1937

A Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company guard stands watch over the mining village of Wenonah in 1937. Photograph by Arthur Rothstein for the Farm Security Administration

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1937 was the 66th year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• August 30: A "Reunion of Former Slaves" was held at Avondale Park, featuring sing-alongs and sermons.
• October 15: The 1937 Mulga Mine explosion cost 34 workers their lives.
• October 15: The Elyton Civic Club opened the Elyton Community Center in a renovated house.
• Montgomery Highway was improved, utilizing sections of East Avenue with gentler grades and curves on the slopes of Shades Mountain, and leaving bits of "Old Montgomery Highway" off of the main route.
• The Revolutionary War Veterans Memorial was moved to Woodrow Wilson Park from Five Points Circle.
• John Emery and Tallulah Bankhead were married at her family's "Sunset" estate in Jasper and hosted a rousing party afterward at the Tutwiler Hotel's "Continental Room".
• William Leslie Welton's collection of 1,500 mounted photographs of architectural subjects was donated to the Birmingham Public Library by his widow.
• Hosea Hudson founded the Right to Vote Club to educate black citizens about their voting rights and coordinate efforts to defeat practices set up by poll workers to disenfranchise them.
• A new cluster of Live oaks was planted at Toomer's Corner in Auburn.
• The Periclean Club hosted an appearance by author and activist James Weldon Johnson at 16th Street Baptist Church.
• The "Alabama waterdog" (Necturus alabamensis) was first described as a species by biologist Percy Viosca.
• The Southern Negro Youth Congress was founded in Richmond, Virginia.

Business

• The Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company recognized the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Local No. 123 under pressure from the National Labor Relations Board.
• The Southern Natural Gas Company acquired the Alabama Gas Company and the Birmingham Gas Company.
• A. L. Gilliland's Alabama Ride Company debuted a new touring carnival, dubbed the, "Garden of Rides and Congress of Dare Devils."
• The "Rainbow Room" lounge opened at the Redmont Hotel.
• Parisian department store moved into the renovated Caheen Building and adjoining Roden Block at 20th Street and 2nd Avenue North.
• Ed Norton and Thad Holt purchased WAPI-AM and boosted its broadcast power to 50,000 Watts.
• Mercer Grayson opened Grayson's Delicious Ice Cream.
• Huffstutler's Hardware moved from 18th Street Homewood to 29th Avenue South.
• The Little Southerner Supper Club opened on 29th Avenue South.
• Eliose Smith took over WBRC-AM after the death of her husband.
• The Southern Worker ceased publication.
• Graffeo Brothers Grocery Store moved from Pratt City to Ensley.
• Grady and Margaret Sharp founded Greg's Cookies.
• William Rushton Jr became president of the Protective Life Insurance Company.
• The Palm Leaf Lunchroom and Harlem Shoe Shop opened in the Brock Drugs building.
• Bob Williams opened the Little Savoy Cafe.
• Jane Speed's Book Store opened on 5th Avenue North.
• The New Florence Hotel reopened at 406½ 18th Street North.
• John Gazes opened the War Eagle Supper Club in Auburn.
• Johnny Cassimus opened the Windsor Castle Restaurant.

Education

• John Bryan was made Superintendent of Jefferson County Schools.
• The Alabama State Training School for Girls opened on the former "Matsuyama" estate in Chalkville.
• Ullman High School was created from the former Ullman Grammar School.
• Charles Glenn served a term as president of the National Education Association.
• Stillman Institute was accredited as a junior college.

Government

• January: The City of Pleasant Grove was incorporated.
• May 18: Bull Connor and Jimmy Morgan were elected to the Birmingham City Commission.
• Legal liquor sales returned to Alabama with the creation of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board.
• The Alabama State Legislature passed a law allowing public entertainments to be staged in Jefferson County on Sundays. (Birmingham already had an exemption to the blue laws).
• Richmond Hobson succeeded William Oliver as U.S. Representative for the 6th District of Alabama.
• John Sparkman succeeded Archibald Carmichael as U.S. Representative for the 8th District of Alabama.
• Luther Patrick succeeded George Huddleston Sr as U.S. Representative for the 9th District of Alabama.
• The Birmingham City Commission relieved Birmingham Motion Picture Council chief inspector Harriett Adams of her responsibility to prohibit the screening of films which violated community standards.
• The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the parking meters used by the city of Birmingham exceeded its legal authority to collect revenues and ordered them removed.

Religion

• John Buchanan succeeded James Dillard as pastor of Southside Baptist Church.
• Alex Klein became rabbi of Knesseth Israel Congregation.
• Joseph Solomon succeeded Jacob Allen as president of Temple Emanu-El.
• Harold Cook succeeded Wick Broomall Jr as president of the Birmingham School of the Bible.
• United Church of Birmingham merged with the Congregational Community Church to form Pilgrim Congregational Church.
• John Goodgame Jr succeeded his father as pastor of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church.
• The Birmingham-Easonian Baptist Bible College moved from 16th Street Baptist Church to its own building.

Sports

• January 1: The 1936 Auburn Tigers football team played Villanova Wildcats to a 7-7 tie in the 1937 Bacardi Bowl in Havana, Cuba.
• The Birmingham Black Barons joined the newly-formed Negro American League.
• Satchel Paige recruited several Negro Leagues stars as ringers for "Los Dragones" of Ciudad de Trujillo, a baseball club owned by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
• The 1937 Alabama Crimson Tide football team won the Southeastern Conference championship, earning a spot in the 1938 Rose Bowl.
• Boxer Petey Sarron suffered his only knockout, unsuccessfully defending his featherweight belt from challenger Henry Armstrong.
• 1937 Legion Field schedule

Works

Harper's Magazine cover with the feature, "Birmingham, Alabama: The City of Perpetual Promise"

• Black Earth, novel by Thomas Rowan
• Somewhere to Be Had, collected columns by Raimundo de Ovies
• "For My People", poem by Margaret Walker
• "Birmingham, Alabama: The City of Perpetual Promise", Harpers Magazine (August 1937) feature by George Leighton
• Carrie Hill completed the "Storybook mural" at East Lake Library.
• Richard Blauvelt Coe began painting the Sidney van Sheck-designed mural "Youth's Strife in the Approach to Life's Problems" on the proscenium of Woodlawn High School's auditorium.
• The WPA Writers Project published an indexed typescript of Mary Gordon Duffee's Sketches of Alabama.

Buildings

• Denny Stadium was expanded to 18,000 seats.
• Engle-Armstrong House on Roseland Drive
• S. H. Kress & Company Building
• Caheen Building and Roden Block renovations for Parisian.
• Auditorium and classroom addition at Springville High School.
• Works Progress Administration projects:
  • Alabama State Training School for Girls
  • Birmingham Jail
  • temporary classrooms at Glen Iris Elementary School
  • Locust Fork High School
  • Mortimer Jordan High School gymnasium
  • Smithfield Court public housing project
  • Wilton Pump House

Demolitions

• The 1889 Jefferson County Courthouse was torn down.

Movies

• Stage Door", starring Gail Patrick

Music

• Bogan's Birmingham Busters recorded a handful of singles on the Vocalian label in Birmingham.
• Erskine Hawkins signed a record contract with RCA Victor's Bluebird label.
• Hank Penny formed the Radio Cowboys swing band.
• Forbes Piano Company employees Johnnie Catalina and Larry Yester founded a 25-person Forbes Accordion Band.

Individuals

• August 12: President Franklin Roosevelt nominated Senator Hugo Black to the U.S. Supreme Court.
• Mel Allen successfully auditioned for an announcing job on the CBS Radio Network.
• Stanleigh Malotte began his tenure as house organist at the Alabama Theatre.
• Alf Brown succeeded B. O. Hargrove as Chief of the Birmingham Fire Department.
• Harvie Branscomb was made chair of the Division of Ancient Languages and Literatures at the Duke University School of Divinity.
• Arthur Shores was admitted to the Alabama State Bar.
• Richard Foster succeeded George Denny as president of the University of Alabama.
• Guy Snavely resigned from Birmingham-Southern College to become executive director of the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
• Architect Lawrence Whitten joined the firm of Charles McCauley & Associates.
• Coleman Hudson resigned from the Tutwiler Hotel to manage the Bentley Hotel in Alexandria, Louisiana.
• Carl Bottenfield was made general superintendent of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company's newly-built Fairfield Tin Mill.

Births

• January 8: Jabo Waggoner Jr, state representative
• January 30: G. B. Burt, blues musician
• February 22: Sid Ingram, school administrator
• April 12: J. D. Weeks, health officer and author
• April 27: Robert Kaufmann, antiquarian and art librarian
• June 1: Ellen Simonton, interior designer
• June 2: Jimmy Jones, R&B singer
• June 8: Joe Grzenda, baseball pitcher
• June 18: Gail Godwin, novelist
• July 2: Polly Holliday, actor
• July 31: T. C. Cannon bar owner
• August 13: Charles Crowder, judge
• August 25: Aubrey Edwards, music minister
• August 29: Robert Slaughter, gastroenterologist
• September 27: Billy Jack Holcombe, musician and business owner
• October 5: Delores Hodgens Howard, pianist and educator
• October 20: William Cobb, novelist
• October 27: Alma Powell, speech pathologist
• December 1: William F. Walker, president of Auburn University
• December 3: Bobby Allison, race car driver
• December 26: Gene Ubriaco, hockey player and coach
• Martin Bell, private investigator and Episcopal priest
• Keith Blayney, UAB administrator
• Ed Boutwell, recording studio owner
• Jane Comer, owner of The Elegant Earth
• Corbin Day, chair of Jemison Investment Company
• Jim Douglass, author and activist
• George Ellis, art historian and museum director
• Thomas Hearn, president of Wake Forest University
• Burl Lawson, furniture designer
• Willie Maye Jr, school administrator
• Terry Oden, Mayor of Mountain Brook
• Tony Ruffino, concert promoter
• Rex Shotts, electrician
• Edna Snow, Homewood City Schools administrator
• Wayne Spradley, mason and watercolorist
• Scott Vowell, federal judge
• Cleve Wester, Auburn football player and tire dealer
• William Wilson, Anglican bishop
• Ray Woodard, soccer coach

Marriages

• October 9: Caroline Allen to Lee Roberson.
• Alice Chalifoux to John Gordon Rideout.

Awards

• Erskine Ramsay was awarded the William Lawrence Saunders Gold Medal of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.

Graduations

• Aaron Aronov graduated from Sidney Lanier High School.
• Virginia Pounds Brown graduated from Randolph-Macon Woman's College.
• Kenneth Daniel earned an engineering degree at the University of Alabama.
• Jessie Hale Downs earned a teaching certificate at Livingston State Teacher's College.
• Marvin Harper graduated from Tuscaloosa County High School.
• James Martin graduated from the Birmingham School of Law.
• George Seibels earned a history degree at the University of Virginia.
• Barbara Dorough Thomas graduated from Birmingham-Southern College.
• Evelyn Williams graduated from Ensley High School.
• Richard S. Woodruff earned his bachelor's in engineering at the University of Alabama.

Deaths

• January 24: J. M. P. Otts Jr, investment banker
• April 17: Bill Foxen, pitcher
• May: Leon Friedman, Birmingham News editor
• May 30: Russel Luquire, president of the Family Reserve Insurance Company
• September 26: Bessie Smith, blues singer
• October 15: 15 workers died in the 1937 Mulga Mine explosion.
• November 17: Charles Rice, former Mayor of Homewood
• December 9: Frances Nimmo Greene author
• Edna Gockel Gussen, music educator
• M. D. Smith Jr, owner of WBRC-AM.

1930s

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