Shades Creek

From Bhamwiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Map of Shades Creek by Birgit Kibelka

Shades Creek, sometimes called Mountain Brook, is a 56.4 mile-long stream running southwest from its source near the Birmingham Race Course, through Shades Valley, to the Cahaba River near the Shelby County/Bibb County line. Along the way it passes through Irondale, Birmingham, Mountain Brook, Homewood, Hoover, and Bessemer.

History

According to many accounts, the creek's name, or the valley's, is a reference to "Shades of Death". That name for the creek appears on John Coffee's 1820 "Survey of lands in Northern Alabama". The shorter name appears appears, misrepresented as a tributary of the Warrior River in Fenner, Sears & Company's 1831 "Map of the States of Alabama and Georgia" published in London by Hinton, Simpkin & Marshall. The creek is depicted accurately in John LaTourette's aptly-named An Accurate Map of the State of Alabama and West Florida of 1837.

An unpublished manuscript by Thomas Hagood claims that the name was used by both Chickasaws and white traders in the Mississippi Territory, and that it was then known as a place where dense foliage and dangerous wild animals made travel treacherous. Sheryl Spradling Summe recounts several stories told about the dangers of the valley, but finds it just as likely that the forested area under the bluffs was simply known for its evocative shadows.

Two iron-making ventures were constructed in the Shades Creek watershed in the 1860s. John Milner led a group that founded the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company to build the Oxmoor Furnace in what is now Birmingham's Oxmoor neighborhood. Wallace McElwain's Cahaba Iron Works built its plant further upstream, on Furnace Creek, a tributary of Shades Creek in what is now Mountain Brook. Both were destroyed by Wilson's Raiders in 1865. The Irondale furnace reopened within a year, and the Oxmoor furnace was repaired and reopened in the early 1870s.

The extension of the L & N Railroad through Shades Valley and the growth of Edgewood as a streetcar suburb combined to spur development in the section of the valley south of Birmingham in the early 20th century. From 1915 to the 1940s, Shades Creek was dammed at Columbiana Road, just downstream of Griffin Creek to form Edgewood Lake, a popular recreational resort during the 1920s and 1930s. Warren Manning's 1916 "City Plan of Birmingham" included a recommendation to enlarge the lake by building a new dam at Alabama State Highway 150. Similarly, the Olmsted Brothers, in their 1925 report "A Park System for Birmingham" recommended that Shades Creek and a restored lake could become the center of a "wild and picturesque...park of metropolitan scale".

Some time in the 1940s or 1950s a bridge-dam was created across the creek near the Bibb County / Shelby County line by sinking six railroad box cars into the bed. The railcars posed a hazard for recreational users and were removed in 2010 and 2011 with funding provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

In recent years, the Freshwater Land Trust has purchased several acres of land along the creek, primarily behind Wildwood Shopping Center and in Shannon for permanent conservation. The Land Trust is also working to remove privet, a highly invasive, non-native plant, along stretches of Shades Creek in Bessemer and to restore the creek to its original pathway. Other work along the creek includes Homewood's construction of the Shades Creek Greenway to connect Jemison Park in Mountain Brook with West Homewood Park.

A dam across the Cahaba just downstream of its confluence with Shades Creek is thought to have negatively impacted water quality in both streams. In 2006, biologists found Cahaba shiners, goldline darters and coal shiners in Shades Creek for the first time. A year later the fish were found in five locations and single specimens of two types of mussel, the elephant ear mussel and the fine-lined pocketbook mussel, were also found.

With indications that the stream is healthier than once thought, the outlook is promising for the removal of the boxcar dam. The issue is being studied by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In February 2009 an oily film was reported on the creek surface. Workers for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management traced the source to a storm drain in the Crestline neighborhood and installed boom floats to contain the film. No evidence of harm to wildlife was found.

In early 2011 Samford University completed a project to improve a 1,200-foot section of the creek which will adjoin its new track and outdoor recreational facility. The project was aimed at correcting erosion issues on the stream banks and restoring native plantings to better nurture aquatic life.

Tributaries

Starting upstream (from the north):

Sites along Shades Creek

Shades Creek at Brookwood Village. Photo by Terry McCombs

Starting upstream (from the north):

Streets running alongside Shades Creek

Major roads crossing Shades Creek

Starting upstream (from the north):

References

External links

Cahaba River
Dams & Reservoirs

Lake Purdy Dam, Lake Purdy, Birmingham Water Works Dam

Tributaries

Buck Creek, Little Cahaba River, Little Shades Creek, Patton Creek, Shades Creek

Other topics

Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge, Cahaba River Society, List of access locations
Cahaba lily, Cahaba Pump Station, Riverview Wastewater Treatment Plant, Trussville Wastewater Treatment Plant

Retrieved from "http://bhamwiki.com/w/index.php?title=Shades_Creek&oldid=225592"