building a model city (1883-1928)

THE ANNIVERSARY PROJECT: SECTION 11870s-1928, Anniston’s founding until Great Depression

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TODAY1870s-1928, Anniston’s

founding until Great Depression

AUG. 31929-1970, Depression through World War II,

Cold War and Civil Rights era

AUG. 101971-present, New South

and transition

AUG. 17 The future◆

AUG. 18 Then and Now — a photo album

CONTRIBUTORS

H. BRANDT AYERS, PUBLISHER

SIBLING CITIESA tale of two industrial towns

PAGE 22H. Brandt Ayers is chairman and publisher of The Anniston Star. His family has owned

the city’s daily newspaper since 1897.

PHILLIP TUTOR, COMMENTARY EDITOR

THE OTHER FOUNDERDaniel Tyler hoped Anniston would be

‘the model village of the South.’

PAGE 4Phillip Tutor is The Star’s commentary editor and has been a reporter or editor at The Star

since 1989. His masters history project examined Anniston’s original downtown.

BILL EDWARDS, FEATURES WRITER

GENERATIONAL KUDZUThe paths that led eight Annistonians to town

STARTING ON PAGE 12Raised in Anniston, Bill Edwards has been a reporter or editor at The Star since 1985. He

combs old issues of the paper and compiles the daily history happenings column.

THE PROJECT

INSIDE▶ WE BUILT THE MODEL CITY:1887 PAGE 16 ◆ HISTORY QUIZ PAGE 8 ◆ TIMELINE ACROSS PAGE TOPS

ANNISTON, 1882

Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County

A LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Henry Grady was the circuit preacher of the post-Civil War New South.

In the 1880s, he turned the newspaper he partly owned, the Atlanta Constitu-tion, into a nationally prominent publica-tion in a few short years.

His name adorns no less than a hos-pital, a high school, a county and a uni-versity’s journalism school in his native Georgia.

He is credited with giving this newspaper its maiden name, The Hot Blast. The inspiration, we’re told, came when Grady, in Anniston for a visit to this model city, noted the sparks shoot-ing out from the company town’s foundry. “Hot Blast” seemed like a nifty handle for a paper covering this northeast Alabama community.

It was.By 1884, The New York Times was

singing its praises, calling it “one of the brightest and neatest newspapers in Ala-bama,” one that “exhibits a confidence, not excelled even in Northern journals of enterprise, in the future prosperity of its section, and broadly asserts that Anniston is the fastest growing city in the country. One thing is certain, the development and growth of its town and its State will be materially aided by a progressive and enterprising journal such as this one is showing itself to be under its new man-agement.”

In a little less than a month — Aug. 18 to be precise — The Anniston Star, the descendant of The Hot Blast, will cel-ebrate its 125th birthday. The paper’s not alone in hitting the big 1-2-5. In early July, the city of Anniston marked 125 years of existence. Jacksonville State marks its 125th year in 2008 as well.

However, baking a cake big enough for the entire community to get a slice

seemed like too much of a task, especially for journalists who are usually better behind a keyboard than in front of an oven.

Instead, The Star has created some-thing we believe worthy of the anniversa-ry. Starting today and over the next three Sundays, the newspaper will present four special sections (with multimedia bonus-es online at annistonstar.com) examining The Model City’s history and its future.

We will look backwards, to Samuel Noble and Daniel Tyler’s grand experi-ment at creating a different sort of com-pany town, one that treated workers fairly, created a foundation for a high-function-ing community and aspired to lift the South from its post-war doldrums. We will examine how that endeavor changed — for good and for bad — over the decades.

Our work is not merely a sentimental journey, a blast from the past, if you will. Anniston was built on extracting and pro-cessing mineral resources. These sections are an attempt to extract lessons from our past that can be applied to our future.

We do this because this newspaper believes a community can’t know where it’s going until it’s sure of where it’s been. Each week’s historical review, divided by eras — 1870s-1928, 1929-1970 and 1971-present — informs us of how ordinary men and women faced the challenges of their day.

Our fourth special section, on Aug. 17, will look forward to Anniston’s future, inviting the community to act as boldly and as publicly-minded as Tyler and Noble did in their day.

On Aug. 18, The Star’s anniversary, we’ll offer a special fifth section — a “Then and Now” photo album.

We hope you will find this series infor-mative and challenging, as bracing as the whoosh of warm air blowing out of an iron furnace.

Bob Davis is editor of The Anniston Star. Contact him at 256-235-3540 or [email protected].

A blast from the past

BobDavisEditor

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSEDITORS

Bob Davis, Anthony Cook, Bill Edwards, Phillip Tutor

and Laura Tutor

DESIGNERTosha Jupiter

COVER PHOTOGRAPHERBill Wilson

PROFILE WRITERMegan Nichols

MULTIMEDIAJustin Thurman, Brandon Wynn, Andy Johns and Hannah Dame

MANY THANKS TO ...Teresa Kiser and the Public

Library of Anniston and Calhoun County, Jay Jenkins of Jenkins Munroe Jenkins Architecture

MULTIMEDIA: www.annistonstar.com

ANNISTON’S ATTIC

Residents share memories about the town we call home.

LANDMARK LORE

Phillip Tutor and Andy Johns dodge traffic, trek through vacant lots and hang from buildings, all in the name of showing the history, quirks and

warts associated with Anniston’s landmarks and inconspicuous-but-important spots.

In life, the general made his wishes clear. His earthly remains were to be buried in the red clay of Alabama, on a Calhoun County hill that presided over the town his wisdom and foresight had helped create.

In death, the general’s desires were car-ried out.

Draped in mourning, waiting for the spe-cially arranged funeral train to arrive from New York, Anniston had wept since receiv-ing the news. For two days, Monday and Tuesday, the town had shuttered all busi-ness. Regular routine was no longer proper; preparations were in order. Gen. Daniel Tyler, one of the town’s founders, stricken with pneumonia after the difficult fall months, had died peacefully with his family at the bedside in his Manhattan hotel room, its window peering out at Madison Square.

His next birthday would have been his 84th.

Around 11 that December morning in 1882, Anniston gathered to revere the gen-eral. It was a Wednesday. The early winter weather cooperated. So, too, had a bit of divine providence. On his last visit to Annis-ton that summer, fit snugly between trips to his Texas farm, to Canada for relaxation, and to Saratoga to watch the horses, the general had selected the site and helped lay the foundation of the town’s new Episcopal church near the corner of 10th Street and Leighton Avenue. The general, a devout Episcopalian, had overseen all details of Grace Church’s construction, his oldest son, Alfred, would recall after his father’s death.

The stone structure was unfinished when the general’s funeral train pulled into Anniston. There hadn’t been enough time. But that Wednesday morning, mourners carried the remains to the already hallowed

ground, where the Rev. Wallace Carnahan and the Rev. H.H. Stringfellow prayed over Tyler’s pale body from inside the incomplete foundation of Grace Church, heaven seen overhead. “There, under the open sky, the beautiful church service was read, and every head was bowed,” said Edmund Tyler, the general’s middle son. It was, as Edmund described it, “an eminently fitting place” for a funeral.

It was but a short walk from the church’s foundation to the general’s grave, freshly dug between two boulders on a prominent east-side hill. Between 1,500 and 2,000 people gathered as the body of one of the city’s founders accepted its resting place. Samuel Noble, the general’s partner in the Anniston

experiment, told the grieving family in a telegram sent to New York just after Tyler died: “Have prepared place for his remains that I believe he would have chosen.” That Wednesday in December, as the Rev. String-fellow placed earth on top of Tyler’s casket, Noble’s words seemed correct, though the location of the general’s interment wasn’t merely appropriate. The Tyler family, especially the general’s eldest sons, had long known of their father’s “repeatedly expressed wish” to be buried in Anniston. The general’s burial in the town he helped create, Edmund said, “was a sacred trust to his children.”

Daniel Tyler would lie here eternally.“I am glad that you leave the mortal part

of him at rest in Anniston,” George Arms, a longtime friend of the general’s, wrote to the mournful Tyler family soon after the death. “The place so represents him, and his heart was with his own and your work there.”

REMEMBERING THE FOUNDERSAnniston is Sam Noble’s town.His statue — its right arm tucked into his

cloak, his torso crowning a stack of pig iron — stands sentinel near the town’s center. It gazes north from its busy Quintard Avenue home. The street of the city’s original and historic central business district has car-ried his name for more than 100 years. The Noble name has graced countless Anniston businesses and festivals. An Englishman by birth who was raised in Pennsylvania, Noble — and much of his family — migrated to east Alabama from Georgia in the 1870s, turning business interests and the quest for prosper-ity into a town forever indebted to his efforts.

FOUNDERBuried in a hillside grave in east Anniston, Daniel Tyler keeps watch

over the city he and Samuel Noble founded more than 125 years ago.

While Noble’s name is prominent in Anniston, less is known about

his partner, Tyler, who was a West Point graduate, acclaimed soldier,

world traveler, friend to U.S. presidents, wealthy investor and big-hearted

dreamer of what he hoped would be ‘the model village of the South.’

BY PHILLIP TUTOR

THE OTHER

Please see PAGE 6

1830 1835 1850

March 24, 1832The Choccolocco Valley,

formerly land of the Creek Indian nation, becomes

part of Alabama.

Nov. 22, 1834Samuel Noble is born in

Crowan Parish, Cornwall, England.

1837Samuel Noble’s parents,

James and Jenifer, emigrate to Pennsylvania.

1855James Noble & Sons

begins processing iron ore in Rome, Ga.

1828James Teague and his wife bring their ox team and a tent

over the mountains from Georgia to live among the natives of the Woodstock Spring area as the fi rst white settlers on

land later to be called Anniston.


Nov. 16, 1869Samuel Noble buys his fi rst

land in Calhoun County.

1871With fi nancial assistance

from family friends, the Quintards, Noble buys

much more county land.

April 29, 1872Papers of incorporation for Woodstock Iron Co.

are drawn up.

Early 1872Noble visits Alfred Tyler Sr., a railroad man, with the intent of selling car wheels the Nobles make at their Rome plant. While Noble speaks of the Calhoun County area north of Oxford, Gen. Daniel Tyler, the father, is listening to the conversation.

He’s intrigued and promises to visit. He does and they ride around and look things over.

1870 1872

GEN. DANIEL TYLER

He earned his statue and his street.So, too, would be similar remembrances for

Tyler, without whose guidance and money Noble could not have completed the Anniston enter-prise. Nevertheless, Daniel Tyler sometimes is Anniston’s forgotten founder — an unfortunate trait given his importance to the town’s creation and early successes.

There is no Tyler Street prominent in Annis-ton’s grid. Monuments dot Quintard’s downtown medians like spring blooms, but there is no room for a Tyler commemoration. His name exists in a few notable locations — the Tyler Hill historic district on the east side and the Tyler Center at Regional Medical Center, built just a few years ago — but those pale in comparison to the weight carried city-wide by the Noble name.

The explanation is both unclear and logical. Without Noble, there would have been no Annis-ton; you cannot separate the two. After he enticed Tyler to visit the east Alabama land resplendent with iron ore and unlimited potential, Noble dedicated his life to creating a business venture and town virtually guaranteed to succeed. His commitment never wavered. He encouraged the city’s expansion. He built schools. He and his family made Anniston their home. Noble was the living embodiment of the moral attitude of the Anniston experiment — both as a company town and as an expanding 19th-century city after its opening in 1883. When the Noble statue was unveiled in 1895, nearly 10,000 people descend-ed on downtown Anniston for a first glimpse.

Tyler’s Anniston legacy — though secure — is more subtle; it is difficult to characterize. If for no other reason than proximity — the general never had a permanent residence in Anniston, descen-dants claim — Tyler today seems to have played the role of benefactor, adviser and confidant to Noble and Alfred Tyler, the general’s oldest son and one of the city’s early business leaders. Tyler was, as Noble described after his death, “a grand old man … I hoped he would have lived for years to come and enjoyed the proud satisfaction of seeing the plans he had so generously and pru-dently formed for the welfare of the people of the town he had founded grown to perfection.”

THE SPIRIT OF THE MANIn myriad ways, Tyler could have been seen

as an outsider to post-Civil War Alabama. An aristocrat, Tyler was born into a prominent New England family — his father was a Revolution-ary War veteran who’d served as an adjutant to Gen. Israel Putman at Bunker Hill — that chose independence over loyalty to the British crown. His father-in-law, Benjamin Lee, was once a mid-shipman in the Queen’s navy. An 1819 graduate of West Point, Tyler’s first six decades saw him serve his country at home and abroad, where he translated Napoleon’s renowned artillery manuals for the U.S. Army. His Civil War record — including his controversial command at the

first battle of Bull Run — is hardly brief. And his experiences as a civil engineer and railroad presi-dent in the United States and European traveler during the Franco-Prussian War only heightened his reputation as a renaissance man of the 1880s. U.S. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, who served under Tyler at Bull Run, described the general as having “outspoken, enthusiastic devo-tion to his Country and Government in war and in peace … He was without one misstep or act of hesitation as a man, a soldier and gentleman.”

As a former brigadier general in the U.S. Army, Tyler could claim both President Lincoln and Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi as acquaintances. In March 1870, while traveling Europe with his youngest daughter, Mary, Tyler dined with Garibaldi, who asked that Tyler con-vey his good wishes to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, then the U.S. president. That likely suited the general just fine, since he did not agree with the popular European belief that Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was on par with, if not more militarily astute than, Grant.

After his chance meeting with Noble in 1872 that led to Anniston’s creation, Tyler did not settle in Annie’s Town for his final years. Tyler’s wife, Emily Lee, had died in New York in 1864; saddened deeply, the general remained a wid-ower until he was buried in what is now Hillside Cemetery. Tyler was a man of too much energy to remain in one location; he despised laziness and idleness, as a soldier and as an entrepreneur. His interests and spirit were too wide to contain. “There was never any dilly-dallying in coming to his conclusions, or any hesitancy, or any yield-ing grudgingly,” family friend Donald G. Mitchell wrote in 1883. “When play was in hand, he played like a boy; and when working, it was for him always a man’s work.” He had no desire to merely wait for death.

Thus, the same spirit that dominated the final decade of his life likely led to Annistonians’ feel-ings that Noble, more so than the general, was the man ultimately behind the creation. While Noble lived and worked in the start-up city, walk-ing the street that would bear his name, Tyler sailed to Sweden to hire ironmen for the Wood-stock Iron Co.; presided over the Mobile and Montgomery Railroad and lived in Alabama’s capital for four years; spent a few months each year at the luxurious Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York; and bought a 20,000-acre ranch in Texas, Capote Farms, where he wintered during his final years with daughter Mary and her husband.

Nevertheless, Tyler did not allow the youthful Anniston to slip far from his thoughts. Benevo-lent in his old age, the general often traveled to Anniston, dispensing advice to Noble and the two eldest Tyler sons. It was not unusual for his correspondence with business associates and family in Alabama to include passages about the goings-on in Anniston and the Woodstock Iron Co., the town’s keynote venture.

In January 1879, Noble and Alfred Tyler asked the general to write to the Alabama Legislature and urge lawmakers to incorporate Anniston. He did not hesitate. “We do not ask for any exclusive privileges,” Tyler told Alabama’s lawmakers. “All we want is the power to protect our property, to foster education, to keep out whiskey drinking, to sustain good morals and to introduce into our business a system of honesty and integrity.” It worked; the Legislature eventually gave Anniston its legal birthright.

Noble, 35 years Tyler’s junior, clearly believed the general — despite his lengthy absences — was no mere component to Anniston’s form-ing; he resided at its core. Noble needed Tyler: his money, his advice, his guidance. There seemed neither animosity nor jealousy that Tyler lived a world-traveler’s life while others rolled up their sleeves and built a Southern town from scratch. From his eloquent writings, Noble believed that Tyler carried a heartfelt desire for Anniston to succeed, and he never allowed the city named after his daughter-in-law to stray far from his heart.

“His clear and active mind was always plan-ning and suggesting something for the benefit of Anniston and its people,” wrote Noble, mention-ing Tyler’s urgings to diversify the city’s industry, improve its livestock, build better homes for workers, and furnish churches for families and schools for children. “Plans and suggestions that to us at first seemed impractical and premature, we found from his clear reasoning and hearty cooperation not only could be carried out, but were needed.

“In acting on his suggestions and plans, we found how wise he was in his forethought and wondered why we had not thought of the plans ourselves. He was one of the most generous and unselfish (men) I ever knew — always interested in, and planning for, the welfare of others, and

Please see PAGE 7

April 13, 1873Using skilled labor from

England, the fi rst Woodstock blast furnace

begins operation.

May 13, 1873The Anniston Post Offi ce

is established.

June 10, 1873People present a petition

to the Calhoun County pro-bate judge to incorporate

as “Anniston.”

Dec. 2, 1873First election of

Anniston City Council.

1873

July 12, 1873Local incorporation is approved and would take effect July 17. (This level of incorporation doesn’t allow local

government power to levy taxes, establish schools, etc., setting the stage for state incorporation six years later.)

Continued from page 4


never so happy as when those he aided profited by his assistance.”

The inception of Anniston and its early successes, wrote Mitchell, the Tyler family friend, “were sources of great pride to him.”

‘WE WILL ALWAYS MISS HIM’In the final year of his life, the general

traveled at least twice to Anniston, once in February and March, and again in mid-May. He penned many letters in his last months, including a bundle on Jan. 7, his 83rd and final birthday. A few mentioned his failing health; others urged his grandchildren to be kind to their parents. Advice dripped from his written words. “I have not been over well recently, and the difficulty is old age — a natural malady and for which there is no specific,” he told a family member. To anoth-er, he wrote, “I am taking care of myself and fighting the battle of life I hope manfully, and what is more, prayerfully;” he felt blessed to be alive, and well enough.

After Tyler left Anniston for his Texas ranch in his final spring, his family letters described how Anniston was centered in his thoughts. “At Anniston, everything looks well and the village is improving every day and promises to be the model village of the South,” Tyler wrote. In Texas in May, while preparing a return to east Alabama, his con-fidence was buoyed by a week-long visit from Noble, who brought news of their company’s expansion plans. “I am now convinced that taking Woodstock with the new purchases, that they constitute together the most valu-able single enterprise on the continent,” the general wrote.

It was on that final summer visit to Annis-ton, son Alfred Tyler wrote, that the general oversaw the laying of the Grace Church foundation. Anniston, Alfred recalled, “was the child of (the general’s) old age.” When Tyler later boarded a northbound train in Anniston, his penultimate months would remove him far away from Woodstock affairs. He rested at Saratoga, N.Y., a summertime haunt, and then in early August he left for Canada and a rendezvous with daughter Mary and granddaughter Edith Carow. It was there they spent more than two weeks in the Quebec mountains outside Montreal, which lifted his spirits and his health, though only briefly. The party’s plans then took them south to New York, where the comfort of the Fifth Avenue Hotel awaited. If his health would allow, Tyler had grand plans to attend yet another of West Point’s famed reunions later in the year.

The general didn’t make it. While walk-ing to the hotel elevator on a Sunday after-noon in late September, he fainted. His son Edmund braced his fall; vertigo and old age

were the culprits. His physician, Dr. Fordyce Barker, and children soon were summoned to his New York bedside. His health dete-riorating, his outlook dimming, pneumonia came in November. The end arrived at 7:40 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 30, 1882. “It’s no use, doctor, you can’t patch up the old man,” he told Barker the day before he died.

Before Anniston grieved for the general’s soul in the airy foundation of Grace Church, Noble lamented over what Anniston had lost. He knew Tyler’s wisdom and guidance were irreplaceable. He needed no prodding to realize that Tyler’s death represented a body blow to a former company town

built on utopian ideals and the acumen of a remarkable spirit. That the general was only a transient figure on Anniston’s streets during his later years was irrelevant. In that sense, Tyler was as much a part of Anniston as was Noble himself.

That only one is immortalized in stone seems both unfair and unimportant.

“Who will impress us with the feeling of confidence in every new plan and undertak-ing that he was wont to give?” Noble asked upon Tyler’s death. “To whom shall we look for the sound advices his age, experience and clear mind alone could impart? We will miss him daily. We will always miss him.” ◆

1873 1880 1883

Dec. 9, 1873Anniston City Council

meets for the fi rst time.

Feb. 4, 1879State Legislature confers incorporation, following

a campaign by Noble and Tyler.

May 27, 1880Anniston Manufacturing

Co. incorporates, giving women a place

to work, too.

Oct. 4, 1881Samuel Noble, on the City Council, makes a motion to

buy trees to plant along all Anniston streets.

Nov. 30, 1882Gen. Daniel Tyler dies in

New York, about fi ve weeks shy of his 84th birthday.

1882-1884Electric lights grow in use, fi rst on a limited basis at

the Woodstock Iron plant, later on town posts.



ALFRED LEE TYLER SR. and ANNIE SCOTT TYLER

(Anniston is named for Annie.)

Sept. 1, 1883 – April 15, 1885The Anniston Inn is constructed.

Oct. 1, 1883The Opera House opens. It would stand until 1958, when it was torn down.

1883

Aug. 18, 1883First issue of Anniston Hot Blast; Dr. T.W. Ayers became its editor in 1897. His son, Harry

Mell Ayers, bought the Hot Blast in 1910 along with prominent industrialist Thomas E. Kilby, who had just completed service as mayor of Anniston and who would soon run for state Senate. In 1912, Ayers consolidated The Hot Blast with the Anniston Evening Star.

1. Gen. Daniel Tyler oversaw details of the construction of this Anniston church:

(a.) Parker Memorial Baptist (b.) Grace Episcopal(c.) First Presbyterian

2. Gen. Daniel Tyler is buried here:(a.) Sarasota, N.Y.(b.) Guadalupe, Texas(c.) Anniston

3. Town founder Samuel Noble was born here:

(a.) Anniston(b.) Rome, Ga.(c.) Cornwall, England

4. Gen. Tyler graduated from this college:(a.) United State Military Academy at West

Point(b.) William and Mary in Virginia(c.) Virginia Military Institute

5. Company founded by Tyler and Noble:(a.) Anniston Metal Co.(b.) Woodstock Iron Co.(c.) Tyler Steel Co.

6. Name of first U.S. Army post in Anniston:(a.) Camp McClellan(b.) Camp Wellborn(c.) Camp Shipp

7. Unlike local proprietors of Anniston’s company town, this corporate owner held sway over Birmingham for much of the 1900s:

(a.) U.S. Steel(b.) Vulcan Coal(c.) United Coal

8. Atlanta newspaperman Henry Grady is credited with coming up with this Anniston newspaper:

(a.) The Molten News(b.) The Hot Blast(c.) The Flaming Progress

9. Future Hall of Famer who played for an Anniston minor league squad in 1904:

(a.) Honus Wagner(b.) Ty Cobb(c.) Walter Johnson

10. Winner and final score of what is con-sidered the first high school football game between Anniston and Oxford:

(a.) Anniston 10, Oxford 3(b.) Oxford 27, Anniston 7(c.) Anniston 17, Oxford 12

QUIZ

Test your knowledge of Anniston’s history. Hint: All questions are from items in today’s anniversary section.

ANSWERS ON PAGE 10

July 3, 1883A big party marks the opening of Anniston

to the public.

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1. (b.) Grace Episcopal. Gen. Tyler was deeply involved in the church’s early construction. According to church history, Tyler modeled Grace on a church he attended as a West Point cadet.

2. (c.) Anniston. Gen. Tyler was buried at Hillside Cemetery in 1882.

3. (c.) Cornwall, England. Noble was born in 1826.

4. (a.) United States Military Academy at West Point. Tyler was a member of the class of 1819.

5. (b.) Woodstock Iron Co. Wood-stock might well have been the town name instead of Anniston, had it not been for another Alabama town called Woodstock.

6. (c.) Camp Shipp. In 1899, it housed 10,000 soldiers for the Spanish-American War.

7. (a.) U.S. Steel. The corpora-tion dominated Birmingham until it began to scale back operations in the 1970s.

8. (b.) The Hot Blast. Its first edi-tion was Aug. 18, 1883.

9. (b.) Ty Cobb. By the next year, Cobb was playing for the Detroit Tigers.

10. (b.) Oxford 27, Anniston 7. Oxford won that game in 1920, and it would not win again until 1963.

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1888Both James Noble

and Samuel Noble die in this year.

1890 1898

Sept. 23, 1898The townspeople turn out to watch 10,000 troops march in parade. Camp Shipp, a U.S. Army post,

was disbanded in January 1899.

Spanish-American War, 1898 Because the mayor and attorney John Knox were pals with former

Confederate offi cers Joseph Wheeler and John T. Morgan, word was passed along that Anniston would be a good area to hold men preparing to go to war.

Up to 10,000 troops would be encamped “near the new furnaces.”

◆ His mother, Edith Jackson (born 1923), was from Anniston; her parents hailed from the Ragland and Ohatchee areas. She worked at Utica Mills making ladies’ panties, which she called “seat covers.”

Generational KudzuThe paths that led Annistonians to town

CHIP HOWELL, mayor of AnnistonBorn: 1955

◆ Howell’s maternal grandfather, Oscar Francis Jackson, died on the job as a moldmaker at M&H Valve, in 1958 at age 52. He was the first on his mother’s side to come into town and work in industry. One of Hoyt’s brothers became friends with the parents of Edith’s parents; that’s how Chip’s dad met his mom.

◆ His father, Hoyt Howell (born 1919), grew up on a Cherokee County farm, the youngest of eight. He graduated from Cherokee County High in 1938 and came to Calhoun County.

◆ Edith Jackson and Hoyt Howell married when she was 16, while she was probably still working at Utica. After marriage, Hoyt got a job at M&H Valve and in 1942 joined the Navy.

◆ In the late 1940s, Hoyt start-ed working for Cy Cobb in the real estate business. He set up Howell Realty in 1948. Chip joined the business in 1977.

Oscar Jackson, Edith and Hoyt Howell, Jessie Mae Jackson

Photos/Chip Howell

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A return to the basicsthat founded Anniston. HARD WORK.

“Alternative Fuels Day”(Auburn Univ. researchers will be demonstrating how to make algae-

based fuel, biodiesel and other alternative fuels.)

This Saturday - Aug. 214th St. & Gurnee (Zinn Park)

8 am to noonLots of locally grown produce like Silver Queen corn, okra, melons, blueberries, heirloom tomatoes, and much more!

Local crafts too! Beautiful gourds, wooden bowls, clay masks & pottery, needlecraft, and ceramics

• Door Prizes (Gasoline Gift Cards!) • Sausage & Biscuits from J’s Wings

• Art for Kids starts at 9am (ages 8-12)“Market photos at www.spiritofanniston.org”

(Information: 236-0996)

Farmer’sFarmer’sMarketMarketDowntown

Downtown

234035

Nov. 15, 1900Cornerstone is laid for the

new Calhoun County Court-house. It would burn

Jan. 15, 1931.

1898 1900

Dec. 20, 1899First issue of Anniston Evening Star is printed. H.M. Ayers

would become its city editor in 1903. The Evening Star masthead would exist until Thursday, Jan. 24, 1918, on

which date the Old English “The Anniston Star” debuted.

July 27, 1903The Alabama Hotel opens on the northwest corner

of 12th and Noble. It would burn down Sept. 15, 1944.

Nov. 30, 1898The governor signs a bill to allow an election to determine

the location of Calhoun County’s county seat. Anniston defeated Jacksonville. Appeals and other actions ensue,

and the fi nal decision comes in June 1900.


GEORGE H. DEYO, former Anniston councilman and longtime businessman

Born: 1929

Alfred Lee Tyler Sr. (son of Gen. Daniel Tyler) and granddaughter, Anne Tyler (Mrs. William H. Deyo). Anne was the daughter of Alfred Lee Tyler Jr. and Harriet (Bond) Tyler.

George H. Deyo

◆ His father, William H. Deyo of Ellenville, N.Y., was born in 1895. In 1918, William, a Princeton graduate, married Anne Scott Tyler, the only daughter of Alfred Tyler Jr., who was grandson to Gen. Daniel Tyler. Anne Scott Tyler was vacationing with her aunt in New York when she met William, who worked at the hotel where she was staying.

William Deyo was an executive with Anniston Foundry Co. George was born in the house built by Alfred Tyler Sr., near where the RMC emergency room now sits.

Alfred Lee Tyler Jr. Anne Scott TylerGen. Daniel TylerPhotos/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County

The widow of Horace Miller Sproull Jr., who died in 2008, she is the daughter of Thomas Hunt Vaden, who married Eula Crook in 1925 and lived in a house where the Quintard Hardee’s restaurant is now.

Vaden worked for the power company.

Eula Crook’s parents were Samuel L. Crook, who was a first cousin once removed to James F. Crook. Crook was a business partner of Dr. T.W. Ayers in the

Jacksonville Republican, later moved to Anniston to become The Anniston Star. They had bought it from Mr. Crook’s father.

Samuel L. Crook was cousin to a Calhoun County probate

judge, Emmett F. Crook. They had a daughter, Margaret, who mar-ried Ned Almond, later to become Gen. Almond, aide to Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. Gen. Almond retired in Anniston.

Barbara Vaden Sproull’s late husband, known as Miller, was the son and only child of H. Miller Sproull Sr. and Sara Powers Sproull. She died within days after Miller was born; Sproull senior died when Miller was 21.

Sproull Sr. was the son of James Creswell Sproull. He had three sisters: Caroline Sproull Knight, who married Roy; Virginia Sproull Weatherly, who married Clay; and Catherine Sproull Hamilton, who married Ralph Hamilton, one of three Hamilton sons of Tobe Ham-ilton. One of the sons, Charles Hamilton, became a benefactor to several local institutions, includ-ing the hospital, the Boys Club and the YMCA.

James Creswell Sproull, born in 1856, came to Anniston from Rome, Ga., in 1887 and founded Anniston Hardware, which, when telephones were installed, had the number 1.

1904A teen-aged Ty Cobb,

a future baseball Hall of Famer, lives in Anniston

for a few months.

Oct. 3, 1905Alabama Presbyterian

College opens on the hill that sloped down to the 700 block of Leighton Avenue.

June, 1909Organizers of Anniston

Country Club buy their fi rst land (truly country), 50 acres east of Tyler Hill.

Feb. 14, 1917Local businessmen are

issued a challenge: Raise money to buy land and the Army will establish a camp.

1905 1917

March 16, 1917More money is needed, or landowners must shave their prices. That was the message delivered by Lt. Col. C.P. Summerall after he left Anniston following a two-day visit as the guest of local U.S. Rep. Fred Blackmon.

H. Miller Sproull Jr.

Studio portrait of the H. Miller Sproull Sr. family.


BARBARA VADEN SPROULL, homemaker and community volunteerBorn: Christmas Day, 1926, Anniston

Photos/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County

501 Davis Loop • Oxford(256) 831-3995

258 W. Ft. Williams • Sylacauga(256) 249-8412

The Anniston

Star

July 27, 2008

Celebrating

Anniston's

125th year

17The Anniston

Star

July 27, 2008

Celebrating

Anniston's

125th year

16

In its early days, Anniston nestled neatly between soft hills on its east side and a bed of mineral deposits and ore on the west. It was a company town, with company employees as its majority residents and company owners as its overseers.

Its heart — Noble Street — was named for founder Samuel Noble and was home to a range of businesses and the young town’s cultural center, its opera house. Also down-town, Anniston’s first City Hall — a red-dish-brown building with a spire — would eventually give way and become the site for today’s Anniston Police Department.

Noble and his mentor, Gen. Daniel Tyler, believed the “model city” should be laid out neatly, with easy access to churches, industry and stores. Among the early, more prominent houses of worship were Grace Episcopal Church and the First Presbyterian Church.

The city’s founders integrated Anniston as a company town into the landscape. On the north end of town, near where Wendy’s is now on Quintard Avenue, was the com-pany farm. On the south end, cottages and houses for workers whose labor powered the pipe shops and foundries.

MODEL CITY

WE BUILT

THE

Model By Tosha Jupiter, Photo By Bill Wilson/The Anniston StarSources: Jay Jenkins of Jenkins Munroe Jenkins Architecture,

Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County, Images of America: Anniston by Kimberly O’Dell

1917

March 30, 1917The fund for purchase of the Army post land is short

by several thousand dollars; Chamber of Commerce men on the executive committee are glum.

May 18, 1917Huge news: Final arrangements are concluded between the federal government and the Chamber of Commerce

to buy 16,000 acres north of Anniston to establish a permanent camp for training how to use artillery.

July 16, 1917Disappointing some who wanted to name it

“Camp Blackmon,” “Camp Pelham” or “Camp Forrest,” it’s announced that the mobilization camp

would be called “Camp McClellan.”


TOM TURNER, retired businessmanBorn: 1927

◆The surviving child of E.L. Turner and Frances Coleman Turner, both from Anniston and both of whom lived from the 1890s to the 1970s.

E.L. TURNER FRANCES TURNER

◆ Tom’s siblings were Eugene Turn-er and Lucy Turner Knight, wife of Roy Knight Jr.

LUCY, TOM AND EUGENE III

◆ E.L., a farmer, a graduate of the Presbyterian College here and later of Princeton University (1912), founded Turner Dairies in 1927. It was on Coldwater Road, southwest of Anniston. He sold the business to George Barber in 1962.

◆ Tom graduated from Princeton in 1949. His roommate was Tom Kilby III, son of Oscar Kilby, who was brother to Thomas E. Kilby Jr., son of Alabama’s governor from 1919 to 1923, and Anniston mayor, Thomas E. Kilby.

They were acquaintances here, of course, but became fast friends in college; Tom was killed in the Korean War, and a portrait of Kilby hangs on a wall in Turner’s home.

◆ Tom’s first cousin, Wilkes Robin-son, married Julia Rowan, niece of Rosamond Gunter Rowan Kilby.

◆ Through the years, Tom made a liv-ing at the dairy, for the CIA, as a writ-er and in real estate investment. He also was a co-founder of New World College of Business around 1980. It was located, by coincidence, in the former First National Bank building, the same institution where his father was on the board of directors.

TURNER DAIRIES


Come Worship With Us!W. Mack Amis, Jr., D.Min.

Pastor

SundaysMorning Worship 8:30 AM

Sunday School 9:30 AM

Morning Worship 10:45 AM

Discipleship Groups 5:00 PM

Evening Worship 6:00 PM

WednesdaysChildren’s Awana 5:30 PM

Adult Bible Study 6:00 PM

Youth “Buzz” 6:00 PM

Seeking to provide a place where... the Love of God is shared. the Word of God is taught. the Power of God is revealed. the Plan of God is fulfilled.

Touching Our Community

with theLove of Jesus

and a Message of Hope

Intercessory Prayer Ministry24-hour Prayer Line

256-236-1515

Sunday TelecastsCable 2: Sunday School 10:15 AMCable 2: Live Broadcast 10:50 AMCable 9: Week Delay 11:00 AM

DonohoThe

D I F F E R E N C EAcademicsThe class of 2008 received more than $2.6 million in college scholarship offers and were offered acceptance to more than thirty-five colleges and universities.

ArtsThe fine arts play an important role in the life of The Donoho School. Self expression and experi-ences in both the visual and performing arts are placed among the top priorities at the school.

AthleticsStudents enjoy participating in a variety of sports offered at The Donoho School: football, basketball, volleyball, golf, soccer, tennis, track, cross-country, baseball, and cheerleading. The Donoho School was selected by The Birmingham News to receive the 2007 AHSAA IA All Sports Championship Award.

The Donoho School is dually accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the Southern Association of Independent Schools (SAIS). It is an active member of the National Association of

Independent Schools and the Alabama Association of Independent Schools.

The Donoho School is located inAnniston, AL at 2501 Henry Road.

For more information, please contact Director of Admissions Sue Canter at (256) 236-4459, or visit our website at www.donohoschool.com.

the difference is...

Aug. 11, 1917, 6 p.m.The last nail in the 261st

building makes Camp McClellan ready to

receive one brigade.

Dec. 16, 1917The establishment and development of Camp

McClellan up to this point has cost $3,195,000.

Dec. 17, 1917Construction begins on an improved route between Anniston and the camp. The pike opens in 1918.

May 22, 1918A Piggly Wiggly grocery

store, the 30th in the nation, opens at 1030 Noble St.

1917 1918

May 24, 1918Carnegie Library opens for its fi rst full day of public

business with 4,000 books on the shelves. The building would stand until early 1965, when it was demolished so

that a bright, modern structure could be erected.


LOWNDES BUTLER, great-grandson of Anniston’s co-founder Samuel Noble,

retired auditor at Anniston Army Depot and former chairman of the Anniston Tree and

Beautification BoardBorn: 1930

ADDIE NOBLE McCAA

His mother is Addie McCaa Butler, the daughter of William Lowndes McCaa and Addie Noble McCaa, who herself was the daughter of Samuel Noble. She was involved in church work and played violin in the Calhoun County Symphony Orchestra.

Lowndes’ parents greatly enjoyed the outdoors and built a cabin on land far off the side of what’s now known as Cole-man Road.

Their first land, however, had been in the acreage later taken by the fort for maneuver training right before World War II. “My mother was very upset about that,” he recalls.

His maternal grandfather, W.L.

McCaa, was a director of First National Bank for many years. He came to Annis-ton circa 1895 from Mobile.

McCaa went to work for the First National Bank as a bookkeeper, and later became a director in 1899, and served as a director until his death in 1939. He also served as secretary and treasurer of the Anniston Pipe Works and later served as president of West Anniston Land Co. for 30 years.

Lowndes Butler’s father is Frank M. Butler (1891-1983), who had moved to Anniston in 1919, after World War I. He married Addie Noble McCaa (1897-1988) in 1923, in a union that lasted 60 years. She died at 90, he at 92.

ANNISTON FIREPLACE & PATIO3815 Leatherwood Plaza, Hwy. 431

(256) 236-1114

Mon. - Fri. 8-5; Sat. [email protected] • [email protected]

March 24, 1922The cornerstone is laid for Anniston High School, on

the west side of Leighton’s 1600 block.

1920 1922

Nov. 2, 1920Although not formally called Oxford High School or Anniston High School,

the high schools of these two cities fi rst play each other in football starting at 3:30 in the afternoon at the Anniston city ball ground. Oxford wins, 27-7.

Oxford's next win against Anniston wouldn't come until 1963.

Oct. 29, 1922With the completion of some storm sewer work at the 10th Street intersection, Quintard is fi nally a paved street from Fifth to 18th streets. In January 1923 bids were sought for

curbing and guttering Leighton and Wilmer avenues.

◆ Crabtree, who moved to Anniston in 1957, is connected to the Well-born family through his late wife, Mary, who was one of four children of Margaret Wellborn and James Fouche’ Matthews, an Anniston attorney. One of Mary’s siblings, a sister named Libba, married Wil-liam Sellers, a physician whose father began Sellers Hospital, a for-mer medical facility in Anniston.

◆ Mary Matthews Crabtree’s mother, Margaret Well-born, was one of five children of Maximillian Bet-hune Wellborn, a Eufaula native and a banker who later became head of the Federal Reserve office in Atlanta. He had a large estate north of Jacksonville on

the west side of what is now Ala-bama 21.

◆ Maximillian’s oldest son, Walter Wellborn, also made his living in finance and at one time was chair-man of the Calhoun County Board of Education. He put up his own money to facilitate the founding of Walter Wellborn High School.

◆ Another of Maximillian’s sons, Robert, married a sister of Rosa-mond (“Rose” )Rowan Kilby.

ROSE KILBY

MAXIMILLIANWELLBORN

SELLERS HOSPITAL

DR. SAM CRABTREE, retired Anniston radiologist

Born: 1919



301 East 18th Street • Anniston, AL (256) 235-8900 • www.SMHhealth.com

CONGRATULATIONSto the City of Anniston for 125 years of growth

from Stringfellow Memorial HospitalWhere Everyone Comes 1st

For the past 70 years, Stringfellow Memorial Hospital has been a vital part of the progress and growth of the city

of Anniston. Beginning as a small tuberculosis hospital in 1938, we have grown into a fully accredited general acute care facility, compassionately serving the healthcare needs of our community.

We are still building and growing to better serve you.

We are proud of the part Stringfellow Memorial Hospital plays in serving the residents of our community and join with the citizens of Anniston in the celebration of 125 years.

1923 1926

Jan. 3, 1923The Anniston Inn is destroyed by fi re. Before the embers

are even cool, W.W. Stringfellow suggests that the land be used as a park because of its central location.

March 25, 1926Camp McClellan will gain more substantial

brick and tile buildings because, it is announced today, “plans have been approved for construction

of a permanent regimental camp.”

April 17, 1926A contract is let for construction of a $315,000, 10-story

offi ce building at the southeast corner of 10th and Noble. Just over a year later, on Friday, May 13, 1927,

the Liles building is opened and dedicated.

SIBLINGIn the late 19th century, two industrial towns sprang up

in mineral-rich parts of Alabama. One town, Anniston,

was founded upon utopian ideals. Th e other, Birmingham,

sprang up as a company town with absentee owners.

Th is early nurturing (or lack thereof) made a diff erence

when troubles arose during the civil rights era.

BY H. BRANDT AYERS

ANNISTON OPERA HOUSEPhotos/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County

July 18, 1926Anniston’s fi rst radio

broadcast airs.See Page 28

May 5, 1929Mayor Sidney J. Reaves

and attorney Niel P. Sterne dedicate Zinn Park.

See Page 28

1926 1929

April 22, 1926The Anniston City Council chooses Rosa Gray to fi ll the two-year remainder of a vacant school board position.

She’s said to be the fi rst woman to hold city offi ce (albeit not chosen directly by voters).

July 1, 1929Ceremonies mark the designation of Camp McClellan to an upgraded Fort McClellan. Gen. Charles P. Summerall,

Army chief of staff, reads the order.

CITIESSibling cities, Anniston and Birmingham, were

separated at birth but entered the 21st century more alike — in spirit, if not flesh.

Both were post-Civil War towns that emerged in the 1870s and 1880s. Anniston didn’t become the state’s manufacturing center, but its founders endowed it with a civic ideal while Birmingham was a runaway frontier town.

Anniston had tantalizing mineral deposits, but 60 miles further west lay the major deposits of coal, limestone and ore needed to make iron and steel. These deposits in the aptly named Red Mountain spawned a helter-skelter city.

One industrial titan whose personality domi-nated the erupting town was Col. Henry DeBarde-leben, described as a “coal-maddened Ahab.” His civic conscience was: “I like to use money as I use a horse — to ride!” His defense against union organizers was militia whose armaments included machine guns.

Birmingham lost its homegrown Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, when, through a series of Wall Street transactions during the panic of 1907, J.P. Morgan bought TCI for roughly a dime on the dollar.

The deal created a steel monopoly, U. S. Steel, which became the godfather of Birmingham. Until the1970s, the city’s civic soul was shaped by a suc-cession of managers whose allegiance was to a corporation instead of the community.

An industrial odd couple, a Confederate muni-tions manufacturer from Rome, Ga., Sam Noble, and a Union general from Connecticut, Daniel Tyler, carved the “model” new town of Anniston from wilderness. Their chance 1872 meeting in Charleston combined the elements of a New South formula devised by the famed Atlanta editor, Henry Grady.

To rise from the ashes of defeat, Grady rea-soned, the South needed to marry Yankee wealth with Southern sense of the geography, geology and culture. He was excited to see his “New South” con-cept taking shape in bricks and mortar, and confi-dent enough to invest in the company.

The partnership added an extra ingredient to Grady’s theory, a dimension Birmingham lacked — personal commitment. Noble moved his family to the “new town,” and Gen. Tyler persuaded his son, Alfred, to take up residence and help run the company. The two families were determined to make the place they lived as attractive as possible.

Sam Noble expressed the civic ideal: “Instead

of dissipating our earnings in dividends, we have concentrated them here ... These reinvestments were judiciously made, and every dollar was made to do its best.”

That sentiment came to life in a gilt-and-velvet jewel box of an opera house; in 100,000 water oaks lining the grid of broad, north-south avenues and east-west streets; in a little gem of a parish for the carriage trade, Grace Episcopal; and a cathedral filled with Italian-crafted marble statuary, St. Michael and All Angels, for the working class.

The liberal ideal extended to the workers in other ways, too: double the prevailing wage of 50 cents a day, and equity in their houses, instead of paying rent for company-built houses in perpetu-ity, which made the workers stake-holding, home-owning residents.

As the Georgia-Pacific railroad pushed west toward Anniston, incorporation was required. Among the assets with which this self-governing town began was a newspaper that hit the streets on Saturday, Aug. 18, 1883, the year the city was opened to the public.

It is said that Henry Grady and Sam Noble were discussing what to name the paper over a “toddy” on the veranda of Noble’s house when the Wood-stock furnace lit the evening sky. “You’ve got to call it ‘The Hot Blast,’ ” Grady is alleged to have said.

SAMUEL NOBLE, FOUNDER

Please see PAGE 24

Dominating the front page of The Anniston Hot Blast was an article by Grady, “A Man and A Town.”

He described what he could see from Noble’s hilltop house on Woodstock Avenue, saluting the Noble-Tyler partnership with hyperbolic enthu-siasm: “I thought, as I stood between their two houses, that ... I had rather have been either of them ... than to have been the president of these United States.”

Even discounting Grady’s exuberance, the founding vision was liberal to the point of uto-pian. Democracy’s tendency to choose the means — often the lowest common denominator — couldn’t maintain the brilliance of the founders’ dream. But their ideal of “a model city” gave its leaders resolve to weather the 20th century civil rights storms better than Birmingham.

A warning tremor of bad times ahead for Bir-mingham was felt at the July 1948 “Dixiecrat” convention in the steel city, led by former Ala-bama Gov. Frank Dixon. Among the delegates, five Southern governors mingled with a who’s-who list of such violent racists as Gerald L.K. Smith and J.B. Stoner. They nominated South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond as their presi-dential candidate to oppose the re-election of President Harry Truman, and to preserve “States’ Rights,” meaning the state’s right to discriminate against black residents.

Anniston and Birmingham both felt the shock of civil rights storms when Freedom Rider buses were attacked on Mothers Day 1961 in both cit-ies. The response in Anniston, however, showed there was still life in the founders’ civic ideal. “We didn’t want the city to get a bad name,” the late Miller Sproull recalled some 40 years later.

Birmingham, too, began its long arc from denial to civic engagement. Sid Smyer, a gruff real estate lawyer and one of the feudal lords of Bir-mingham’s status-quo ante, was in Japan attend-ing an International Rotary convention.

He assured fellow Rotarians that all was well in Birmingham, when The Star’s bus burning photo and Post-Herald pictures of white men in sports shirts beating blacks sprang from the front page of Tokyo newspapers. Embarrassed, the incom-ing president of the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce underwent a conversion.

In Anniston, there had already been talk that a biracial committee should be established. The Mother's Day tragedy was a spur to action. Miller Sproull ran for the City Commission pledging the creation of such a committee. On April 10, 1962, he was elected finance commissioner; Claude Dear was elected mayor; and Jack Suggs, a devout segregationist, police commissioner. They took office on Oct. 1, 1962 — the day following the Ole Miss riot.

The first weeks in May told the story of a city

where civic conscience was alive, in contrast with the bigotry and ineptitude of Bull Connor’s Birmingham. The arrest and jailing of Dr. Martin Luther King in Birmingham triggered a children’s crusade.

Hundreds of black students surged around Kelly Ingram Park, met by Bull Connor’s police and fire departments, police dogs lunging at the children and fire hoses sending them tumbling like fallen leaves — images of which were an incalculable contribution to the civil rights cause.

E.L. Turner Jr., a pillar of Anniston’s First Presbyterian Church, had been in Birmingham on business that day and told a meeting of the governing body of the church what he saw. He asked that the elders pray for Anniston to avoid Birmingham’s tragedy. The Rev. Phil Noble led the prayer. The session then voted to endorse a Human Relations Council. The immediate cause for action came on Mother’s Day, May 12, as an echo of the violent 1961 Mother’s Day.

Miller Sproull called Phil Noble to report that white men using shotguns fired into homes of two black families and St. John’s Methodist Church in south Anniston that afternoon. Sproull said the city was ready to appoint a biracial com-mittee. The next morning Noble met with Sproull and Mayor Dear at City Hall and accepted chair-manship of the council.

While President Kennedy was hosting a May

14 White House luncheon that Dad and I attend-ed — one of many attempts to encourage respon-sible leadership of the civil rights crisis — the City Commission was meeting for the same purpose.

Sproull announced that the Chamber of Com-merce had voted to establish the Human Rela-tions Council. Two letters were read endorsing its creation, one from the rector, wardens and vestry of Grace Episcopal Church, and another from the Anniston Ministerial Association.

Anniston had taken a stand, but it would face further challenges as the 1960s played out: white men’s rallies on the courthouse steps, a night-rider murder, school integration, a sit-down strike by police during a near riot and street demonstra-tions. In each case, black and white leaders, who were getting to know each other, reached out, and calm prevailed.

At the end of the day, Anniston was called “a success story” by then U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach. Birmingham, too, became a new city with Bull Connor’s defeat in the 1963 mayoral race. Its leadership no longer came from a KKK police commissioner and itin-erant steel plant managers but from the growing, world-class University of Alabama in Birming-ham and from the city’s financial towers.

The sibling cities entered the new millennium similar in spirit, if not in wealth.◆

WOODSTOCK IRON WORKS, COKE AND IRON FURNACE




An authority on the religious folk music of black Americans and a mem-ber of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame was born in Anniston at the turn of the 20th century.

William Levi Dawson, born in 1899 in Anniston, is best known for his com-positions, which include the Negro Folk Symphony. That symphony was premiered in 1934 by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leop-old Stokowski, according to the Music Hall of Fame.

Dawson ran away from home in Anniston at 13 to enter what was then called Tuskegee Institute, according to Tuskegee University.

Supporting himself by manual labor, Dawson lived in Tuskegee and played in the Institute’s band and orchestra until he graduated in 1921.

After graduation, according to Tuske-gee’s information, Dawson studied com-position and orchestration at Washburn

College in Kansas. In 1925, he received a bachelor of music degree in theory at the Horner Institute of Fine Arts in Kan-sas City, Mo.

Dawson earned a master’s degree in composition in 1927 from the American Conservatory of Music.

After completing his education, Daw-son was first trombonist with the Chi-cago Civic Orchestra from 1926 to 1930.

In 1931, Dawson moved back to Ala-bama where he organized the School of Music at Tuskegee. He conducted the school’s Tuskegee Choir for 25 years.

According to the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, this choir was one of the main attractions when the Radio City Music Hall in New York City opened in 1932.

Under the direction of Dawson, the choir also performed for presidents Her-bert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Dawson was inducted into the Ala-bama Music Hall of Fame in 1989. He died in 1990.

YOU OUGHT’VE KNOWN ...

MUSIC MANWilliam Levi Dawson began composing

his life’s symphony in the Model City.

Each accomplishment a note in the melody,

Dawson would become an authority in his field —

performing for U.S. presidents and earning a spot

in the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

BY MEGAN NICHOLS

ANNISTON’S

WILLIAM LEVI DAWSON and the TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE

CHAPEL CHOIR

◆ Dr. Rodgers is one of four children of Dr. Gordon Rodgers Jr., who died in 2007, and Agnes Durrah Rodgers of New Jersey, who died in 1993.

◆ Dr. Gordon Rodgers’ father, Gordon Sr., was from Wetumpka and graduated from Meharry Medical College in 1908. He married Fannie Mamie Lewis of Anniston in 1910 and began his general medical practice at that time. They built the house next door to where his grand-daughter now has her Cooper Avenue practice, and their marriage lasted more than 50 years.

◆ In 1954, Dr. Rodgers Jr. made the first request to the Anniston City Board of Education to integrate schools under the Supreme Court’s new ruling. He was the first African-American to run for public office in Anniston, in 1962. Later, he was Anniston’s first black city councilman (1969).

◆ He met Agnes Durrah on a blind date in Atlanta, where they were attending an NAACP function. The courtship was

brief, and they married Feb. 29, 1952. They honeymooned in Cuba and were in Havana when Fidel Castro and his gang came down from the hills and started their revolutionary activity.

◆ The young couple set up their house-hold in Anniston, later moving to Claxton Street.

◆ Dr. Beverly Rodgers and her siblings were all born in Gadsden because that’s where their family physician, Dr. James Stewart, was based; she says, the profes-sional climate there was more favorable than it was at Anniston Memorial Hos-pital.

◆ Dr. Gordon Rodgers Jr. had a sister, Frances Eloise Rodgers, who was a west Anniston schoolteacher for approxi-mately 20 years. He also had a brother, Dr. Samuel Ulysses Rodgers, whose medical career took him to Kansas City, where he started an inner-city commu-nity health center in April 1968. It was later named in his honor.

DR. GORDON RODGERS SR.


DR. BEVERLY RODGERS, an Anniston dentist who lives in Georgia

Born: 1961


SAMUEL U. RODGERS, FRANCES E. RODGERS, GORDON A. RODGERS JR.

FANNIE LEWIS RODGERS

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TIMELINE EXTRAS

July 18, 1926 Anniston’s first radio broadcast

Radio enthusiasts with the proper equipment heard, around 10 p.m., the first voice ever to originate from an Anniston broadcast studio: It was that of Dr. S.E. Hodges, pastor of First Presbyterian Church, in a test broadcast of sacred songs and readings. The studio was a joint venture of The Anniston Star and the Noble Theater, on whose stage the studio had been set up by a traveling radio company for the period of one week. Known for purposes of this event as the “Anniston Star — Noble Theater Station WHBL,” the travel-ing studio was owned by the Carrell Broadcasting Service of Chicago. The station broadcast three times during the course of the week’s evenings, gen-erally with local musical talent and speechmakers. One of the latter made his own kind of history on July 23 at 8:45 p.m. when former Gov. Thomas Kilby (1919-23), became the first candidate for statewide office in Alabama to campaign on the radio; he was running for the U.S. Senate. The final night of broadcasting was Saturday, July 24, 1926.

May 5, 1929 Zinn Park dedication

On this Sunday afternoon, Mayor Sidney J. Reaves and attorney Niel P. Sterne addressed a crowd of some 2,500 to dedicate Anniston’s first municipal park, Zinn Park, bounded by Gurnee and Moore avenues and 13th and 15th streets. “As cities become congested there is a greater need for parks and playgrounds,” the mayor said. “[They] are not a luxury. They are investments.”

Paid for by Committee to Elect Dawson PO Box 1163 Anniston, AL 36202

A Native Annistonian...David was born and raised in Anniston. He graduated from Wellborn High School and went on to pursue degrees from JSU and UAB. David and his wife, Carol, have two daughters; Taylor and Sarah. David is a member of Anniston Pathology.

Extensive Community Involvement...- Planning Commission, Chairman 24 years- Calhoun County Coroner’s Office- Founding Member of the Berman Trust Foundation- South Trust/Wachovia Bank Board of Directors- Member of Parker Memorial Church

Positive Ideas...- Respect for and use of proper political decorum among council persons, mayor and staff- Capitalize on the positives; work to minimize the negatives- Encourage trust among racial lines- Quarterly Citizen Ward meetings and listening sessions- Strengthen downtown business core while developing McClellan, the Eastern Parkway and South Quintard- Be aggressive with business tax abatements, and in-kind assistance from the City; Provide incentives when possible- Offer the same incentive packages to existing businesses with expansion ideas Include perks for job retention and development of city workforce and staff- Conduct open meeting with respect and proper decorum adhering to Roberts Rules of Order- Explore options for our current school system to ensure the students are receiving the best possible education and citizen’s tax dollars are being used in the best possible manner- Explore recycling option with garbage contract- Remember and learn from our past successes and failures- Explore new ways to do things to better our city- Revitalize the Model City mantra as we move forward

- Gamecock Athletic Club Board Member- Cerebral Palsy Chairman; VIP Fund Raising- Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce- JSU Alumni Association- UAB Alumni Association- Alpha Tau Omega - Fraternity

Dawson Anniston Council Ward 4

Please join me for a

“Meet & Greet”Golden Springs Community Center

Tuesday, July 29th 6pm-8pm

I look forward to meeting you and discussing ideas to help revitalize Anniston! Refreshments will be served.

www.mdaviddawson.com

◆ Perry’s mother, Adelaide Car-leton Sterne, was the only child of Niel Paul Sterne and Frances Leone Robinson, born in 1883 and 1885, respectively. Niel was Jewish and Frances was Baptist, although neither is believed to have been entrenched in his or her faith; their interfaith marriage in 1911 was an eyebrow-raiser, so the ceremony was held at St. Michael’s Episco-pal, Anniston.

◆ Frances’ father, T.L. Robinson, co-founded Adelaide Mills in 1900, “Adelaide” being in the names of both his mother and his daughter.

◆ Known as Carleton, Perry’s mother met Lucian Boyd Lentz at Vanderbilt University. Nash-ville, Tenn., was home base for the Lentz family, where Lucian’s father, a doctor, was an honored man of the community for his contributions to public health. The couple married in 1942 while Lucian was in the Army Air Corps.

◆ Niel Sterne’s father — Perry’s great-grandfather — was Anselm Sterne, a Georgia storekeeper who served in the Confederate army. He and his wife, Henrietta, and little Niel came to Anniston in 1888

(the same year as T.L. and Kate Robinson) and within a few years helped found Temple Beth-El. At age 16, Niel became a copy boy and stenographer in the law firm of Knox, Acker, the firm he would later lead. Niel was admitted to the bar in 1908 and married Frances Leone Robinson in 1911, the same year he became a junior partner at Knox, Acker.

◆ Niel was later the first president of the Community Chest, a precur-sor of the United Way. A brother of Niel, Mervyn, was the “Sterne” in the Birmingham-based financial services company of Sterne, Agee and Leach. A sister of Niel, Doro-thy, gave $35,000 to the Depart-ment of Pensions and Security in 1969; a former daycare center in Hobson City bore her name.

◆ Lucian and Carleton Lentz set-tled in Anniston after World War II because Lucian was more inclined to business and finance, not medicine. Lucian’s career was with Classe’ Ribbon, while Carleton was an active community servant, first on the Anniston Civil Service Board in the 1950s and later on the Carnegie Library Board.

PERRY LENTZ, Anniston native and Ohio college professor, one of three children whose lineage on their

mother’s side reaches back to a founder of Temple Beth-El.

Born: 1943.


Photos/Public Library of Anniston and Calhoun County and Temple Beth-El archives

ANSELM STERNEADELAIDE CARLETON STERNE

PERRY LENTZ

NIEL P. STERNEFRANCES LEONE ROBINSON STERNE

T.L. ROBINSON

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building a model city (1883-1928)

Documents

anniston star

anniston location

public library of anniston

page topsanniston

history quiz page

postcivil war new south

pell city

great depressionmodel