1896

1896 was the 25th year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• March: Hospital of United Charity was renamed for benefactor Thomas Hillman.
• The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama began the Old Rotation agricultural experiment.
• Brookside was incorporated.
• A. O. Lane began securing the purchase of 200-acres on the south slope of Red Mountain for use by the city of Birmingham.
• The Southern League of Professional Baseball Clubs folded for a second time.
• Thorsby in Chilton County was first settled by four Scandinavian immigrants.
• The Iron City Steam Bottling Works was destroyed by fire.
• December 27: A Birmingham Mineral Railroad passenger train wrecked on the Cahaba River Trestle between Seymour and Hargrove. 22 were killed and nine others injured.

Business

• The Birmingham Age-Herald was sold to an upstart rival, The Daily State, and became the Daily State Herald.
• The Birmingham Ledger became The Daily Ledger.
• The company that would become Royal Cup Coffee was founded.
• Southern Banknote was founded as a division of Roberts & Sons.
• The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company became one of the first 12 companies to be listed on the inaugural Dow Jones Industrial Average index.
• The Gate City Rolling Mill opened.

Education

• October 12: The Alabama Girls' Industrial School opened to students with Henry Clay Reynolds as president.
• Leta Kitts became the first Supervisor of Music for Birmingham City Schools.
• A. D. Smith succeeded Arthur W. McGaha as president of Howard College.
• The State Normal and Industrial School of Huntsville was renamed the State Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes.

Government

[Joseph F. Johnston

• August 31: Birmingham purchased 120 acres to add to Red Mountain Cemetery (now Lane Park)
• September 1: Frank P. O'Brien succeeded George Morrow as Jefferson County Sheriff.
• December 1: Joseph F. Johnston succeeded William C. Oates as Governor of Alabama.
• December 2: Frank Evans won the 1896 Birmingham municipal election and was sworn in as Mayor.
• Truman H. Aldrich succeeded Oscar Underwood as Representative of the 9th Congressional District of Alabama before being recalled.
• Russell Cunningham began serving in the Alabama State Senate.
• Frank Evans succeeded James Van Hoose as Mayor of Birmingham.
• John F. McLaughlin was elected tax assessor for Jefferson County.
• Edwin F. Vest succeeded Hudson W. Nelson as Shelby County Sheriff.
• Lee Bradley became Jefferson County Solicitor.
• The City of Birmingham installed 15,516 feet of sanitary sewers in the year ending December 1. The $9,808 expense of the work was borne by adjacent property owners.

Religion

• May 30: James Coyle was ordained a priest.
• What became Ensley First United Methodist Church started as a mission of Martin Memorial Methodist Church with W. E. Morris as pastor.
• William A. Hobson became pastor of Ruhama Baptist Church.
• John Murray succeeded Thomas Beard as rector of Cathedral Church of the Advent.

Sports

• The Birmingham Bluebirds played a single season of baseball.

Individuals

• Edward Barrett as elected as an Alabama delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
• Victor Hanson came to Alabama to work as advertising manager for the Montgomery Advertiser.
• William Harding was made a vice president of First National Bank of Birmingham.
• William Mailly left Birmingham for Nashville, Tennessee.
• Richard McNally was admitted to the bar.
• Hugh Morrow became an assistant solicitor for Jefferson County.
• John Rountree moved to Birmingham and bought part interest in the Daily State Herald.
• William Starbuck was appointed secretary-treasurer of the Southern Bridge Company.

Births

Durward Nickerson

• January 5: Dick Griffin, U.S. Marshal
• May 20: Jaybird Coleman, harmonica player
• June 15: Mansion Joe, restaurateur
• July 2: Frank Calloway, artist and mental patient
• July 20: James Meissner, aviator
• August 13: Asa Rountree Jr, Director of the Alabama Department of Aeronautics
• September 21: John W. Black III, founder of the Dixie Drive-It-Yourself System
• October 11: Erwin McCrossin, mine safety inspector
• October 27: Newt Joseph, Negro Leagues infielder and manager
• November 23: Henry Higginbotham, miner
• December 10: Hank Crisp, University of Alabama coach and athletic director
• December 30: Homer Norton, college football coach
• December 30: William Bromberg, chair of Bromberg's
• Abraham Bengis, rabbi
• Durward Nickerson, messenger
• Willie Peterson, suspected murderer
• George Turner, architect
• Sidney van Sheck, artist and engineer

Graduations

• Hill Ferguson from the University of Alabama.
• Charles Glenn from Harvard University with an A.B.
• Logwood Goin from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee with a bachelor of arts degree, with honors.
• Wallace Rayfield from Howard University.
• Charles Whelan Jr from the University of Alabama.

Marriages

• May 6: Attorney Daniel Greene to the former Margaret Jordan Morrow.
• June 10: Attorney John Hearst Miller to the former Eugenia Alexander.
• October 28: Train yardmaster John J. Connolly to the former Mary Elizabeth Hayden.
• December 17: Pastor Sterling Foster to the former Anne Elizabeth Patterson.
• B. H. Cooper to the former Lula Jane Preston.

Deaths

• May 15: Solomon Palmer, founder of the East Lake Atheneum
• June 13: George R. Ward, innkeeper
• December 22: Bessier Parker, second wife of A. H. Parker
• December 27: 22 people died in the 1896 Birmingham Mineral Railroad crash in Bibb County.

Works

Buildings

• Birmingham Auditorium
• Buck Creek Mill
• Two new wings added to Temple Emanu-El

Context

In 1896, Utah was admitted as a state. The first modern Olympic Games were held. The Supreme Court case of Plessy v. Ferguson was decided, upholding segregation as "separate but equal." Charles Dow published the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. A tornado struck downtown St. Louis, Missouri, killing more than 255 and injuring over 1,000 people. An earthquake and tsunami in Sanriku, Japan killed 27,000. The Atlantic City rail crash killed 50 and seriously injured approximately 60. Republican William McKinley defeated William Jennings Bryan in the presidential election.

Notable books published in 1896 included The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic, The Well at the World's End by William Morris, Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain, Facing the Flag by Jules Verne, The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells, and poetry collection A Shropshire Lad by Alfred Edward Housman. Notable music released included "El Capitan March" by John Philip Sousa, "A Hot Time In The Old Town" by Joseph Hayden & Theodore A. Metz, Also sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, and opera La Bohème by Giacomo Puccini.

Notable births in 1896 included comedian George Burns, baseball player Rogers Hornsby, film director Howard Hawks, physicist Robert S. Mulliken, actress Hope Summers, inventor Léon Theremin, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, singer and actress Ethel Waters, baseball player Bucky Harris, baseball player Jimmy Dykes, and lyricist Ira Gershwin. Notable deaths included journalist Thomas W. Knox, photographer Mathew Brady, author Harriet Beecher Stowe, composer Anton Bruckner, inventor George Washington Gale Ferris Jr, and inventor Alfred Nobel.

1890s

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