Bethel Whitson
Bethel Webb Whitson (born February 10, 1892 in Nashville, Tennessee; died November 28, 1970) was a surveyor and cartographer.
Whitson was one of ten siblings abandoned by their father after his mother's death. He entered an orphanage at age 10 where he was first introduced to mechanical drafting and surveying. He learned quickly and was offered a teaching position at the orphanage, but instead moved to Birmingham and took a job with the Electric Blue Printing Company on the 6th floor of the Woodward Building.
After a number of years, Whitson bought the company, which he renamed the company the Bethel W. Whitson Organization, which specialized in surveying and civil engineering. The company was commissioned by several Alabama counties to produce official maps, and by the Jemison Realty Company to create tenant maps of Birmingham downtown district in the 1930s.
In 1926 he married Mabel Hulen, to whom he had proposed before she graduated from Barton Academy in Mobile. The couple honeymooned in Saratoga, New York. They had two daughters, Mabel Elizabeth ("Bette") and Mary Katherine ("Tina").
Successful in business, Whitson tracked down his father and most of his siblings and set them up in Birmingham. He died in 1970 and is buried at Elmwood Cemetery.
References
- "Whitson Service" (January 25, 1977) The Dixie Manufacturer, Vol. 16, No. 2, p. 88
External links
- Bethel Webb Whitson Sr at Findagrave.com
- Bethel Whitson maps at Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections