1858

1858 was 13 years before the founding of the City of Birmingham and the 39th year of Alabama statehood.

Events

• November: Crumly Chapel Cemetery was established.
• Abner Killough was granted 1,640 acres of what later became Avondale and Forest Park.
• The Ingle Mills post office was established.
• George Oglesberry was granted 120 acres in Roupes Valley.
• Talladega was selected as the home for the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind.
• Legislation was passed authorizing the sale of the Wills Valley Railroad to the North-East and South-West Alabama Railroad Company.
• Old School Presbyterian Church of Elyton was established.
• The University of Alabama Board of Trustees was expanded to add two members from the judicial circuit containing Tuscaloosa.

Business

• The Shelby County Iron Manufacturing Corporation was incorporated.
• Moses Stroup began building the first blast furnace at Tannehill.

Individuals

• Edmund Rucker was elected city engineer of Memphis, Tennessee.

Births

• February 11: Eugene Enslen, banker and Alderman
• February 25: Walter Smyer
• May 6: Zachariah Nabers Jr, investor
• May 12: William Starbuck, Mayor of Avondale
• May 28: Carrie Tuggle, social worker and founder of the Tuggle Institute
• June 7: Franklin Glass, editor of The Birmingham News
• July 10: J. Frank White, railroad engineer
• August 11: John Hearst Miller, judge
• August 11: Nimrod Scott, Mayor of Ensley
• September 1: Belton Gilreath, building contractor, mine operator, and philanthropist
• September 12: Arthur McGaha, Baptist minister and Howard College president
• George Hartley, industrial accident victim
• Edouard Sidel, architect

Graduations

• James Gilmer graduated from Georgia Military Academy.
• William Ward graduated from the University of Alabama.

Marriages

• April 8: J. J. Jolly to Susan Richardson
• Mary J. Smythe to James Powell
• Sarah Morrow to Goldsmith Hewitt II

Deaths

• September 21: Arthur Bagby, former Governor of Alabama

Works

Books

• Second Biennial Report on the Geology of Alabama by Michael Tuomey

Buildings

• May Plantation cotton gin house
• Tannehill slave cabins
• Waldo Bridge

Context

In 1858, the Taiping Rebellion continued. Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke became the first Europeans to discover Lake Tanganyika. Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil (later ruled invalid). Minnesota was admitted as a state. The Treaty of Tientsin was signed, ending the first part of the Second Opium War. John Hanning Speke became the first European to discover Lake Victoria, source of the River Nile. The first of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held. Macy's department store opened for business in New York. Denver, Colorado, was founded.

Notable births in 1858 included furniture manufacturer Gustav Stickley, inventor Rudolf Diesel, actor DeWolf Hopper, physicist Max Planck, President Theodore Roosevelt, and composer Giacomo Puccini. Notable deaths included Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry, music publisher Anton Diabelli, slave Dred Scott, and social reformer Robert Owen.

1850s

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