at 5801 Eastdale Drive has the character of a rambling Cape Cod seashore hotel. It is one of 300+ such entities of the Holiday Retirement Corporation, founded 1971 in Vancouver. It is one of four HRC homes in Alabama. -Charles Humphries
at 1901 Mt Meigs Road, was built in 1954, when First National and Union Bank were the two bank behemoths downtown, side by side on Commerce Street, vying to see which would open the first branch. Union Bank hired SS&A Architects, who designed this contemporary classic, now standing forlorn and […]
Union Bank Capitol Heights Branch
located at the corner of Washington and Perry Streets, directly across from the old Courthouse. From here the firebrand, William Lowndes Yancey, trumpeted for States Rights, and became the South’s leading advocate for secession. Lincoln credited Yancey with starting the Civil War. Yancey wrote Alabama’s Ordinance of Secession. Standing on […]
Yancey Law Office
on the AUM campus, prominent from I-85, was built in 1986. The Alabama Department of Forensic Science now has a new central Alabama lab facility on the ASU campus, and the depicted structure presently houses the State Health Lab. The construction of the pictured lab, 25 years ago, spawned a […]
Former State Forensics Lab
located where Carter Hill, Vaughn and Zelda all intersect. It has existed at this crossroad since it was organized in 1875. However, the building pictured was built in 1963 as administrative offices of the Alabama Masonic Lodge. The design won an Alabama AIA award for my partner, WMP. In 2004 […]
St. James Holt Crossing Baptist Church
3 at the intersection of Atlanta Highway and Federal Drive, was built ca 1923, and for 50+ years it was one of the stars in the crown of the Montgomery school system. The structure was designed by Fredrick Ausfeld, who later designed Lanier, the Bell Building and the Jeff Davis Hotel. […]
Capitol Heights Junior HS
the Air Command and Staff College of the Air Force “Air University”. The University was founded in 1946, the same year the USAF was established as a separate branch of our Armed Services. Construction of the University campus (known locally as the “Academic Circle”) began in 1950 as a series […]
Maxwell’s Building 1402
The old Municipal Airport Terminal still stands on Gunter Annex to Maxwell AFB, reminding us that the Montgomery Municipal Airport, later named for Mayor Bill Gunter, was built in 1929. The 600-acre airfield had a grass landing strip, and this combination hanger- terminal building. Mayor Gunter, a flying enthusiast, was so […]
Old Municipal Airport Terminal
1 The old Sidney Lanier, which exists today as Baldwin Magnet School. For many years Scott Street (near side of the structure) was closed to afford the school playground space. Then, circa 1981, after the facility had served as Baldwin Junior High for many years, the street was reopened (my project) […]
Baldwin Junior High School
at 3420 Carter Hill Road, built with such hope and promise during the mid-1960s. Its early years were so successful that by the late 1970s kids poured out of private school to attend that public school. JD had wonderful football and band programs during its glory decades. 1969 was its […]
Jefferson Davis Highschool
Today (top), and circa 1920 (bottom view). It began as Highland Park Sanitarium in a row of houses on Forest Avenue. In the upper view you can see the bridge which connected the old building to the doctor’s offices on the left. Around 1975 the bridge held the quite-famous Ponte […]
Jackson Hospital
5 The site of Montgomery’s renowned Elite Cafe (pronounced E-lite) at 121 Montgomery Street. It opened in 1910 and during its 1940s-‘50s heyday, it was known region wide. In that era, all the guests at the numerous masked balls would reassemble here after the dance was over and continue the revelry […]
Elite Cafe
was located on South Hull Street, a little South of Adams, when planter James Ware built it ca 1855. Ware had it designed in Italianate Style. After his death the structure served as a girls school. Sheriff Horace Hood owned it next, and his wife turned it into a Southern […]
Ware-Farley-Hood House
When you pass by The Alabama Education Association (AEA) Building on Dexter at Hull, you should realize you are looking at the real capitol of the State. The AEA was founded in 1856 to help local school boards control the teachers, but circa 1970 the organization combined forces with the Black […]
Alabama Education Association Building
1 This is what made EastChase possible. The view is of the South terminus of the I-85 Interstate, as it intersects I-65, but this was the artery that changed Montgomery’s growth from Southeast to East. No event has had more impact on our city (nor on our nation, for that matter) […]
Interstate 85
The Perry Street home of the onetime Real Estate Financing Inc, a creation of Edwin Auerbach Sr. Ed returned to his insurance business after WW-II and found a tremendous need for financing of a pent-up housing market. Backed by his mother-in-law, he was able to grow a new business that […]
Real Estate Financing Inc
The State Capitol was built by the City of Montgomery in 1847 (it burned two years later and was rebuilt from the same plans) to house the fledging State government, then only 27 years old. What a rich history it has! The Succession Convention of 1860; the organization of the Confederacy; the […]
State Capitol Complex
at 3126 Jasmine Road, was built in the early 1960s by William J. “Bill” Brennan, one of the owners of The Big Bam, Montgomery’s renowned 50,000-watt radio station. The Brennan Brothers were radio broadcast innovators of the 1950s and 60s, when they owned and operated powerhouse stations in Jacksonville, Chattanooga, […]
Flintstone House
at 152 Coosa Street (across from the stadium) was built as a Schloss & Kahn wholesale grocery warehouse in 1905. Its current use signals the 1995 return of that venerable old furniture store to the downtown area whence it came. BP founder Charlie Parker was my wife’s uncle. -Charles Humphries
Bishop Parker Warehouse
on the corner of Norman Bridge and Carter Hill Roads, was completed recently. It anchors the SW corner of the ASU campus, and signals the conclusion of a political struggle that extended over a decade. For years Forensics was the underfunded stepchild of State government, and had to choose between […]
State Forensics Lab
Some of you won’t believe it, but in 1970 this pink and black structure at 2827 East South Boulevard was the Montgomery presence of the University of Alabama. At the time this was a hot property, situated directly across the boulevard from highly successful neighbors Wal-Mart, Gulf American Insurance and the […]
University of Alabama Montgomery Presence
Relocated to and restored on this corner in Old Alabama Town in 1980. It’s original location was East Montgomery County, near Waugh, where it had been built in 1818 as a wayside hotel and tavern. Supposedly it hosted the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825. In 1845 the structure became a […]
Lucas Tavern
The headquarters is at 2 North Jackson Street, sits right behind the huge Gordon Persons Building, very appropriate since Persons was the last businessman governor we’ve managed to elect. The Council represents over 5,000 Alabama businesses, and was formed in 1985 with the merger of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce and […]
Business Council of Alabama
at 4401 Narrow Lane Road, opened in 1970 as a new concept in elder-care. It was built by the East Alabama Presbytery, using some kind of Federal grant, offering “Christian care” assisted living apartments for retired people. A highly rated skilled nursing facility was added in 1976, and a dementia […]
John Knox Manor
at 105 Tallapoosa Street was a 1903 collaboration between architect Frank Lockwood and contractor Algenon Blair. The keystone arch theme almost gives it a whimsical feel. The Winter-Loeb wholesale grocery company was organized circa 1895 by immigrants Isaac Winter and his brother-in-law, Jacques Loeb. My wife’s grandfather, Edward Eugene Langham, […]
Winter-Loeb Building
was constructed in 1910 in English Tudor Gothic style, following the lead of prominent East coast colleges. It was the first building on the new 55-acre campus of the Women’s College of Alabama, and for many years it was the only building. During those early years Flowers housed classrooms, the […]
Huntingdon Flowers Hall
2 For years the Lurleen Wallace Office Building was known simply as “The State Office Building”. It was designed by the prestigious firm of Warren, Knight & Davis of Birmingham to compliment the Public Safety Building it faces, and was completed in 1954. Local architects supposedly had the job but were supplanted […]