Exploring Montgomery

The storytelling continues… a collection of stories and photos from Exploring Montgomery!

Education

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts was founded in 1930 and is the oldest fine arts museum in the state. It first featured silver, pictures, china, and furniture that was loaned from local and regional collectors. Today, it features paintings and sculptures by artists from Alabama and around the world. […]

Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts

August 6, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / fina arts / montgomery / museum

The museum is only museum dedicated to Rosa Parks and taking you back to her life-changing moment when she decided not to give up her seat. This building was constructed in 1998 and finished around late 2000. Rosa Parks was actually able to attend the ground breaking and the official […]

The Rosa Parks Museum

August 3, 2018 in Education / Places and Things tagged aum media writing / rosa parks

“We are a family orientated theatre, the productions we bring in are quality productions, and attract river region patrons. My favorite part about the theatre is the personal touch. We get to know our patrons, they are always willing to come back.” The Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts hosts […]

Davis Theatre

July 30, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / davis / theatre

The AUM library tower is a 10-story tall building that serves as the on-campus library that is open to the public. The library has frequent high school and community visitors throughout the semester. In 1982, construction of the building commenced. The building was designed to expand the available shelf space […]

AUM’s 10-Story Library Tower

July 23, 2018 in Education tagged aum / aum media writing / library / tower

A day at your local theater is an experience. With the bright lights, smell of popcorn around you, and presence of friends, family, or a significant other, you know you’re about to have a good time. The movies have remained a special treat in American history, and especially in Alabama, […]

Capri Theatre

July 16, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / capri / theater

A nonprofit, six-year-old community theater in Montgomery The Cloverdale Playhouse is a community theater. Many volunteers from the community give their time and talent to make the dramatic arts come to life at the Playhouse. The Playhouse produces five main stage productions each season, and is now halfway through its […]

Cloverdale Playhouse

July 13, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / cloverdale / playhouse

The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum in Montgomery is a unique experience to see. It is the last remaining home of the Fitzgerald family in the area. It houses the largest collection of Zelda Fitzgerald’s paintings in the world. This building is also the location where Fitzgerald formulated the ideas […]

Fitzgerald Museum

July 9, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / museum / scott fitzgerald

“It’s a top-of-the-line stadium in the SWAC,” said Jon Roblez, volunteer coach and former pitcher for ASU. Alabama State University’s baseball stadium holds 500 and sits next to the colossal ASU water tower. The stadium was built in 2011 after Larry Watkins fronted the overhaul of the baseball program at […]

Wheeler-Watkins Baseball Stadium

July 6, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / baseball / stadium / watkins / wheeler

“You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald The Fitzgerald museum is one of the most historical places in the state of Alabama. With its outstanding features, no wonder it’s on everyone’s bucket list. The museum itself is the […]

The Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum

July 2, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / museum / scott fitzgerald

“They are always here to help.” — The Inter-library Loan and Access Services Librarian, Karen Williams The Ida Belle Young library tower is a 10 story tall building located on the campus of Auburn University at Montgomery. The library was built in two different phases. The first phase of the building was […]

Ida Belle Young Library Tower

June 29, 2018 in Education tagged aum media writing / ida bell / library / tower

Exploring the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery Throughout the country there are other Shakespeare festivals, yet Alabama’s is credited for being among the best this country has to offer. History The Alabama Shakespeare Festival has been a center point for Montgomery since 1985. However, “ASF” has not always been situated […]

Theatre on the Mind

June 25, 2018 in Education tagged ASF / aum media writing / theatre

It was built in 1994, the same year that its identical twin, the Rufus Lewis Branch, was erected out on the Mobile Highway at the head of Air Base Blvd. Tit for tat. Step into one of these and you feel like you have entered a fortress. What has our […]

E. L. Lowder Regional Branch Library

June 1, 2018 in Education / Government tagged library / lowder

The very successful Booker T. Washington Magnet High School was built in 1948, and it appears to have been the first of the avalanche of school construction following WW II. It preceded the T L Bear school design formula, but certainly was a forerunner. The building was erected on the […]

Booker T. Washington Magnet High School

May 18, 2018 in Education tagged booker / btw / high school / magnet / washington

Built in 1966, the facility was a fulfilled dream of long time Hospital Administrator, Sister Scholastica, back when St Margaret’s stood alone as the premier hospital in South Central Alabama, before neighborhood decay, local crime and an over-reaching ministry brought it down. Today the structure is owned by RSA, and […]

St. Margaret’s School of Nursing

April 23, 2018 in Commercial / Education / RSA tagged nursing / st margaret

At 2525 Churchill Drive, as it exists today. It was built in 1956 as part of the School Board’s frantic effort to close the backlog created by the Depression, then WW II. Back then the Bear Clan had opened Gay Meadows Subdivision, donated 6-acres of it for a new Presbyterian […]

Minnie Bear Elementary School

March 30, 2018 in Education tagged bear / elementary / minnie / school

The Fuller & Dees Gold Mine . . . still stands at 3736 Atlanta Highway. In 1960, Millard Fuller (ex baseball pitcher) and Morris Dees (ex political operator), were enterprising students at the U of A Law School. Soon thereafter the pair settled in Montgomery, started a modest law practice. […]

Fuller & Dees Gold Mine

March 26, 2018 in Education tagged dees / fortis / fuller

The Archibald Tyson place… the west side of which was sold off circa 1965 to become Tyson Manor, Montgomery’s premier nursing home for decades. And the east side, including this manor house, became St James School circa 1970. This house served as the school administrative building (Frazer Hall); a classroom […]

Archibald Tyson Place

March 19, 2018 in Education / Residential tagged archibald / st james / tyson

The APLS (Alabama Public Library Service) is actually two-story and deceptively large, was built 1976, and is a separate State Department created to assist (and rule over) public libraries throughout Alabama. It was started way back in 1939, probably by Marie Bankhead Owen, as a small arm of her Archives […]

Alabama Public Library Service

March 12, 2018 in Education / Government tagged apls / library

Located right off Carter Hill Road, allowed Hornet Baseball to return to the campus in 2011, with the opening game held here back in March 2011. The former campus baseball field was displaced by the track and field up-grades which were carried out in 1996 to accommodate remote activities of […]

Alabama State Baseball Stadium

February 2, 2018 in Education tagged asu / baseball / stadium

Built in the heady days when Cloverdale was its very own town, but soon to be incorporated into Montgomery. But when that came to pass, Montgomery had two white high schools, so there was this football game to decide which school would get to keep its name. Poor Cloverdale High […]

Cloverdale Highschool

January 29, 2018 in Education tagged cloverdale / highschool / huntingdon

stands on West 5th Street at the foot of Forest Avenue, and has been a quiet but vital cog in the Montgomery school system for neigh onto 90 years. It traces back into the 1920s, but even today it serves as a magnet elementary school in our system. In 2007, […]

Forest Avenue School

January 15, 2018 in Education tagged avenue / elementary / forest / school

Above is the pedestrian bridge over the main (former L&N) railroad tracks that run thru Montgomery. The bridge connects the Trenholm Tech Library to the remainder of the Trenholm campus, and thus circumvents what was a tortuous 5-minute auto trip for students to reach the school Library. Of course, all this […]

Trenholm Bridge

December 29, 2017 in Education tagged bridge / trenholm

The former headquarters . . . out in Executive Park, bereft of its former glory. Probably vacant now, but 30 years ago this rather nondescript building was the home of the renowned Kindercare Corporation, and it operated kindergarten “learning centers” in every state. It was certainly one of the most […]

Kindercare Headquarters

December 11, 2017 in Education tagged headquarters / kindercare

at 921 West Jeff Davis (if you failed to make the curve of I-85 onto I-65 South ramp, you would land atop the building). It was built in 1923, and for 75 years, as a Junior Hi, then as Elementary, it played an important role in the education of man […]

Loveless School

December 4, 2017 in Education tagged lamp / loveless

faces the Mobile Highway, while the Trenholm campus is directly behind it, on Air Base Boulevard, but separated by the main railroad tracks. Yet, considering that the structure grew out of one of Montgomery’s grand corruptions of some 35 years ago, and sat as an abandoned, half finished, hulk for […]

Trenholm Tech Library

November 27, 2017 in Education tagged library / trenholm

built in 1974, signaled the end of the 1950s school building formula. New concepts in teaching and in facilities finally persuaded the School Board, and it began to experiment. Air conditioning was now demanded. Frank Johnson had destroyed the old system, and there were new mountains to conquer. The Vaughn […]

Vaughn Road Elementary

November 6, 2017 in Education tagged elementary / vaughn

stands on West Fairview at the foot of Oak Street. The home of the Wolverines. It cost $36M and will serve 1200 students. The old Carver, replaced by this one, was “formula constructed”, and opened its doors in 1949 as a “vocational school for Colored students”. It stood on this […]

G. W. Carver High School

October 23, 2017 in Education tagged carver / school