1879

1879 was the 8th year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• The first telephone call from Birmingham was made by F. H. Britton to a South and North Railroad shop in Decatur.
• Moody's first school was built.
• The first coking coal from the Pratt mines was carried by railroad into Birmingham.
• Joseph Riley Smith built a horse racing track at "Smith's Park".
• Giuseppe Moretti became apprenticed to a Dalmatian sculptor in Zagreb, Croatia.
• Samuel Ullman lost his re-election bid to the Natchez Board of Health following a yellow fever outbreak.
• Thomas Duke Parke earned his medical certificate in New York.
• Richmond and Danville Construction was organized by John T. Milner.
• Julia Tutwiler became co-principal of the Livingston Female Academy.
• The Howard College chapter of Sigma Nu was chartered.
• G. H. Pond succeeded L. M. Teal as Birmingham Police Chief.
• Rufus Cobb served as Grand Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Alabama.
• William Samford succeeded Jeremiah Williams as representative of the 3rd Congressional District of Alabama.
• Burwell Lewis succeeded Goldsmith Hewitt as representative of the 6th Congressional District of Alabama.
• William Lowe succeeded William Garth as representative of the 7th Congressional District of Alabama.

Births

• Temple Tutwiler

Deaths

• September: former Alabama Supreme Court justice John D. Phelan died while visiting Birmingham.
• November 23: Alburto Martin, attorney and legislator, died in Birmingham].

Context

1879 saw the beginning of the Anglo-Zulu War. Frank Woolworth opened his first Woolworth's store. Saccharin was discovered. Thomas Edison demonstrated his first practical electric lightbulb. Notable 1879 births include E. M. Forster, Albert Einstein, Nancy Astor, Ethel Barrymore, Wallace Stevens, Will Rogers, Leon Trotsky, Charles Goddard, and Paul Klee. Deaths in 1879 included those of Honoré Daumier and Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

1870s

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