1923

North Birmingham Elementary School , built in 1923

1923 was the 52nd year after the founding of the city of Birmingham.

Events

• January 10: 5 miners were killed in the 1923 Dolomite No. 1 Mine explosion.
• January 22: Pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff made his Birmingham debut at the Jefferson Theatre.
• February 5-6: A major sleet storm left the city bound in ice and cut off from services.
• March 3: A performance by the Washington Goodner Trio at the Frolic Theatre was cut short due to "smutty" jokes.
• May: The Cascade Plunge and Pavilion opened in East Lake.
• July 12: 5 miners were killed in the 1923 Sloss No. 1 Mine accident.
• August 23: The Birmingham City Commission was reduced from 5 members to 3 by a newly-passed state law.
• November 11: The Spirit of the American Doughboy was dedicated as a World War I memorial at Linn Park
• William Brandon succeeded Thomas Kilby as Governor of Alabama.
• Oscar Underwood completed his second term as Senate Minority Leader.
• Thomas Shirley succeeded J. Chris Hartsfield as Jefferson County Sheriff.
• James Falkner succeeded Andrew Jackson as Shelby County Sheriff.
• The Birmingham Little Theater was founded by Bernhard Szold.
• Girl Scouts began holding summer camps at Camp Winnetaska.
• Hugo Black joined the Ku Klux Klan at a rally at Edgewood Park.
• The USS Birmingham light cruiser was decommissioned.
• The Alabama Girls’ Technical Institute and College for Women in Montevallo was renamed Alabama College, State College for Women.
• Solomon Katz became rabbi of Temple Beth-El
• John Canepa founded St John's Catholic Church in East Lake
• Birmingham Community Chest was founded.
• The Birmingham Park and Recreation Board was established.
• Birmingham voters prohibited private jitney services by public referendum.
• The Women's Auxiliary of the Jefferson County Medical Society was founded.
• George Ward purchased the land for his Vestavia estate.
• Engine No. 4018 was sold to the St Louis and San Francisco Railway.
• The North Alabama Methodist Conference met at Ensley First United Methodist Church.
• Frank Hartley Anderson married Martha Fannin Fort.

Business

WSY-AM

• Joseph Loveman succeeded Moses Joseph as president of Loveman, Joseph & Loeb.
• City Stores Company of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania purchased a majority stake in Loveman, Joseph & Loeb.
• Alabama Power Company hired Maria Whitson as its first female engineer.
• Giuseppe Moretti bought a marble quarry near Sylacauga.
• WSY-AM relocated its broadcast studio to the Loveman's Building.
• David O. Whilldin established his own architectural office.
• Birmingham Ornamental Iron (Meadowcraft) was founded.
• Magic City Foods (Golden Flake) was founded.
• The TCI division of U.S.S. Corp. opened a merchant steel mill in Fairfield.
• Douglas Arant joined the law firm of Bradley, Baldwin, All & White.
• Lonnie Noojin and his brother founded the Noojin Supply Company.
• The Pratt Consolidated Coal Company merged with the Alabama Byproducts Corporation.
• The Birmingham office of Ballard & Ballard millers moved to 2409 1st Avenue South.
• Charles Harris founded the Protective Industrial Insurance Company.
• The North Birmingham Theatre opened.

Education

• September: Bessemer High School separated from Arlington School by moving into a new school building.
• Minor High School graduated its first class.
• Shades Cahaba High School graduated its first class.

Sports

• Charlie Brown coached his final season for the BSC Panthers football team.
• Harris Cope coached his final season for the Samford Bulldogs football team.
• Female members of the Birmingham Country Club founded a women's golf tournament.

Individuals

• F. A. Gallup succeeded Mr Carmichael as principal of Woodlawn High School.

Births

• January 14: Bea Carlton, co-founder of Milo's Hamburgers
• January 23: Walt Dropo, baseball player
• January 28: Dewey White, pediatrician and state legislator
• February 13: Harry U. Gilmer, TCI product representative
• March 22: Temple Tutwiler II
• April 20: Mother Angelica, founder of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery and EWTN
• May 23: Evelyn Starks Hardy, gospel star and music teacher
• May 28: Hall Thompson, businessman and developer
• May 31: Hazel Gore, gynecologic pathologist
• June 11: Bill Edmonds, civil engineer
• July 21: Bill L. Harbert, construction executive
• August 2: Fred McCrory, businessman
• August 22: Louis Willie, insurance executive
• September 23: Willie Spencer, Methodist minister
• October 28: Tom King, attorney and state senator
• November 3: John Rice, Jr, Presbyterian minister
• November 30: Maxie Bryant, environmental activist
• December 3: Bill Ireland, industrialist
• December 3: Nick Gulas, wrestling promoter
• December 24: David Friedman, exploitation film producer
• December 25: Paul Spence, Mervyn H. Sterne Library library directory
• James Armstrong, barber
• Reuben Davis, Jefferson County Commissioner
• S. Richardson Hill, president of UAB
• MacDonald Fleming, history teacher
• Toula Fulford, "Miss Congeniality" 1943
• Raeford Liles, artist
• John E. Moore, civil leader in Dayton, Ohio
• Bob Scranton, Birmingham Barons executive
• Thomas Stubbs, state senator
• Merritt Stoves, Civil Rights watchman
• 1920-23: Mildred Howard, gospel vocalist

Deaths

• February 16: N. F. Thompson, developer
• August: A. J. Dickinson, Baptist minister
• August 19: Anna Harper, wife of cartoonist Hubert Harper, in a seaplane accident in Santa Rosa, Florida
• October 29: Jack Nabors, baseball player
• Thomas McDonald, Birmingham Police Chief
• R. S. Munger, industrialist
• Thomas Duke Parke, physician

Graduations

• Douglas Arant graduated from Yale Law School.
• Helen Cockrell graduated from Shades Cahaba School
• Ida Moffett graduated from Alliance High School

Works

• The steamship City of Birmingham was christened
• Art Work of Birmingham, Ala. was published by the Gravure Illustration Company of Chicago, Illinois

Buildings

• Belvedere Theatre
• Bessemer Colored High School
• Bessemer High School
• Bush Middle School
• Cascade Plunge
• Druid City Hospital
• Harris Transfer Company warehouse no. 2
• Henry Neely Dam (impounding Lake Neely Henry)
• Mitchell Dam (impounding Lake Mitchell)
• North Birmingham Elementary School
• North Birmingham Theatre
• Phillips High School
• Simpson Building (Simpson Preparatory School) at Birmingham-Southern College)
• St Stanislaus Catholic Church
• Tuscaloosa Country Club
• ground was broken for Negro High School (now A. H. Parker High School)
• ground was broken for Norwood Elementary School

Context

1923 saw the first issue of TIME magazine. Vladimir Lenin resigned from chairmanship of the Soviet government. Yankee Stadium opened its doors. The Irish Civil War ended. Mount Etna erupted. Calvin Coolidge assumed the office of President Warren G. Harding after his death. Tokyo and Yokohama were devastated by an earthquake. Turkey became a republic. The Walt Disney Company was founded. Adolf Hitler failed an attempt to overthrow the German government and Vladimir Zworykin filed the first patent for a color television transmitter/receiver.

People born in 1923 include record producer Sam Phillips; writers Paddy Chayefsky, Italo Calvino, Norman Mailer, and James Dickey; pilots Chuck Yeager and Alan Shephard; television personalities Bob Barker and Ed McMahon; photographer Diane Arbus; mime Marcel Marceau; actor Charleton Heston; model Bettie Page; guitarist Albert King; coach Ara Parseghian; diplomat Henry Kissinger; boxer Rocky Marciano and singer Hank Williams.

1923 deaths included those of President Warren Harding; actors Wallace Reid and Sarah Bernhardt; physicist Wilhelm Roentgen, revolutionary Pancho Villa; and engineer Gustave Eiffel.

William Yeats won the 1923 Nobel Prize for literature. Le Corbusier published his Vers une architecture. Buster Keaton's feature film "Our Hospitality" was released. Tarzan and the Golden Lion by Edgar Rice Burroughs and The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne were published. Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Jelly Roll Morton made their first recordings. The Canton Bulldogs won the NFL championship. The Yankees defeated the Giants in the World Series. Bobby Jones won the U. S. Open and "Zev" won the Kentucky Derby and Belmont Stakes.

1920s

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