Historic Birmingham

I did the historic tour of Birmingham today with Emma's 4th grade class. 

This is the class getting ready for the bus ride!

The bus ride...

Our fist stop was at Morris Avenue. This street is still cobblestone and has many of the original buildings that were used for grocery stores, banks, etc.

The train tracks ran behind the buildings that were used to carry in products. The horse and carriage would then distribute it around the city.

the peanut depot

We then went to visit the four skyscrapers on a street corner. This corner is known as the "Heaviest Corner on Earth". The structures heralded Birmingham's coming of age at the turn of the century when the smokestacks of heavy industry belched the soot and grime of prosperity.

The residents of Birmingham were sure the dominance of the soaring structures made the intersection the "heaviest corner on earth." - Birmingham News

The John A. Hand Building is one of the four original skyscrapers.

We then preceded to drive by Sloss furnace and learned the history of the steel making in relation to the growth of Birmingham. We continued on to the Alabama Sports hall of Fame. The kids got to meet Jennifer Chandler. She won the gold in diving at the 1976 olympics and is pictured below with the girls in front of her display in the hall of fame.

She gave each of them an autographed card with a picture of her diving on it. Our next stop was lunch at Brookwood Mall and then on to Vulcan.

Now, they have really changed Vulcan since I last went. It has always been a joke that he was "mooning" Homewood and instead of the spear he now olds, he used to have a torch. This torch would glow red if there had been a fatal car accident in Jefferson county within the past 24 hours and green if there had not.




We got to see the opening to the mine which Vulcan is build on and also the trestle that still stands where the train ran.

It rained off and on during the day but we had a great time learning our history and being together.