Birmingham Athletic Club
- This article refers to the club founded in 1889, for clubs with similar names, see Birmingham Athletic Club (disambiguation).
Birmingham Athletic Club was a private club located at 502 20th Street North. It was organized in 1888 and incorporated on July 16, 1889. Its long-time home, a three story brick-clad building with a full basement, was completed in July 1903 at a cost of $57,000. The basement floor housed a rifle range, pressing club, bowling alleys and boilers. The first floor housed offices, lounges, pool and billiards, a library and barber shop. The director's office was on the second floor along with a gymnasium, hand-ball courts, boxing and wrestling rooms and a spectator's gallery.
The club fielded its own entrants in numerous competitive events, including a football team. The club hosted an annual May Day track competition and also hosted a national wrestling championship in 1920.
In 1925 the club built a 10-story building at the northeast corner of 3rd Avenue North and 23rd Street, which contained the club facilities and residential apartments. It sold its former facility on 20th Street to the Robert E. Lee Klan for $190,000. The Klan decided not to proceed with plans to renovate the building and sold it to the Birmingham YMCA for a $10,000 profit in 1926.
The apartments were later operated as hotel rooms. In 1939 the club sold the building, but continued to lease space. It was sold again in 1940 and operated as the Dixie-Carlton Hotel. In 1948 the Birmingham YWCA purchased the building as its headquarters.
The Regions Center building, constructed as the First National-Southern Natural Building in 1972, sits on the site of the former Birmingham Athletic Club and its neighbor, the Southern Club.
A new Birmingham Athletic Club was opened in the John A. Hand Building in 1999.
Presidents
- 1889-1891: H. L. Underwood
- 1982-1893: Leigh Caroll
- 1894-1904: Solon Jacobs
- 1905: W. D. Nesbitt
- 1906: R. P. Means
- 1907: John F. Fletcher
- 1908: Ed Warren, Jr
- 1909-1910: S. P. Spurgeon
- 1911-1912: Solon Jacobs
- 1913: S. P. Spurgeon
- 1914-1915: Ed Anderson
- 1916-1917: Wiley Alford
- 1918-1919: Herbert Cobbs
References
- Cruikshank, George H. (1920) History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections
- "Athletic Club Building Sold To Noe Family Hotel Chain" (October 1940) Birmingham News - via Birmingham Rewound