Calico Ball
The Calico Ball was a landmark celebration hosted by Charles Linn at his newly-completed National Bank of Birmingham building on New Year's Eve in 1873. The gala event marked the culmination of a woeful year in Birmingham's infancy and set an optimistic tone for the coming year, during which the fortunes of the city improved greatly.
Among the calamities of 1873 were a cholera epidemic that felled or drove away most of the city's residents, and a national financial panic that drained away investment capital and plunged the city's real-estate values rendered its real estate all but worthless.
Linn, one of the city's major stakeholders and business investors, nevertheless pushed his three-story brick bank building, the tallest and grandest structure in the young city, to completion. Skeptics labelled the project "Linn's Folly" and advised him to cut his losses. Unswayed, Linn invited 500 guests to an opening-night celebration and booked the James T. DeJarnette band from Montgomery to provide music for dancing.
The Calico Ball is the title of a historical novel by Emma Gelders Sterne published in 1934. The novel culminates with a vivid description of the event.
References
- Atkins, Leah Rawls (1981) The Valley and the Hills: An Illustrated History of Birmingham and Jefferson County, Alabama. Birmingham: Birmingham-Jefferson Historical Society. ISBN 0897810317