Browse Items (963 total)

The Florence Main Street Program, a non-profit organization, strives to renovate the downtown sector of Florence, Alabama. One of the organization’s recent projects is the beautiful mural located on the exterior wall of Fred’s Super Dollar store…

According to Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, an opera house operated in Florence during the late 1880s and permanently closed its doors during the early twentieth century. Between 1894 and 1905 the venue was known as Turner Opera House. During the…

On March 2, 2012, the University of North Alabama (UNA) in Florence, Alabama, conducted a grand ceremony for the George Lindsey Theatre. The university broke ground for the theatre exactly a year earlier in March of 2011. One individual in the crowd…

During the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (years generally known as the “recording years”), the success of FAME Recording Studio in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, brought national attention to the region. Musicians such as the Swampers, Joe Tex, Aretha…

Between the 1950s and 1980s the success of Shoals recording studios, such as FAME Recording Studio and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, earned the Shoals region’s music industry national attention. Artists such as Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, and…

The shape-note notation was an American pedagogical tool designed to increase the music education of the average citizen who did not have the financial resources or time to learn the traditional round note notation. New Englanders William Smith and…

The Episcopalian movement in America began in the late 1700’s and spread into northwest Alabama during the 1800s. The oldest Episcopalian parish in the area is Trinity Episcopal Church in Florence, Alabama. In the 1820s the early congregation met…

The First Presbyterian Church of Florence is the oldest continually operating congregation in Florence, Alabama. Early Presbyterian settlers of Florence bought land lot 84 from the Cypress Land Company in 1818 for a total of $1,600 and built a…

Wood Avenue Church of Christ is one of the oldest Churches of Christ in Lauderdale County. The Church of Christ denomination emerged out of the American Restoration Movement, a movement to reestablish America’s Christianity on the teachings of the…

Along with thirty-five members, Reverend Felix Johnson organized Goodsprings Cumberland Presbyterian in Rogersville, Alabama, on September 18, 1839. During its history the church’s congregation has had to deal with two historical events—the Civil…

First United Methodist Church is one of Florence’s oldest congregations. The congregation’s first meeting took place in a log home on September 8, 1822, and consisted of eight people. The log home was the property of the congregation’s first…

Prior to 1898 the Catholic population in Florence, Alabama, traveled to Tuscumbia’s Our Sacred Heart. The pastor of Our Sacred Heart, Father Bassen, characterized Florence as a mission of the Catholic Church. As a result, St. Joseph Catholic Church…

Established in 1872, St. Michael’s Catholic Church was the first Catholic Church in Lauderdale County. The church was organized in St. Florian, Alabama, a community founded by German Catholic settlers. A prominent Catholic minister in the southwest…

The Mars Hill Church of Christ, established in 1871, is one of twenty-nine Churches of Christ in Florence. The Church of Christ denomination emerged out of the American Restoration Movement, a movement to reestablish America’s Christianity on the…

The Center Star Methodist Church congregation is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Throughout its history the congregation has moved over five times. Its origins began in 1818, when the Methodist Richland Circuit of Giles…

On May 22, 1852, the Liberty Baptist Church congregation organized the oldest existing Baptist congregation in Lauderdale County. In fact, it was the only Baptist church erected in the county until the First Baptist Church of Florence was built over…

Established during the 1830s, the Canaan United Methodist Church is the oldest Methodist congregation in Lauderdale County. Land for the church’s building and cemetery were given by an early settler in the county named Edmond Noel. Established for…

Methodist settlers first entered the northwest region of Alabama during the early 1800s during the Second Great Awakening. The lot of land that Tabernacle Methodist Church sits on was used for religious camp meetings during the Second Great…

Early Baptists settlers in Waterloo, Alabama, met in a two-story log meeting house. This building was erected in 1845. The structure was 40 x 60 feet. During the week, children in the Waterloo community attended school in the church’s main floor,…

One of the most talented wood craftsman in northwest Alabama is Robin Wade. His furniture studio in Lexington, Alabama, produces organic “American” wood furniture. Wade attended the University of North Alabama as a young man, and started his wood…

Florence, Alabama, established on March 12, 1818, is nicknamed the “Renaissance City.” It is named after Florence, Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance (a time period in which a cultural movement in the arts, religion, science, and…

William Christopher Handy, born in Florence, Alabama, on November 16, 1873 and is considered to be the “Father of the Blues.” His musical legacy is a prime part of the music culture in the Shoals region, especially in his home town of Florence.…

The Shoals Theatre, located in historic downtown Florence, Alabama at 123 North Seminary Street, first opened in 1948. At the time of its grand opening, the art deco style theatre was one of the finest in the Southeast. It originally sat 1,350 people…

Nat "King" Cole (March 17. 1919 - February 15, 1965)

Born Nathaniel Adams Coles, on March 17, 1919, in Montgomery, Alabama, crooner Nat Cole was known for his smooth, soft baritone and easygoing nature. When Nat was four years old, his father,…

Ernie Ashworth (December 15, 1928 - March 2, 2009)

Even though he had written songs for some of country music’s biggest stars, and that he himself had scored two top 10 hits, it wasn’t until after he had scored his one and only number-one…

David Briggs (March 16, 1943 - )

David Briggs has had a career that can best be described as impressive, topped off by working with Elvis Presley as his studio keyboardist, and later going out on tour with the King. But lest one think that he…

Buddy Buie (January 23, 1941 - July 18, 2015)

Buddy Buie may not be a name that most folks recognize, but his impact on the music scene of the 1960s to the 1990s is one that transcends name recognition. As a songwriter, producer, and concert…

Clarence Carter (January 14, 1936 - )

The best way to describe Clarence Carter’s style is that he is a soul and blues preacher of love, most specifically, the cheating kind. Carter’s vocals, at times soaring and at times down in the gutter,…

Cleveland "Cleve" Eaton (August 31, 1939 - )

In his long career in music, it is difficult to find a genre or an entertainer or act that Cleve Eaton has either not recorded or toured with. The man dubbed “the Count’s Bassist” because of his…

Eddie Floyd (June 27, 1937 - )

The “Memphis sound” that mixed Southern soul with R&B, jazz, with a little country and gospel thrown in, was an important and influential sound in the 1960s. Led by such singers as Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, and…

Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay (August 22, 1947 - )

If anyone can lay claim to having lived a life that was marked by being in the right place at the right, Donna Jean Godchaux (pronounced “God-show) can. From growing up in the Florence/Muscle…

Erskine Hawkins (July 26, 1914 - November 11, 1993)

When philanthropists donate money to various organizations, schools and charities, most often the result is either a building named in in their honor, or a scholarship, or even a seat on a board…

Buddy Killen (November 13, 1932 - November 1, 2006)

There are countless musicians, singers and entertainers in the world that, for lack of that big break, never reach the pinnacle, in spite of the fact that they may have just as much, if not more,…

Spooner Oldham (June 14, 1943 - )

The writing credits of Spooner Oldham read like a jukebox selection. From Percy Sledge to Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett to Janis Joplin, Spooner is at the heart of what has come to be called “The Muscle Shoals…

Billy Sherrill (November 5, 1936 - August 4, 2015)

If at any point during the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s you listened to a song by George Jones, Tammy Wynette, or Charlie Rich, chances are very good that song was either written, produced, or both,…

Candi Staton (March 13, 1940 - )

For many within the African-American community, the line between gospel and soul music is a thin one. A rhythm that pushes the music along, soaring vocals that inspire and lift the crowds out of their seats,…

J.T. "Fess" Whatley (c. 1895 - January 12, 1972)

If Alabama's musical heritage were to have a conductor, a teacher, that person would have to be J.T. “Fess” Whatley. In his tutelage of musicians, first at The Tuggle Institute in Birmingham, of…

Colbert County was established in 1867, fourteen years before the courthouse was built. Commissioners met at a local hotel called The Horn House while the probate judge’s office was located on the second floor of a brick building on Main Street in…

West Fraser operates a sawmill near Opelika located at 2100 Industrial Blvd., Opelika, AL.

The first major industry in Lee County and the first textile mill in Opelika. It opened in 1900. Today, it is most well known as the backdrop for the 1979 film "Norma Rae" about a woman who become involved in the Labor Union Activities at the North…

Constructed in 1925, allegedly after Opelika city officials paid the company a significant sum in bribes, the Pepperell Mill would become one of Opelika's most iconic industrial sites. The mill produced cotton textiles under a number of names until…

After opening in 1963, this plant produced automobile tires for the BF Goodrich company. The business was forced to close in 2009 after shifting workforce to non-unionized labor. It was located at 1800 Crawford Rd., Opelika, AL.

Diversified Products opened in 1963. The company specialized in fitness equipment and is credited with revolutionizing the fitness industry. This business was an important component of America's emerging fitness movement for four decades. Corporate…

Orradio produced magnetic tape. Major John Herbert Orr founded Orradio in 1949 using information given to him by German scientists during World War II. This business became the first producer of commercially available audio, video, and computer tape.…

This grist mill was originally built in 1834 by Sam Carter and Henry Byrd as a sawmill. In 1848 John "Jack" Floyd purchased the property and in 1852 Floyd's Mill Rd (now US 29) was established. During the Civil War, the mill provided supplies to the…

James Mitchell purchased 400 acres along Chewacla Creek and built a dam and sawmill in 1837. Mr. Collins bought the mill in 1880, but it was washed away during a flood in 1889 and would not be rebuilt until 1905. J. Milton Whatley bought the property…

Built by Rev. Michael Thomas sometime between 1830 and 1835, it was the first mill erected on Little Uchee Creek. Ownership of the mill is unknown until 1909 when G.W. McKinnon deeded the propert known as McKinnon Mill to his wife and children. The…

Carter's Mill was an early non-permitted mill. Sam Carter received his land from the U.S. government and built his mill on that property. In 1840, the property was sold to Mark Golden Jr. who later died 1845. Golden's will listed only grist mill…

First opened by W.H. "Bud" Ingram in the Clement Hotel in Opelika in 1910, it moved to the Montgomery Brothers' Building in 1911 and to its own building on S 8th St. in 1914. Ingram sold the business to Jim Tom Hamilton in 1923 who moved the…

General Electric Aviation produces machined parts for jet engines. The business opened in 2013, and is still operating today. In 2014, a $50 million expansion was announced that will allow the factory to mass produce, via 3D printing, fuel nozzles…