William Nabers shop

William Nabers shop was a wood-frame barn-type structure with split board siding and roofing. It was constructed in 1869 by William Nabers on what became 1st Avenue North near the southeast corner of its intersection 21st Street after the city of Birmingham was platted. The cabin was used as a meeting place during the surveying and staking of the city's streets and lots. Nabers, who sold the original parcel on which the city was built to the Elyton Land Company, became a shareholder in the venture and retained many choice lots, from which he earned an income.

The building was never a residence. Nabers had a fine large house in Nabers Grove in what became Southside. Nevertheless, a photograph of the picturesque wood shack on desolate ground, with wagon wheels and a ladder propped up on the outside walls, was widely reproduced with captions identifying it as the "first house built in Birmingham".

The building was soon dismantled and the site became the location of Seal's Hall.

References

• Dubose, John Witherspoon (1887) Jefferson County and Birmingham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Teeple & Smith, Publishers; Caldwell Printing Works.