1894

The Caldwell Hotel after the July 1894 fire

1894 was the 23nd year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• April 25–26: The 1894 Reunion of United Confederate Veterans was held in Birmingham.
• April 26: The cornerstone for the Confederate Soldiers & Sailors Monument in Capitol Park was laid.
• May 20: A strike-breaker was killed during the 1894 miner's strike.
• June 12: Eugene Jeffers was shot to death by Peyton Bowman in the bar of the Florence Hotel.
• July 20–21: A fire broke out at Stowers Furniture Company, eventually engulfing the Caldwell Hotel and other businesses.
• June 9: The Birmingham Medical College was organized under a state charter.
• October 2: The Birmingham Medical College held its first classes in the former Lunsford Hotel.
• December 1: Fire destroyed the Hospital of United Charities.
• December: Five blast furnaces in Bessemer were idled for lack of ore.
• The Brighton Post Office was established.
• The St Paul's Biblical and Literary Society was founded.
• The 100-bed Hospital of United Charity was destroyed by fire.

Business

• March: A. S. Leader reopened his Marvel City Saloon in the Voelkel Building on Carolina Avenue in Bessemer.
• May 3: Loosley Cycle Co. was founded by Ernest Loosley.
• December 24: A second blow-out at Brierfield Ironworks left the furnace forever idled.
• The Southern Democrat was founded.
• The Drs Davis and Davis Private Infirmary opened.

Education

• Robert Allgood succeeded Prof. MacDonald as principal of Avondale Elementary School.
• Isaac McAdory became superintendent of education for Jefferson County.

Government

• December 1: William C. Oates succeeded Thomas G. Jones as Governor of Alabama.
• James Van Hoose succeeded David J. Fox as Mayor of Birmingham.
• William Jemison regained the position of Mayor of Tuscaloosa from Henry Foster.

Religion

• January 1: J. M. Watson took the pulpit of First Christian Church.
• February 11: Samuel Ullman resigned as lay rabbi of Temple Emanu-El.
• September: David Marx became rabbi of Temple Emanu-El.
• Matthew Blease succeeded Marshall Wells as pastor of Trinity Methodist Church (Southside).
• St Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church was founded in Brookside.

Sports

• November 29: The 1894 Iron Bowl was played at Montgomery's Riverside Park where Alabama upset Auburn by a score of 18-0.

Individuals

• November 16: Erskine Ramsay was appointed TCI's first Chief Engineer of Mines.
• Robert Aland came to Birmingham with his family at the age of 10.
• Truman Aldrich resigned from mining and manufacturing to pursue a political career.
• Physician C. Travis Drennen left Birmingham for Hot Springs, Arkansas.
• W. P. G. Harding was promoted to cashier at the Berney National Bank.

Harvie Branscomb

Births

• January 23: Luther Patrick, attorney and congressman
• January 31: Stuffy Stewart, baseball player and manager
• February 19: Ernie Cox, baseball player
• February 19: John R. Williams, World War I aviator
• March 18: Jack B. Smith, architect
• May 13: Emma Gelders Sterne, author and activist
• May 13: Carolyn Smith, architect
• May 15: Julia Christian
• June 28: Lois Wilson, actress
• August 16: Sigmund Nesselroth, architect
• September 3: Alabama Power Company president Lewis Smith
• September 5: Tutwiler Hotel manager Coleman Hudson
• September 21: Frank Hambaugh, Homewood City Council
• December 25: Harvie Branscomb, theologian and chancellor of Vanderbilt University
• John T. "Fess" Whatley, band director

Graduations

• John C. Forney from the University of Alabama School of Law with a bachelor of laws.
• Hugh Morrow from the University of Alabama with a doctor of laws.

Marriages

• August 16: Arlie Barber to the former Wessie B. Lee.
• November 7: Physician Benjamin Wyman to the former Elizabeth Wyman.
• Carlton Molesworth to Mollie Bruchey.

Baylis Grace

Deaths

• May 11: William C. Eubank, former Jefferson County Sheriff
• June 7: Baylis Grace, former Jefferson County Sheriff and tax assessor
• June 12: Eugene Jeffers
• Ellen Pratt Debardeleben, first wife of Henry F. DeBardeleben
• Itishey Hagan
• Sarah Moore Popwell
• Benjamin Popwell
• Peter Zinszer

Works

• "John Pelham" poem about John Pelham by James R. Randall

Buildings

• Winnie Davis Wigwam

Context

In 1894, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time. Blackpool Tower opened in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. Sadi Carnot, president of France, was assassinated. The Tower Bridge in London opened for traffic. The First Sino-Japanese War began. The Dreyfus Affair began in France with the conviction of French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus for treason.

Notable books published in 1894 included The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Trilby by George du Maurier, The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling, and Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain, . Notable music released included "The Little Lost Child" by Edward B. Marks & Joseph W. Stern and "The Sidewalks of New York" by Charles B. Lawlor & James W. Blake.

Notable births in 1894 included film director John Ford, illustrator Norman Rockwell, actor and comedian Jack Benny, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, comedian Fred Allen, sexologist Alfred Kinsey, author Aldous Huxley, baseball player Harry "Slug" Heilmann, poet E. E. Cummings, cartoonist E. C. Segar, humorist James Thurber, and conductor Arthur Fiedler. Notable deaths included physicist Heinrich Hertz, inventor Adolphe Sax, Confederate general Jubal Early, baseball player Ned Williamson, King Hassan I of Morocco, politician and Union general Nathaniel P. Banks, author Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, Tsar Alexander III of Russia, composer Anton Rubinstein, and author Robert Louis Stevenson.

1890s

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