Magic City

Birmingham today is a vibrant city with a storied past, from industrial giant to hotbed of civil rights activity.  A relatively young Southern city, Birmingham was established on June 1, 1871 at the junction of two major railroads, the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) and the Southern Railway.  In addition, nearby was an abundance of raw material for making pig iron:  iron ore, coke and limestone.  Birmingham was the quintessential steel city.  Between 1880 and 1890 pig iron production increased tenfold, and the growth of the city mirrored that of the iron and steel industry.  One major foundry was Sloss Furnaces.  Today, the former Sloss Furnaces complex is on the National Register of Historic Places.  Birmingham’s explosive growth in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s quickly earned it the nickname “Magic City.”

Sloss Furnaces, one of the largest foundries in Birmingham, is operated
today as a museum, and is on the National Register of Historic Places





Furnace No. 1 at Sloss.  Iron ore, coke and limestone were fed into the top of the furnace.
Heated air was injected from the bottom, literally melting the materials to form molten
iron, called "pig iron", which was "poured off" from the bottom of the furnace.



The raw materials were weighed to insure the correct ratios, then conveyed on this
"skip hoist" to the top to feed the furnace.  The blast furnaces ran 24 hours per day.

 

Standing on the steps of Furnace No. 2

The former "cast shed" where the molten iron was poured into sand molds to be cooled
as bars of "pig iron".  Today the shed has been re-purposed for other uses.  The day we visited,
it was being decorated for a wedding.  The venue hosts 45 or 50 weddings each year.





Unfortunately, the impact of the Great Depression on the city was devastating.  Immediately preceding 1929, approximately 108,000 people were employed in and around Birmingham; following the stock market crash, 100,000 of those jobs were lost, prompting President Herbert Hoover to declare Birmingham the hardest impacted of any U.S. city.  World War II brought the city back to life as the steel industry kicked into high gear to produce the equipment and weapons needed for war.  By the 1970’s iron and steel production had moved overseas and Birmingham, like much of the Pennsylvania / Ohio “rust belt” was pretty much out of the iron and steel business.  Fortunately, following World War II, Birmingham had begun to diversify so that its fortunes would no longer rise or fall on the basis of a single industry.

In 1904, Birmingham created a 56 foot tall statue of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, for its
exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair. Following the fair, the statue stood at the Birmingham fair grounds for
30 years until it was put on a 124 foot pedestal in Vulcan Park, atop Red Mountain, overlooking the city.

Vulcan is the largest cast iron statue in the world, and the 7th-largest free-standing statue in
the U.S. Funding for the creation of Vulcan Park, along with the pedestal on which the statue
stands, came, in part, from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). 

View of downtown Birmingham from the observation deck on the Vulcan statue









During the 1960’s Birmingham became a focal point of the Civil Rights movement.  A number of significant events occurred here.  Non-violent protests by African-Americans were met with fire hoses and police dogs.  Two pivotal events brought national attention and shocked the nation.  In early May 1963, in an event that Newsweek termed “The Children’s Crusade” students left their schools to march downtown to meet with the mayor.  The marchers were handled brutally by local authorities, resulting in the arrest of some 600 children.  The other event was a horrific bombing on September 15, 1963 at 16th Street Baptist Church which took the lives of four young girls, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins--all 14 years old--and 11-year-old Denise McNair.

These momentous events were instrumental in paving the way for federal civil rights legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.



16th Street Baptist Church, site of the 1963 bombing that took the lives of four girls.



Statues commemorating the four murdered Birmingham girls, in Kelly Ingram Park. The park
was named for the Birmingham resident who was the first U.S. Navy sailor killed in WWI.



16th Street Baptist Church, with the statues of the murdered girls in the
foreground, showing the proximity of Kelly Ingram Park to the church. The park

was a rallying point for civil rights marches, including the Children's Crusade.



After years of healing, the social fabric has been strengthened.  Birmingham has established itself as an important financial hub and today it is one of the nation’s largest banking centers.  The city is also home to world-class medical facilities.  The University of Alabama is the city’s largest employer.  While the downtown area’s population is 212,237 (2010 census) the metropolitan area includes 1,128,000 citizens.  The economy of the Birmingham metropolitan area is strong, and the mild climate, relatively low cost of living and abundance of cultural venues and events make Birmingham a very welcoming city.





Rickwood Field, the oldest professional ball park in the U.S.  Opened in 1910, it was used
continually until 1987.  Now, a Birmingham Barons "retro" game is played here each summer

Among the greats who played here over the years:  Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson
Willie Mays, Leroy "Satchel" Paige, "Dizzy" Dean and his brother, Paul, and "Shoeless"
Joe Jackson, who later was embroiled in the Black Sox scandal in the 1919 World Series



Scenes from three movies have been filmed at Rickwood Field:  Cobb (1994);
Soul of the Game (1995); and 42 (2012), the Jackie Robinson story.

In addition to the Birmingham Barons, the Birmingham Black Barons, of the Negro League,
played here in the days before baseball was integrated.  They won two league chanpionships.

We visited the Birmingham Botanical Gardens at the height of the rose festival

 

 

The Irondale Café in the nearby town of Irondale, was the inspiration for the
Whistle-Stop Café in the movie version of Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatos 

 

The Irondale Café on a rainy Saturday afternoon

 

The interior of the Irondale Café.  Their specialty is fried chicken, but the
fried catfish looked really, really good, and it tasted as good as it looked.

 

We camped at Oak Mountain State Park, south of Birmingham, a 10,000 acre park
(the largest state park in Alabama) that is absolutely pristine and gorgeous



Driving up to the highest spot accessible by road in Oak Mountain Park, this is a
view from one of the scenic outlooks.  Parts of this park were created by the CCC







Birmingham, one of the major stops on our tour of Alabama, provided us with great sights and interesting Road Stories.