Category Archives: Research

Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Highland Avenue, Historic Preservation, Research, Southside, The Altamont

Celebrating a NEW/OLD (1924) Location

An historic 1924 apartment building on Highland Avenue is our NEW/OLD location! Birmingham Historical Society members and volunteers have been slowly moving 37 years of research documents and publications from The Duncan House at Sloss Quarters to 2827 Highland Avenue on Birmingham’s Southside.

Many thanks in particular to Pat & Ehney Camp, The Camp Foundation, John Lauriello with SouthPace Properties, BHS President Wayne Hester, Regina & Blue Ammon, Gerry Waters, Carol Slaughter, Carol Ogle and Marjorie White for making this vision a reality.

Read more about the interesting history of our new location in September’s newsletter HERE. Our mailing address remains P.O. Box 321474/Birmingham, AL 35232.

Audubon Society, Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Brock’s Gap, Historic Preservation, Hoover, Parks & Recreation, Red Mountain, Red Mountain Park, Research, Shades Creek, Shades Crest Road, shades mountain

Help Save Shades Mountain with the SOUND of MUSIC!

Friends of Shades Mountain
are sponsoring a Benefit Concert
at Wild Roast Cafe in Bluff Park,
featuring great live folk, mountain,
and classical guitar music,
as well as original songs
by the President of the Birmingham Music Club

Sunday, September 11th, 6:00PM

Click image to download & print pdf invitation

The Birmingham Historical Society continues to research the historic importance of Shades Mountain and Shades Creek to our community with recent attention focused on Brock’s Gap, and the publication of Shades Creek–Flowing Through Time. But the Friends of Shades Mountain also want to preserve it for the benefits it provides all of us NOW including:

  • The forest protects homeowners below from erosion, mudslides and damaging storm water runoff.
  • It helps keep the water and air in the county clean.
  • By providing visual screening, the forest enhances property values in the valley below and the ridge above the mountain.
  • It provides habitat for many plant and animal species, some rarely seen in other parts of the county and state.
  • It is an aesthetic value in itself, providing a lush green landscape that cools the eye of everyone coming around, over and under its forest canopy.
  • It helps protect Shades Creek, already imperiled by previous development.
  • The forests along this mountain help to keep homes cooler by reducing the effects of hot, humid summer days. In the winter, the forest provides wind brakes that cut heating costs.
  • The forest cover saves the county an estimated $1,500,000 per year by reducing air pollution and storm water runoff.

You can HELP by buying tickets or donating if you can’t attend.

Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham Landmarks, Highland Avenue, Historic Preservation, Membership, Research, Trustees

We are MOVING! (We have MOVED!)

Please note our change of location to: 2827 Highland Avenue/Birmingham, AL 35205. At this time, the BHS business office is open ONLY for scheduled meetings and appointments, and our mailing address remains unchanged at P.O. Box 321474/Birmingham, AL 35232. When our ongoing renovations are completed, a formal opening will be announced. (UPDATE: OPEN HOUSE November 13th, 2-4PM)

We LOVE our historic Highland Avenue neighborhood!

A big thanks to all those who made this move possible including John Lauriello of Southpace Properties, architect and BHS Trustee Wayne Hester, and The Ehney Camp Foundation.

Genealogy, Research

Genealogy Research – Ask a Librarian!

Birmingham Historical Society frequently receives requests for information on family histories, photograph archives, or specific Southern history items.

The Birmingham Historical Society researches specific subjects and are not the best resource for genealogy. However, we are fortunate to have the excellent Department of Southern History at the Birmingham Public Library. Not only do they offer classes in computer research for genealogy, but for specific requests, you can ’ask a librarian’ in writing to research individual questions.

They offer databases of building photographs, browsing by subject and/or name, and digitized obituaries, newspapers, and magazines. Cemeteries, stories, census records, church histories, military & civil rights histories, marriage records, and maps are just a fraction of the information to which you have access.

The digital collection contains more than 30,000,000 documents and 500,000 photographs.

So next time you want to discover more about your Southern history, ask a librarian!

Research, Weather History

Birmingham’s Hot Weather Extremes

It is HOT today, and there is another heat alert advising people to be cautious, but it IS July. So thought we’d take a look at some of Birmingham’s weather extremes throughout its weather history.

The hottest recorded temperature in Birmingham, Alabama history was a scorching 107 degrees Fahrenheit which occurred on July 29th, 1930. But it reached:

  • 106 on July 13, 1980
  • 106 on July 29, 1952
  • 106 on July 25, 1952 and
  • 106 on July 12, 1930.

Take a look at some more Birmingham extremes HERE. A special thanks to the Hostetler brothers. They created this site using U.S. government aggregate data in response to anecdotal stories from their parents about the extremely cold weather while students at the University of Michigan.

Maybe the upper 90’s in July are not so extreme after all! Stay cool…