Riley-Travellick

Riley-Travellick is a neighborhood in the Southwest community of Birmingham. The neighborhood is bounded by Midfield on the west, by Lawson State Community College and Grasselli Heights to the south, by 31st Street Southwest and the Jones Valley neighborhood on the east, and by Cleburn Avenue and the Green Acres neighborhood to the north.

The Riley-Travellick Neighborhood Association is headed by Talmadge Owens, with Della Wright as Vice President and Annette W. Taylor as Secretary. The association meets on the second Tuesday of each month at the Southwest Community Center.

History

Travellick (originally Trevillick) was developed in 1888 as a community of low-cost worker's housing by the Beneficial Land and Improvement Company, headed by members of the Knights of Labor. The nearby community of Powderly was developed simultaneously and the communities were named for Richard Trevillick and Terence Powderly, two of the Knights' national leaders.

The original Trevillick lots were 50 feet wide by 120 feet deep and were sold only to members in good standing. Lot owners received stock in the development company, which organized neighborhood businesses as cooperative ventures.

During the 1990s illegal drug distribution in the Riley area was controlled by the Insane Gangster Disciples, using a house on Maple Avenue as a central hangout.

References

• Abernathy, John H. (1960) "The Knights of Labor in Alabama". Master's thesis. University of Alabama. Cited in McKiven Jr, Henry M. (1995) "Iron & Steel: Class, Race and Community in Birmingham, Alabama, 1875-1920." Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807845248 , p. 61
• Leiken, Steve (2004) The Practical Utopians: American Workers and the Cooperative Movement in the Gilded Age." Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0814331289 , p. 73
• Velasco, Eric (October 7, 2007) "Murder trial offers look inside grim gang world." Birmingham News.