1917

1917 was the 46th year after the founding of the city of Birmingham.

Events

• Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company acquires furnaces in Gadsden.
• Glenn Messer joins the U. S. Army Signal Corps, Aviation section
• Books-A-Million founded as a newsstand in Florence
• The unfinished Roden Hotel is dismantled and sold for scrap.
• Nathaniel A. Barrett elected mayor on anti-immigration platform.
• Kiwanis Club of Birmingham founded.
• 1917 Presbyterian General Assembly held in Birmingham.

Sports

• The University of Alabama football team went 5-2-1 in Thomas Kelley's last year as coach.

Buildings

• 1917 Birmingham News building
• Veranda

Births

• July 3: Piper Davis
• November 24: Houston Brice, Jr
• John W. Kirklin

Deaths

• October 16: Kelly Ingram, the first US enlisted serviceman killed in WWI.

Context

1908 was the year that the United States declared war on Germany, entering "The Great War" (World War I). "Our Lady of Fatima" was sighted by three children in Portugal. 300 acres of the city of Atlanta burned in that city's "Great Fire" on May 21. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded. Scott Joplin, Edgar Degas, and Auguste Rodin all died in 1917.