Exploring Montgomery

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

County Health Department — at 3060 Mobile Highway was built by the County Commission in 1994. It is operated under the authority of the State Health Department (Mobile and Jefferson County Health Departments are independent). The first floor of this building is one of six primary health care centers in our county, and it […]

County Health Department

ALPCo offices — on Dexter Avenue was built in 1855, but the full-height annex on the left side was not added until 1908. For many years this was the home of the Montgomery Advertiser, which in 1941 moved one block up Lawrence Street into the building (visible on the right edge) we now […]

Alabama Power District Offices

Dexter Avenue King Memorial — …stands near the head of Dexter Avenue, only one block from the State Capitol. Its design is simplified Victorian Gothic, and it was built in 1899 amidst much controversy over the placement of a “Colored Church” on the city’s main street. Today it is widely heralded as Montgomery’s most famous […]

Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church

Public Safety Building — Thats what we call it now, but it was the State Highway Dept when it was built, back when the state teachers only taught, and the AHD ran the state. This was the second of the six buildings that surround our State Capitol, and is the one that set the […]

Public Safety Building

County Jails — The new jail (on the right) connects to the old jail (on the left) via a bridge across McDonough Street. The new facility, with its 700 bed capacity, brings the total capacity up to 1100. That’s hard to believe, considering that for 30 years 1957-1986 our county jail capacity […]

County Jails

Dexter Avenue Methodist — This grand old church, now an outpost of River City Church, was completed in 1900, when it had a bell chamber and steeple on its street corner tower. A lightening strike did away with that, leaving the Romanesque building with an incomplete feeling. My partner, WMP, attended there, and […]

Dexter Avenue Methodist Church

Jackson House — … at 409 South Union Street, said to be “simple but stylish”, was built in 1853 by Jefferson Jackson, the same man who built Moulton House. Jackson was US Attorney for both the Middle and Northern Districts of Alabama. He was a reluctant secessionist who died in 1862, but his widow […]

Jackson House

harris dawson — Casual passers-by would never look twice at this fading old house at 144 Clanton Avenue, and yet for 50+ years (starting before 1920) it was the immaculately kept home of one of the most remarkable men that ever lived in Montgomery. His name was Dr. Harris P Dawson and I was […]

Dr. Harris P Dawson Home

MCC — …founded 1903, is situated on Narrow Lane Road at the head of Fairview Avenue. Their present handsome clubhouse (pictured) is pseudo Greek Revival, called that because its exterior is synthetic stucco on Styrofoam. Their first club, built 1905, was on Carter Hill at the head of Narrow Lane. Their second […]

Montgomery Country Club

Intermodal Parking Deck — The deck is positioned to serve RiverWalk activities, Biscuit games, the Convention Center, Train Shed functions, the Alley bars, and the RSA’s new performing arts center. The bridge towers which lead across the tracks to the river walk are visible on the right end. The deck, including the bridge, cost $17 […]

Intermodal Parking Deck

Union Station — Montgomery’s magnificent railroad depot, backs up to the river and is located at 300 Water Street. It is on the National List of Historic Places. (Pictures from Registry) By 1885 Montgomery had become a major rail juncture; by 1895 it was served by a dozen railroads, and 44 passenger trains […]

The Union Station and Train Shed

Advertiser Plant — located adjacent to the Intermodal Deck on Molton. The Advertiser, predecessor of which was founded in 1829, is today only a cog in the Gannett media chain. But it had a proud and illustrious history. It claims to have been the leading newspaper of the Confederate States. The paper has […]

Advertiser Plant

Dannelly Field — now grandly called Montgomery Regional Airport, began life in 1943 when the city undertook to build runways in a field six miles to its west. Before that, the city’s municipal airport had been Gunter Field on the East side, but the Army Air Corps took that in 1940 for use […]

Dannelly Field

Cassimus House — at 110 North Jackson Street was built in 1893 and is on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. It was erected by Speridon Cassimus, the younger of two Greek brothers who, with their dad, moved to Montgomery ca 1878, the first Greek immigrants to settle here. The family […]

Cassimus House

Hilltop Arms — High above the City at 600 Montgomery Street was probably built with much pride about 1950. I actually worked there in a first floor office for a few months in 1954. Today it is a failed, abandoned blight which looms over our downtown. All its windows are broken out, no […]

Hilltop Arms

boyleston UMC — on Johnson Avenue stands opposite the many monuments, artillery pieces and historic tablets that were erected in the median to commemorate the one-time Camp Sheridan. I’ve been told that the church, which looks entirely too large for any other existence, served as the chapel for the camp and the Buckeye […]

Boyleston United Methodist Church

First Alabama — I took this a few years back when this old building was Regions Bank (now Renasant Bank), but I liked it best when it was First National. It was built circa 1907, and I’m sure it could tell a thousand stories, but the one I like best involves my brother […]

First National/Alabama Bank

Richardson Terrace — at 1301 Adams Avenue, was a 1968 project of the Montgomery Housing Authority, arguably its most successful undertaking, before or since. It was a design done with loving care by my departed partner, William Pearson, and one of which he was justly proud. Today it is operated as a retirement […]

Richardson Terrace

Folsom Building — The fourth of the six white-painted concrete buildings that surround the Capitol: 2 in front, 2 in back, 1 on each side. For years this one, built in 1958, was officially called The State Administrative Building. Then, in 1986 it was renamed for Gov James E “Big Jim” Folsom. Compare […]

Folsom Building

Eastbrook — Looking at the flea market image on Coliseum Boulevard, you would never suspect that long ago this modest strip-mall was East Montgomery’s answer to the mighty Normandale Shopping Center on the South side of town. Birmingham’s Loveman’s Department Store anchored Normandale, so the Montgomery Fair, our homegrown version, became the […]

Eastbrook Shopping Center

Steiners-Lobman — …stands at the corner of Commerce and Tallapoosa. By 1900, lower Commerce had become the wholesale center of central Alabama. The wide street was paved with Belgian granite ballast blocks. It was an impressive street, and the most impressive building on it was the 1891 Steiner-Lobman wholesale dry goods building. […]

Steiner-Lobman Building

ASU Arch — …as viewed down Carter Hill Road toward the famous Acadome, of Joe Reed fame. When I moved here almost 60 years ago, ASU did not have any frontage on Carter Hill. I-85 came along and blocked its growth North, so the campus grew South on the wings of civil rights […]

Alabama State University (ASU)

…out along Chantilly Parkway, from wince the parkway took its name, built circa 1835. When speeding down the parkway, you can still see the old house if you know the exact instant to look. During the latter part of the previous century, the structure was often rented out as a […]

Chantilly Plantation House

William Britton — The attractive home of Dr. William Britton . . . at 3260 Bankhead Avenue out in the Edgemont District of Old Cloverdale. Dr Britton and his wife, Margaret Mead Britton, lived here when I moved to Montgomery in 1951. The house remained in that family for 50+ years. I enjoy […]

Dr. William Britton Residence

Grove Court — now abandoned and forlorn, stands just North of I-85 at the corner of South Court and Grove Streets. It was a 1949 design of PT&N architect, Parker Narrows (my boss and mentor 1951-1955), which won an AIA national design award. Back then there were two such national design winners residing […]

Grove Court Apartment Complex

777 S Lawrence — is directly behind the ”Y” on Lawrence Street. It was built with great pride in 1964, back when it had only two floors and an open court at its center. The design won an AIA Regional Honor Award. It became the center of a 3-building complex that we grandly called […]

777 South Lawrence

Downtown YMCA — on South Perry just South of I-85, was built in 1963 and represented a giant step for the Montgomery “Y”, which was then only 15 years old. Back then this was a neighborhood facility, male only, which also accommodated the business community. Today this center is adult only, and because […]

Downtown YMCA