1917

1917 was the 46th year after the founding of the city of Birmingham.

Events

• The Civitan Club was founded in Birmingham by Courtney Shropshire.
• Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company acquired furnaces in Gadsden.
• Glenn Messer joined the U. S. Army Signal Corps, Aviation section.
• Books-A-Million founded as a newsstand in Florence.
• The unfinished Roden Hotel was dismantled and sold for scrap.
• Nathaniel A. Barrett was elected mayor with an anti-immigration platform.
• The Kiwanis Club of Birmingham was founded.
• The 1917 Presbyterian General Assembly was held in Birmingham.
• The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company hired Lloyd Noland to head its health department.
• The Birmingham Railway, Light & Power Company purchased the Birmingham Tidewater Railway out of receivership.

Sports

• The University of Alabama football team went 5-2-1 in Thomas Kelley's last year as coach.
• The 1917 Birmingham Barons finished 3rd in the Southern Association with a record of 87-66.

Buildings

• 1917 Birmingham News building
• Veranda
• Wenonah School

Births

• January 24: Jazz pianist Avery Parrish in Birmingham
• February 14: Hardware salesman Robert Tyler in Bluff Park
• April 7: Actor R. G. Armstrong in Pleasant Grove
• April 26: Pitcher Virgil Trucks in Birmingham
• July 1: Psychiatric researcher Humphry Osmond in Surrey, England
• July 3: Baseball player and manager Piper Davis in Piper
• August 7: Journalist and historian Marguerite Johnston Barnes in Birmingham
• October 30: Baseball player Bobby Bragan in Birmingham
• November 24: Builder Houston Brice, Jr in Birmingham
• Heart surgeon John W. Kirklin
• Bus company owner Worcy Crawford in Hurtsburo
• Socialite Marie Ingalls
• Advertising executive Robert Luckie, Jr in Clanton

Deaths

• October 16: Kelly Ingram, the first US enlisted serviceman killed in WWI.

Context

1917 was the year that the United States declared war on Germany, entering "The Great War" (World War I). "Our Lady of Fatima" was sighted by three children in Portugal. 300 acres of the city of Atlanta burned in that city's "Great Fire" on May 21. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. Scott Joplin, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Rodin all died in 1917.

1910s

<< 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 >>

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