Self-Guided tours of Coffee High School are scheduled for Saturday, April 16, 2016 from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

The building will be torn down in May. It is said to have a mold problem that will be more expensive to fix than to build a new building.

By Jeremy Britten for Shoals History.

Thomas McGough (1906-2001) purchased the Florence bakery from M.P. Curran in 1941 and 5 years later, phased out the baking side of the business when he incorporated the Southern Frigid-Dough company.

Operating as a licensee of American Frigid-Dough, they wholesaled a line [...]]]>

Southern Frigid Dough

By Jeremy Britten for Shoals History.

Thomas McGough (1906-2001) purchased the Florence bakery from M.P. Curran in 1941 and 5 years later, phased out the baking side of the business when he incorporated the Southern Frigid-Dough company.

Operating as a licensee of American Frigid-Dough, they wholesaled a line of frozen and ready to bake meat pies & dinner rolls. The plant on the corner of Poplar & College streets in Florence was specially built & occupied 11,250 square feet. They used the tagline “World’s Largest Bakery Without An Oven”.
In the late 1950s, the Southern Frigid-Dough company produced 65,000 pies per day with 90 employees. In 1958, McGough undertook a $200,000 remodeling & expansion program that would increase the plant’s capacity to 172,000 pies per day.

McGough retired and went into the real estate business as a home builder and one of the developers of the English Village Shopping Center.

The Forks of Cypress was a cotton plantation and Greek Revival plantation house near Florence in Lauderdale County, Alabama. It was designed by architect William Nichols for James Jackson and his wife, Sally Moore Jackson. Construction was completed in [...]]]>
Take a video tour of the Forks of Cypress Plantation located in Florence, Alabama.

The Forks of Cypress was a cotton plantation and Greek Revival plantation house near Florence in Lauderdale County, Alabama. It was designed by architect William Nichols for James Jackson and his wife, Sally Moore Jackson. Construction was completed in 1830. It was the only Greek Revival house in Alabama to feature a two-story colonnade around the entire house, composed of twenty-four Ionic columns. The name was derived from the fact that Big Cypress Creek and Little Cypress Creek border the plantation and converge near the site of the main house. Although the main house was destroyed by fire in 1966, the site was placed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on April 14, 1992 and the National Register of Historic Places on October 10, 1997

A new, three-part series on the Investigation Discovery network – “Hate in America” – will take an in-depth look at the Southern Poverty Law Centers’s fight against violent extremists. The Southern Poverty Law Center is headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.

The first episode, premiering at 8 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday, Feb. 29, explores some of [...]]]>

A new, three-part series on the Investigation Discovery network – “Hate in America” – will take an in-depth look at the Southern Poverty Law Centers’s fight against violent extremists.  The Southern Poverty Law Center is headquartered in Montgomery, Alabama.

The first episode, premiering at 8 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday, Feb. 29, explores some of the SPLC’s most riveting court cases, including the Michael Donald lawsuit that shut down the United Klans of America.

In 1981, Donald, 19, was abducted on the streets of Mobile, Alabama, by Klansmen who cut his throat and hung his body from a tree in a residential neighborhood. Using an innovative legal strategy, SPLC founder Morris Dees proved in court that a Klan conspiracy was behind the murder and won a historic $7 million verdict against the United Klans on behalf of Donald’s mother.

The verdict marked the end of the United Klans, the same group that had bombed Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, killing four little girls, during the civil rights movement.

The first episode of “Hate in America” also will delve into the SPLC’s harrowing case against the former Klan leader Glenn Miller, who formed a large Klan militia in North Carolina that obtained an arsenal of lethal weapons from sympathizers in the military. The suit shut down Miller’s operation, and he was sent to prison after plotting to assassinate Dees. The notorious neo-Nazi made headlines in 2014 when he murdered three people at Jewish facilities in Kansas.

The two final episodes of “Hate in America” will air later in 2016 on dates to be determined. They will examine the rise of lone-wolf terrorists, including the white supremacist who killed nine African Americans in Charleston last summer, and an attempt by racists to start a white supremacist enclave in Montana.

The series is hosted by Emmy Award-winning journalist Tony Harris.

It will be available online at DiscoveryGO and on ID’s website starting March 1.

Florence Fire Department

By Jeremy Britten of Shoals History.

Florence Fire Department was founded on April 25, 1828 as a volunteer fire company made up of every male in Florence between the ages of 18 and 50. It decreed that each house must have its own ladder and its own leather [...]]]>  

Florence Fire Department

By Jeremy Britten of Shoals History.

Florence Fire Department was founded on April 25, 1828 as a volunteer fire company made up of every male in Florence between the ages of 18 and 50. It decreed that each house must have its own ladder and its own leather bucket with a capacity of two gallons to be used only for fire-fighting.

With this equipment the men of Florence put out fires by forming a double line to pass buckets of water back and forth between the burning building and the nearest well or cistern.

The act also took steps to prevent fires by forbidding the keeping of more than 25 pounds of gun powder within 100 feet of a house and by forbidding the building of stables with hay, fodder, or hemp within the limits of the business district. Perhaps the most valuable clause in the act was fining anyone who turns in a false alarm ten dollars(equivalent to about $220 today) during the day and twenty dollars(about $435 today) at night.

By 1902, Florence’s fire equipment consisted of a hand-drawn two-wheel cart carrying a hose and a hook and ladder wagon pulled by horses rented at Jesse Pattons’ livery stable, located where the Negley Hotel was.

Wells and cisterns were obsolete. The town’s water system had been installed in 1890. The fire alarm system, however, was the same as it had been in 1828. When a fire broke out, someone would have to shoot a gun or run into town to announce the fire.

In 1915, the Fire Chief, Donald White, purchased its first motor vehicle, a type 20 American LaFrance (pictured in the above April 1915 photo). A phone was also installed in the fire station to be used for social calls as well as announcing fires.

In 1918 Gamewell Fire Alarm Company installed a modern five-circuit automatic repeater and positive non-interfering system of Fire Alarm boxes and a six-circuit Fire Alarm switch board. This equipment would be automatic even if all the city current were turned off.

FLORENCE, Ala. – The University of North Alabama will host several events to honor the history and heritage of African Americans. Throughout the month of February, students, faculty and staff will host numerous events during Black History Month.

On Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m., in the GUC Loft, UNA [...]]]>  

FLORENCE, Ala. – The University of North Alabama will host several events to honor the history and heritage of African Americans. Throughout the month of February, students, faculty and staff will host numerous events during Black History Month.

On Tuesday, Feb. 16 at 7:00 p.m., in the GUC Loft, UNA will host a screening of the award-winning documentary Footsoldiers: Class of 1964 followed by a discussion with documentary director and producer, Rev. Alvelyn Sanders, Pastor of Greater St. Paul A.M.E. Church in Florence. The event is free and open to the public.

On Thursday, Feb. 18 at 9:30 a.m., in Norton Auditorium, UNA will host the musical narrative Walk with Me presented by the Walk with Me Foundation. The presentation is based on the book While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age During the Civil Rights Movement. Admission is $3.00. Contact carole@walkwithmefoundation.org for tickets.

On Tuesday, Feb. 23 from 6:30-8:30 p.m., in the GUC Loft, UNA will host a Conversation on Alabama Civil and Human Rights: The March Continues with Lecia Brooks, Outreach Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The event is free and open to the public.

On Wednesday, Feb. 24 at 7:00 p.m., in the GUC Banquet Halls, the UNA Black Student Alliance and NPHC will host their annual Black History program featuring the UNA Gospel Choir, Ascending Voices and Dr. Will Boyd, Pastor of St. Mark M.B. Church as the speaker and presentations from other students.

Known as the “Father of Black History”, Dr. Carter G. Woodson founded the celebration he called “Negro History Week” in 1926. Dr. Woodson selected the second week of February for the celebration because it fell between the birthdays of the famed orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln. In 1976, the celebration expanded to include the entire month of February. Today, Black History Month is celebrated across the United States by people of all ethnic and social backgrounds.

“Our campus and surrounding community is very diverse and developing opportunities for greater awareness and knowledge of the history of various cultures, moves all of us closer to a place of respect and understanding of each other and is essential to the educational mission for preparing students to develop stronger communities.”, said Joan Williams, director of the UNA Office of Diversity and Institutional Equity (ODIE).

For more information about UNA diversity-related events  call 256-765-6340.

Billed as the biggest opportunity North Alabama ever saw, Allentown was to become a new industrial development powered completely by hydro-electric power from two dams built on Cypress Creek. The “City Without A Chimney”, read a tagline used in all advertisements. The basis of [...]]]>

Allentown.

by Jeremy Britten, for Shoals History.

The Idea

Billed as the biggest opportunity North Alabama ever saw, Allentown was to become a new industrial development powered completely by hydro-electric power from two dams built on Cypress Creek. The “City Without A Chimney”, read a tagline used in all advertisements. The basis of Allentown was to be cheap electric power, water transportation, entrancing landscape scenery, and unrivaled sites for manufacturing industries.

Incorporated on September 23, 1914 with a capital stock of $200,000 (nearly $4.7 million in today’s dollars), Allentown Power Company’s plan was to develop the water power on Cypress Creek, subdivide the land and to build two hydro-electric power plants. Col. N.F. Thompson of Birmingham was president, and T.W. Pratt of Huntsville was vice president. The company operated out of the ground floor of the Jefferson Hotel in downtown Florence. The next month, however, would see the resignation of both gentlemen (a likely sign of Allentown’s future failure) with Mr. Sloan Jacobs of Birmingham being elected as president and Mr. Alan L. Jemison, also of Birmingham, elected as vice president.

The Hype

Allentown – The city without a chimney

Surveyed by the Kelley Company out of Birmingham, the proposed tract of land measured in a straight line from north to south, two miles, and from east to west over two and a half miles. Allentown encompassed more than 1,000 acres over a total of five square miles which were subdivided into 6,500 lots. The unusual winding of Cypress Creek provided Allentown with a water line that was just over seven miles long. That not only meant that prospective Allentown citizens would have a choice of the most wonderfully beautiful waterfront property, but also a sizable amount of water for the hydro-electric plant. A dam that was 410 feet long and 42 feet high was to convert Cypress Creek above the dam into a beautiful, wide lake over 1,000 feet wide and over 4 miles long and a slightly narrower width for three more miles.

The Cypress Creek lake in Allentown was to be marketed as a must-see destination for boaters, canoeing, fishing, hunting and recreation of all sorts. They hoped to attract tourists from all across the country to camp, picnic, and relax in this lush new paradise. Wildwood Park at the time would have been expanded with a new harbor to dock the boats and other watercraft.

Not long after the announcement of such a wondrous new town, the “City without a chimney” already had over 50 local Florence residents who announced their intentions to move into Allentown. Such good news led those involved to say that they wouldn’t have to send invitations for residents, but would rather be able to eliminate from the inundation of requests and pick out only the best citizens for Allentown.

The Spectacle

In mid-December of 1915, the Allentown Land Company held a two-day auction event to sell lots from the central section of Allentown. In the days leading up to this spectacle, the grounds were meticulously cleaned. Trees were whitewashed and trimmed, the streets were laid off with several of the more important streets having been graded too. The lots were all marked out, and each lot would be sold from a big wagon driven upon the lot itself. The famous Irish “Twin Auctioneers” called the Gaffney Brothers were brought in to wow the crowd with synchronized auction calling. A brass band playing only the best music paraded the streets of Sheffield and Tuscumbia leading a large crowd back to Allentown on street cars. After several speeches (including some from the current Governor as well as ex-governor O’Neal), the bidding started and didn’t let up until late in the afternoon. Almost immediately, 40 lots were bought up by excited new residents. The first lot was sold to Mr. M.P. Johnson of Iuka, Mississippi. A free lot was given as a prize and won by Mr. L. Rickard of Florence. Every 30 minutes more prizes were given out to the crowd of people.

Although day two of the auction had to be postponed for 3 days due to a wet and dreary day, the construction crew still got out there early in the morning for the installation of their turbine and generator. They had the lights on in Allentown at exactly 11:44 a.m. The small crowd of around 100 people who braved the rain gave a loud cheer as Allentown was lit for the first time by their own hydro-electric power from Cypress Creek.

The failure

Despite the large spectacle, a handful of pre-sold lots, and plenty of national marketing Allentown never came to full fruition. The result of corporate mergers, litigations, and lawsuits, Allentown was never meant to be. The main lawsuit made it all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court on November 28, 1918. Allentown Power Company had consolidated with the Lauderdale Power Company and its proprietors were sued for failing to begin work on the development of the water power necessary to power Allentown.

The original contract was signed on July 3, 1914. The power company called for a time extension for the completion of work and the contract was modified to show that extension 4 separate times into November of that same year. Lots of back and forth between parties finally resulted in an agreement to separate the water power from the other interests in the lands. It was also agreed that if the power company failed to make payment for their option to develop water power on the property within 50 days, that the contract would be void. That payment was never made. The landowner did what he reasonably could to enable Lauderdale Power Company and their associates to make the purchase; and then, when his patience was apparently exhausted, and after the expiration of all extended time limits, he gave the option to a different party.

It is true that a crude, temporary small electric power plant was constructed by the power company, but the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that this did not constitute ‘for continuous development of the water power.’ Without hydro-electric power, the “City without a chimney” could never come to fruition.