Chicago, Illinois, president in 1936.
William, funeral director, passed away in
1943. Frazzie, funeral director, who died in
1947, was survived by daughter, Jule Clayton
Lewis, funeral director, who began serving
as secretary-treasurer in 1947. Jule expired
in 1958, leaving her spouse, Rufus A. Lewis,
who was later named secretary-treasurer.
The corporation presently operates under
the leadership and guidance of President,
Funeral Director and Embalmer David C.
Ross Jr., a graduate of Gupton Jones Mortuary
College, Atlanta, Georgia. David was named
as president in 1978 by his father, David Sr.,
who died in 1987. Also, Eleanor Lewis
Dawkins, funeral director, who officially
joined the staff in 1990 and was named secretary-treasurer
prior to the passing of her
father Rufus in 1999.
Four generations strong and continuing to
serve the citizens of Alabama into the twentyfirst
century, today Ross-Clayton Funeral
Home employs a full time staff of thirteen
licensed Funeral Directors/Embalmers and
over fifteen part-time personnel and other
licensed professionals.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
130

HODGSON
CONCRETE
COMPANY
Hodgson Concrete Company was founded in
1898 by James Hodgson and is Montgomery’s
second oldest continuing business. Originally a
job site concrete mixing supplier, as delivery
equipment improved it became a plant
produced, truck delivered concrete company.
The original location was the northern end of
Perry Street on the property of the Western
Railroad of Alabama. After World War II,
Montgomery grew south and west, and a
production facility was added on the Western
Boulevard. As the town stretched east a plant
went to Mount Meigs. Later a plant went to
Wetumpka to service Elmore County and the
growing Lake Martin market and then a plant
was put in Prattville.
Today, Hodgson Concrete remains an industry
leader in Alabama with the first central
mixed plant and concrete pumping services.
Major employees of the company include
Robert Hodgson Sr., Robert Hodgson Jr.,
Tom Graydon, Shorty Hodnett, Charlie Bush,
George Edwards, John Waites, Raymond
Johnson, Liz Byal, Pat Thompson, Debbie Creel,
Earnest Hardmon, Todd Clark, Chris Dawkins,
Sarah Fair, and Bill and Bobby Hodgson.
Hodgson Concrete Company has completed
major industrial projects for GE Plastics and
Hyundai Motor Company. Garrett Coliseum
uses our concrete in its unique design that
made it the largest indoor span between
columns in the world at the time it was built.
Famed monument artist Maya Linn, employed
Hodgson Concrete to compliment her Civil
Rights Memorial. Montgomery skyline projects
including Union Bank, Colonial Bank, RSA
Tower, Union Building, Center for Commerce,
Judicial Building and Headquarters, Frank
Johnson Federal Courthouse, Montgomery
County Courthouse and Jail, ASU Acadome,
and the AUM Library. Public works contributions
have included bridges and most of
Montgomery’s water purification infrastructure.
Hodgson Concrete has been the epitome of
a family run business since 1898, and the
family wishes to thank the hundreds of loyal
employees and thousands of wonderful
customers for enabling its contribution to the
Montgomery of today.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
131

SABEL STEEL
Above: Keith and Sean Sabel stand in their
newest steel warehouse in the summer
of 2010.
Below: Keith and Sean Sabel.
With over a century and a
half of historic service in the
area and six generations of
family leadership, Sabel Steel
stands as a testament to the
innovative vision and ingenuity
that have successfully carried
the company into the
twenty-first century.
Sabel Steel first began its life
within the American landscape
in 1856 as part of the lucrative
fur trading business that was
gaining momentum across the
South in the mid nineteenth
century. By 1856, the family
was busy buying fur from trappers
and stocking leather
goods for horses and mules for
young pioneering families and
ranchers across the newly opened frontier.
After the Civil War, soldiers returned to
their families and farms to create a new life for
themselves in the growing communities of the
area. With little income, these young entrepreneurs
began bartering items of every kind
and the Sabels soon received numerous farm
implements as trade-ins, which they would
in-turn sale as scrap metal.
As communities grew and became more
dependent upon agriculture, the Sabel family
turned to the cowhide business, buying, grading,
and salting hides for preservation until
they could be shipped to tanners and leather
good manufacturers, from whom they bought
leather products for sale in the area.
As automobiles and farm equipment began
to replace the work of horses and other farm
animals, the Sabels exited the leather goods
market. By 1969 the local slaughter of livestock
dwindled as major meatpackers took
over these markets and the family left the hide
business to concentrate on their flourishing
steel division, which they had originally
formed after World War II.
Today, Sabel Steel is a diversified company
with six steel service centers, two scrap yards,
a rebar fabrication division, and a wholesale
center. The company continues to offer personal
service that can only come from an
independent company. Being independent of
large conglomerate concerns, Sabel Steel is
able to maintain close contact with their customers,
offer better service and have more
flexibility in meeting customer needs.
As a member of the North American Steel
Alliance, Sabel Steel has benefited in their steel
purchasing and operational programs and lowered
internal costs, resulting in better value to
their customers.
Company President and CEO Keith Sabel,
says “We pride ourselves on a tradition of
focusing on customer needs, offering genuine
value through quality products, availability
of inventory, and always being reliable.”
Keith’s son Sean joined the company in
February of 2010.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
132

The Butterfly Inn is the first African
American owned Bed and Breakfast in
Montgomery. The inn and the restaurant was
established in 2003 and are located in historic
downtown Montgomery just a few feet from
the area that marks the last trek of the historic
1965 Civil Rights March from Selma to
Montgomery. It seems that the inn and the
restaurant were destined to be a part of
Montgomery’s rich history. According to
noted African American historian Dr. Richard
Bailey, the first observance of the signing of
the Emancipation Proclamation in Montgomery,
Alabama took place on January 1, 1866 at
Wilson’s Grove on Mildred Street, which is the
current site of Isaiah’s Restaurant and the
Butterfly Inn Bed and Breakfast.
According to Isaiah and Johnnie Chambers
Sankey, they wanted to build something of
significance that would help to change the
landscape of a previously neglected and
forgotten neighborhood. Their goal was to
build a first-class establishment, which
happens to be in one of the poorest census
tracts in Montgomery County.
“Even though we had a solid business plan
and twenty percent of the collateral required
for the business loan we still found it to be
difficult to get the local banks to loan us the
money,” said Isaiah Sankey, who is co-owner
of this venture, along with his wife. “Having
been born in Montgomery, I understood a little
about the politics of race and economics,
yet by God’s grace we continued to persevere
toward our objective. It has been our pleasure
to entertain guests from places such as
England, Italy, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and Ghana West Africa. Many have
testified that the Butterfly Inn offers some of
the best accommodations that can be experienced
anywhere in the world, and they have
classified the food at Isaiah’s Restaurant as fine
southern cuisine. In a sense we feel that we
are unofficial ambassadors to Montgomery
because of our encounter with visitors from
across the globe, and our desire to represent
Montgomery in a favorable light.”
Isaiah, who is a Family Nurse Practitioner,
received his graduate degree from Troy
University and Johnnie, who is a graduate of
Alabama State University, understands the art
of attending to the needs of their guests. In
addition to the comfortable accommodations
that are provided at the Inn, Johnnie will definitely
satisfy your appetite with many of the
delicious dishes that are prepared at Isaiah’s
Restaurant. Many guests have testified that
the food at Isaiah’s Restaurant is “mo delicious
than so delicious.” This phrase was coined by
Laderrick, the younger son who has been
known to whip up a few recipes of his own
that he has used to wow the staff at the restaurant.
The older son, DeAndre, who comes to
visit on occasion always seems to enjoy some
of his mother’s real macaroni and cheese and
the smoke chicken.
In addition to the smoked chicken and
the delicious homemade peach cobbler, the
restaurant is noted for its delicious fried
lemon peppered catfish and the collard
greens, which are two of the “100
Dishes You Must Eat In Alabama Before
You Die.”
Isaiah’s Restaurant is a great place
to have lunch and is open for special
events such as birthday celebrations,
wedding rehearsal dinners, and other
after hour events. The Butterfly Inn
is an ideal place for small group
retreats, the business traveler, and
those who just want to get away for
a romantic dinner or a quiet weekend.
Isaiah and Johnnie invite you to
step into the Butterfly Inn and step
out of Montgomery.
“We are proud to be part of
Montgomery’s rich heritage, and we
thank our God for allowing us to be a
restorer of the breach and a repairer of
dwelling places. We want the world
to know that at Isaiah’s Restaurant we
do more than satisfy your appetite, we
make you feel just right,” proclaims
Isaiah. “We look forward to becoming
an even more popular site where local
residents and visitors from around the
world come to dine and relax, and for
all we know there may be more than
one location someday.”
For additional information including
reservations, visit www.butterflyinn.net
on the Internet.
ISAIAH’S
RESTAURANT
BUTTERFLY INN
BED AND
BREAKFAST
Bottom: Johnnie C. and Isaiah Sankey.
SHARING THE HERITAGE
133

DRUG RESEARCH
AND ANALYSIS
CORPORATION
Left to right: Sheri Freeland, RN, Sandy
Meriwether, LPN; Dr. Frazer; Mary Jones,
LPN; Wrenn McGhee, LPN; Gail Durbin,
office manager; Sally Causey, LPN; John
Frazer; and Pricilla Goodner, BSN, RN.
A physician has just diagnosed the pain in
your joints as arthritis or the cause of your
headaches or dizziness as high blood pressure.
He gives you a prescription for a drug he
believes to be safe and effective for the treatment
of your condition. This drug may have
been approved by the Federal Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) as a result of research
studies completed locally by a group that offers
contract clinical research services to the
pharmaceutical industry. Drug Research and
Analysis Corporation in cooperation with
numerous local physicians
conducts clinical
(human) trials with
investigational new
drugs to support the
drugs’ safety and
efficacy. The data
obtained are reviewed
by the pharmaceutical
company sponsor of
the research and subsequently
sent to the
FDA for review and
possible approval of a
new drug.
All patients in their
research trials receive
the investigational study drug and oversight
by a physician, pharmacist and nurse at no
cost to them. Patients also often receive a
stipend to cover the cost of their multiple
required visits to see the research doctor.
Patients who volunteer for their research programs
cover a broad spectrum of economic
backgrounds from patients with no insurance
to those who donate major dollars to charity
but are looking for an alternative to their
usual treatment. All patients must read and
sign an informed consent statement that
details the advantages and disadvantages of
participating in a research trial and declares
their volunteer action to participate. Every
trial is reviewed and approved by a peer
review committee either at one of the local
hospitals or by a central review committee.
Over the past thirty-two years the company’s
staff has completed over 400 trials, which
have led to the FDA’s approval of over fifty
new drugs. Approximately eighty percent of
the drugs DRAC has studied have been
approved by the FDA and are now on the
market. DRAC conducts research on such
indications as hypertension, arthritis, infectious
diseases, asthma, migraine, gynecological
disorders, and pain management following
surgery, among many others, at both inpatient
and outpatient facilities. These trials
through pharmaceutical grants have brought
millions of dollars into the local economy and
provided free medical care to thousands of
patients in the tri-county area.
The company was founded in 1978 by
Henry A. Frazer, Pharm.D. When Dr. Frazer
was asked how he became involved in
clinical research, he said it was a natural
evolution of his professional career. He
earned both the Bachelor of Pharmacy
and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees and was
previously employed by the Bureau of
Medicine at the FDA and by the clinical
pharmacology department of a research
oriented pharmaceutical company. Dr. Frazer
is a Certified Clinical Trial Investigator
by the Association of Clinical Research
Professionals. For twenty of the past
thirty plus years Frazer had a partner,
Dr. James W. Maloy, who passed away in
2007. At that time Dr. Frazer recruited his
son, John, a sixteen year veteran with several
pharmaceutical companies to come into the
research company. Today their staff includes a
host of research nurses several of whom have
been employed at DRAC for over ten years.
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
134

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts was
founded in 1930 by a group of local artists and
patrons under the name of the “Alabama Society
of Fine Arts.” The Museum’s home for the first
twenty-nine years was the former Lawrence
Street School at the corner of High and
Lawrence Streets in downtown Montgomery.
Between 1930 and 1959, under the governance
of the Board of Trustees of the Museum
Association, the Museum’s activities were
supported primarily through memberships
and private donations. In 1960 the Museum
became a department of the city of
Montgomery and, in 1983; Montgomery
County joined the city to support the Museum
as an equal partner, sharing the institution’s
operating costs. Since 1930 the budget of the
Museum has grown from $1,000 per year to
more than $4 million. The staff has increased
from a small volunteer force to over fifty full
and part-time employees.
Until 1971 the Museum’s collections included
historical objects, archeological artifacts and
art. In that year, the focus of the Museum’s
collections was redefined and the collecting
and preservation of art became the focus of the
Museum’s mission.
Education has been an integral part of the
Museum’s program throughout its history. The
Museum originally had an art school directed
by Wetumpka Artist J. Kelly Fitzpatrick until
his death in 1953. A Department of Education
was created in 1960 to facilitate the planning
of tours for school students, workshops,
outreach programs, puppet shows, films, and
lectures and, most recently, the ARTWORKS
participatory learning gallery.
Between 1959 and 1988, the Museum
shared the building at 440 South McDonough
Street with the City-County Public Library.
The City and the Museum’s Board of Trustees
joined forces to raise more than $6 million for
a new Museum building, to be constructed in
the Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park adjacent
to the Alabama Shakespeare Festival’s Carolyn
Blount Theatre.
The Museum opened in the Wynton M.
Blount Cultural Park on September 18, 1988,
featuring its collection of American paintings,
sculpture and works on paper, with the addition
of forty-one historical American paintings
given by Blount Incorporated. An interactive
gallery, ARTWORKS, was inaugurated to teach
about art through interactive exploration and
to complement the permanent collection. In
1993, more than 5,000 square feet of gallery
space, made possible by a gift from Ida Belle
Young, was added in order to increase the
Museum’s ability to display contemporary and
regional art from the permanent collection.
The Weil Graphic Arts Study Center, named
for Adolph “Bucks” Weil, Jr., an outstanding
connoisseur of art and collector of fine prints,
was dedicated in May 1998. The Study Center
and its ongoing programming and specialized
exhibitions focus on the Museum’s growing
collection of works on paper. The most recent
additions to the building, completed in 2006,
include the Margaret Berry Lewder Gallery,
the Jean K. Weil Gallery, the Williamson
Gallery, a second studio, an addition to
ARTWORKS, the Wynona W. Wilson
Orientation Center, the catering kitchen, the
Docent Lounge, and additional office space.
Since the Museum moved into Blount
Cultural Park, over 3 million visitors have
enjoyed the wide range of exhibitions and
programs. An unusually successful partnership
of public and private commitment to
the arts in Montgomery, Alabama, has
assured the future of one of the South’s
premier cultural institutions.
Additional information to include hours of
operation is available at www.mmfa.org.
MONTGOMERY
MUSEUM OF
FINE ARTS
SHARING THE HERITAGE
135

FRAZER
MEMORIAL
UNITED
METHODIST
CHURCH
Frazer Memorial United Methodist Church
began in 1889 when a local preacher organized
a Sunday School in a storeroom on Holt Street
in Montgomery. The group started to grow and
purchased a house on Herron Street as a
meeting place. In 1892 a minister was assigned
to the group and the church was organized.
By the 1960s, Frazer had about five
hundred members. Interstates 85 and 65 were
planned to intersect just blocks away. Most
members had to move, destroying the
neighborhood concept around which Frazer
was built, with no clear destination for
relocation. Some experts suggested the
church disband.
Reverend Noah Lisenby is reported to have
leaped out of his chair and said, “You may
know statistics and demographics, but you
don’t know the heart of the people of Frazer,
and you don’t understand God’s purpose for
these people!”
Eventually, five acres of property in
East Montgomery were offered to the
church. At that time, it was a cotton field
essentially in the middle of nowhere.
Despite more predictions of failure, at the
time of relocation Frazer did not lose a
single member.
Over the next thirty years, Frazer
became one of the fastest growing United
Methodist congregations in America. In
1990 it had the largest worship attendance
of any United Methodist congregation in
North America. Equally important, it had the
largest Sunday School attendance, enabling
people to learn the Bible and connect to one
another in small groups as well as gathering
for worship.
To reach more people, Frazer began
offering three morning worship services in
1978. Members had to change their
schedules, but they valued reaching people
more than comfortable routines. Continuing
that spirit of innovation, Frazer now offers
nine worship services using multiple musical
styles in three locations and in three
languages, in addition to broadcasting on
radio, television, and online.
John Ed Mathison led Frazer for thirty-six
years of its most dramatic growth, retiring
in 2008. Although a gifted leader in his
own right, John Ed credits the success of
the church to its “Every Member in
Ministry” philosophy, founded on the belief
that every Christian is equipped with gifts
and abilities to serve in the church and
the community.
As a result, Frazer has become known
as “the serving church,” providing services
from food pantries to after-school tutoring
to disaster relief in Montgomery, and
investing in mission projects around the
world through financial support and sending
work teams.
Going forward, Frazer expects more
opportunities to pursue its mission to
“worship, win, disciple and serve to the glory
of God.”
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
136

When readers first opened to the
Profiles & Perspectives section of
Montgomery Living in November of
2010, they were delighted to read
of one of their city’s most beloved
ladies and a favorite landmark.
Columnist Brenda Robertson Dennis
wrote, “Very few businesses evoke the
type of warm neighborhood feelings
that Richardson’s Pharmacy has in
its 49 years serving Montgomery
residents. But in the case of this
Cloverdale institution, it’s not just the
triple service they provide (pharmacy,
printing and gifts) that keeps people
coming back, but the kindness of
its owner Anne Richardson. She herself has
become something of a Montgomery legend.
A strong supporter of the arts in our community,
serving on the board of the Montgomery
Symphony League for many years, she is
mostly known for treating her staff and
customers as close family, and always offering
something very special to anyone who walks
through the doors of her store.”
Anne and James Richardson and Richardson’s
Pharmacy have been a legendary piece of the
fabric of Montgomery for over fifty years.
Both grew up in Jasper, Alabama and first met
at a local park there when James had returned
home from Auburn University for a weekend
visit. The couple was married in 1954 and
James began his internship in Montgomery at
Pagehurst Drug Company on East Fairview
Avenue. That same year, James was drafted
into military service during the Korean War
and stationed in Germany as the couple
traveled throughout Europe.
When the Richardsons returned to
Montgomery to establish their family, a fortuitous
event awaited them. The owners of
Pagehurst Drug had decided to retire and
James agreed to buy the company. Anne soon
joined her husband in the endeavor as she
kept the books and tended to their growing
family, which now included James, Jr., and
Susan. The business was renamed Richardson’s
Pharmacy and merged Cloverdale Pharmacy
when James purchased the nearby store in
1975. The pharmacy soon expanded its
products when Anne began displaying in the
prominent store window a small line of
gift items she had purchased at the Atlanta
Gift Market.
The store was flourishing in the area when
a sudden turn of events struck the family as
James suffered a massive heart attack and
died in 1977. He was only forty-six years old
and Anne was left to persevere. At the time,
their son James, Jr., was leaving for college
while their daughter Susan was entering her
senior year in college.
In the Montgomery Living article, Anne
revealed the enormous struggle that followed
the loss of her husband, “I got so involved [at
the pharmacy] that after a while it was hard
to let it go. When James died there were
52 independent pharmacies in Montgomery.
There might be 6 now. I felt lucky to survive
all of that…I became very close to a lot of
customers who were like family to me and
worked with a lot of fine people.”
The pharmacy continued to flourish into
the late 1980s and property along Woodley
Road caught Anne’s attention and she
secured a loan from Regions Bank “to buy
those buildings.” The move created a larger
pharmacy and gift store, as well as space
for the now-thriving printing business that
specializes in the creation of personalized
stationary and invitations.
Though “unofficially” retired today, Anne
stays in close contact with the wonderful
staff of the pharmacy, gift store and print
shop—and remains a grand part of the life
of Montgomery and its outstanding heritage.
RICHARDSON’S
Seated: Anne Richardson.
PHARMACY
SHARING THE HERITAGE
137

DOZIER
WAREHOUSES
James M. Dozier started Dozier Warehouses
in 1977 when he built one building to provide
warehouse space that could be leased. With no
competition in sight, Dozier Warehouses prospered
and grew to 118 buildings by 2010.
Headquartered at 9056 Wares Ferry Road in
Montgomery, the company currently employs
over three hundred people within the businesses
located in its warehouses.
Dozier Warehouses includes sites from 40 x
60 to 50 x 50, or can be built to suit at only
$.20 to .33 per square foot. A wide variety of
outstanding businesses that have
been successful utilizing Dozier
Warehouses include SPW Wheels,
HLH Shutters, Diamond Games, R&S
Manufacturing, Southern Granite,
Nile Automotive, King Trucking,
Weatherly Transmissions, Tim
Freeman Automotive, Roy Trucking,
Paragon Steel, Dyn-o-Mite Windows,
Jackson & Jackson Trucking,
Legendary Performance, Montgomery
Seamless Gutters, Wright Mechanical
Services, Miracle Lawns, Jeorge
Automotive, Pittman Design, and
Progressive Lawns.
For more information about Dozier
Warehouses, visit the company online
at www.dozierwarehouses.com.
SPONSORS
Ace Supply, Inc. ..........................................................................113
Alabama Power Company............................................................105
Alabama Shakespeare Festival......................................................125
Baptist Health .............................................................................128
Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C........................118
Brown Chambless Architects........................................................102
Crosby Electric Company, Inc......................................................129
Dozier Warehouses......................................................................138
Drug Research and Analysis Corporation .....................................134
F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum..........................................122
Frazier Memorial United Methodist Church .................................136
Hodgson Concrete Company .......................................................131
Isaiah’s Restaurant
Butterfly Inn Bed & Breakfast ................................................133
Jack Ingram Motors.....................................................................120
Jackson Thornton & Co. .............................................................127
JRB Associates, Inc........................................................................94
Landmarks Foundation-Old Alabama Town .................................101
MAX Credit Union ......................................................................106
McPhillips Shinbaum, LLP ..........................................................123
Montgomery Aviation Corporation...............................................112
Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts...............................................135
Montgomery Regional Airport .....................................................110
Pickwick Antiques.......................................................................126
Red Bluff Cottage Bed & Breakfast...............................................109
Richardson’s Pharmacy ................................................................137
Ross-Clayton Funeral Home ........................................................130
Sabel Steel ..................................................................................132
The Renaissance Montgomery Hotel & Spa
at the Convention Center.........................................................98
Troy University ...........................................................................114
Weiss Flooring, Inc. ....................................................................124
WFSA 12 News...........................................................................116
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
138

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
M ARY A NN O GLESBY N EELEY
Mary Ann Oglesby Neeley is a seventh-generation Alabamian who was born in Montgomery and graduated from high school in
Clanton, Alabama. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and history from Huntingdon College and a master’s degree in history from
Auburn University. She taught in secondary school and as an adjunct at Auburn University Montgomery and Huntingdon College.
Neeley was director of the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery from 1979 to 2003. She is the author of several books on local
history; her most recent was as editor and annotator of The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian.
She is married to Aubrey Neeley. They are the parents of three children and grandparents of seven.
ABOUT THE COVER
F RONT
C OVER:
Shall We Gather at the River by Tom Conner. Watercolor. Commissioned by Margaret Carpenter for the Montgomery Area Chamber
of Commerce.
The late Tom Conner, a Montgomerian throughout his life, was beloved by the city for his art, his writing, and his devotion to his
hometown. A journalist with the Montgomery Advertiser/Alabama Journal, Conner’s humor, knowledge, and talent appeared for many
years in the historical-reminiscing cartoons of “Remember When,” which the newspaper reissued in two books before Conner’s death.
His artistry hangs in regional private and public collections.
B ACK
C OVER:
From the Fountain to the Capitol by Beau Redmond. Watercolor on newspaper.
Beau Redmond has exhibited throughout the Southeast and is well known for his watercolor and newspaper compositions. He resides
in St. Augustine, Florida, where his works on the city and its passing scenes have brought him honors and further recognition. His work
hangs in public and corporate offices, Montgomery private homes and offices, the Business Hall of Fame at the University of Alabama,
and in the permanent collections of galleries in New Orleans, Louisiana, and St. Augustine, Florida.
Both paintings are courtesy of the Montgomery Area Chamber.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR / ABOUT THE COVER
139

For more information about the following publications or about publishing your own book, please call
Historical Publishing Network at 800-749-9790 or visit www.hpnbooks.com.
Albemarle & Charlottesville:
An Illustrated History of the First 150 Years
Black Gold: The Story of Texas Oil & Gas
Care By the Sea: A History of Medicine in Nueces County
Ector County, Texas: 125 Years of History
Garland: A Contemporary History
Historic Abilene: An Illustrated History
Historic Alamance County: An Illustrated History
Historic Albuquerque: An Illustrated History
Historic Amarillo: An Illustrated History
Historic Anchorage: An Illustrated History
Historic Austin: An Illustrated History
Historic Baldwin County: A Bicentennial History
Historic Baton Rouge: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaufort County: An Illustrated History
Historic Beaumont: An Illustrated History
Historic Bexar County: An Illustrated History
Historic Birmingham: An Illustrated History
Historic Brazoria County: An Illustrated History
Historic Brownsville: An Illustrated History
Historic Charlotte:
An Illustrated History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County
Historic Chautauqua County: An Illustrated History
Historic Cheyenne: A History of the Magic City
Historic Clayton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Columbus: A Bicentennial History
Historic Comal County: An Illustrated History
Historic Corpus Christi: An Illustrated History
Historic DeKalb County: An Illustrated History
Historic Denton County: An Illustrated History
Historic Edmond: An Illustrated History
Historic El Paso: An Illustrated History
Historic Erie County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fayette County: An Illustrated History
Historic Fairbanks: An Illustrated History
Historic Gainesville & Hall County: An Illustrated History
Historic Gregg County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hampton Roads: Where America Began
Historic Hancock County: An Illustrated History
Historic Henry County: An Illustrated History
Historic Hood County: An Illustrated History
Historic Houston: An Illustrated History
Historic Hunt County: An Illustrated History
Historic Illinois: An Illustrated History
Historic Kern County:
An Illustrated History of Bakersfield and Kern County
Historic Lafayette:
An Illustrated History of Lafayette & Lafayette Parish
Historic Laredo:
An Illustrated History of Laredo & Webb County
Historic Las Cruces: The Story of Las Cruces & The Mesilla Valley
Historic Lee County: The Story of Fort Myers & Lee County
Historic Louisiana: An Illustrated History
Historic Mansfield: A Bicentennial History
Historic Midland: An Illustrated History
Historic Mobile:
An Illustrated History of the Mobile Bay Region
Historic Montgomery County:
An Illustrated History of Montgomery County, Texas
Historic Ocala: The Story of Ocala & Marion County
Historic Oklahoma: An Illustrated History
Historic Oklahoma County: An Illustrated History
Historic Omaha:
An Illustrated History of Omaha and Douglas County
Historic Orange County: An Illustrated History
Historic Osceola County: An Illustrated History
Historic Ouachita Parish: An Illustrated History
Historic Palestine: An Illustrated History
Historic Paris and Lamar County: An Illustrated History
Historic Pasadena: An Illustrated History
Historic Passaic County: An Illustrated History
Historic Pennsylvania An Illustrated History
Historic Philadelphia: An Illustrated History
Historic Prescott:
An Illustrated History of Prescott & Yavapai County
Historic Prince George’s County: An Illustrated History
Historic Richardson: An Illustrated History
Historic Rio Grande Valley: An Illustrated History
Historic Rogers County: An Illustrated History
Historic Santa Barbara: An Illustrated History
Historic Scottsdale: A Life from the Land
Historic Shelby County: An Illustrated History
Historic Shreveport-Bossier:
An Illustrated History of Shreveport & Bossier City
Historic South Carolina: An Illustrated History
Historic Smith County: An Illustrated History
Historic Temple: An Illustrated History
Historic Texarkana: An Illustrated History
Historic Texas: An Illustrated History
Historic Victoria: An Illustrated History
Historic Tulsa: An Illustrated History
Historic Wake County: An Illustrated History
Historic Warren County: An Illustrated History
Historic Williamson County: An Illustrated History
Historic Wilmington & The Lower Cape Fear:
An Illustrated History
Historic York County: An Illustrated History
In the Heart of Louisiana: An Illustrated History of Rapides Parish
Iron, Wood & Water: An Illustrated History of Lake Oswego
Jefferson Parish: Rich Heritage, Promising Future
Miami’s Historic Neighborhoods: A History of Community
Midland: Window to the West
The New Frontier:
A Contemporary History of Fort Worth & Tarrant County
Old Orange County Courthouse: A Centennial History
Plano: An Illustrated Chronicle
Rich With Opportunity:
Images of Beaumont and Jefferson County
San Antonio, City Exceptional
The San Gabriel Valley: A 21st Century Portrait
Southwest Louisiana: A Treasure Revealed
The Spirit of Collin County
Valley Places, Valley Faces
Water, Rails & Oil: Historic Mid & South Jefferson County
MONTGOMERY IN THE 20TH CENTURY
140

$24.95
About the Author
LEADERSHIP
SPONSORS
City of
Montgomery
JRB Associates, Inc.
Mary Ann Oglesby Neeley
Mary Ann Oglesby Neeley is a seventh-generation Alabamian who was born in
Montgomery and graduated from high school in Clanton, Alabama. She has a
bachelor’s degree in English and history from Huntingdon College and a master’s
degree in history from Auburn University. She taught in secondary school and as an
adjunct at Auburn University Montgomery and Huntingdon College.
Neeley was director of the Landmarks Foundation of Montgomery from 1979 to
2003. She is the author of several books on local history; her most recent was as
editor and annotator of The Works of Matthew Blue, Montgomery’s First Historian.
She is married to Aubrey Neeley. They are the parents of three children and
grandparents of seven.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF RUSS BAXLEY.
About the Cover
Historical Publishing Network
ISBN 978-1-939300-04-1
Shall We Gather at the River by Tom Conner. Watercolor. Commissioned by
Margaret Carpenter for the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.
The late Tom Conner, a Montgomerian throughout his life, was beloved by the
City for his art, his writing, and his devotion to his hometown. A journalist with the
Montgomery Advertiser/Alabama Journal, Conner’s humor, knowledge, and talent
appeared for many years in the historical-reminiscing cartoons of “Remember
When,” which the newspaper reissued in two books before Conner’s death. His
artistry hangs in regional private and public collections.
Courtesy of the Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce.