1935

A 1935 map dividing Birmingham's neighborhoods by desirability

1935 was the 64th year after the founding of the City of Birmingham.

Events

• January 2: Residents of Fairview petitioned the city to remove the "spooks or spirits" residing at 400 Ann Street.
• February 17: Gertrude Stein visited Birmingham on her tour of the United States.
• The Alabama Highway Patrol was founded with former Jefferson County Sheriff Walter McAdory as its director.
• The United States government purchased the former Trussville Furnace site for the planned Cahaba Homestead Village housing project.
• The North Birmingham Church of God was founded.
• The Alabama Wildlife Federation was founded.
• WBRC-AM began airing NBC Radio Network programming.
• The Birmingham School of the Bible held its first classes.
• The Personnel Board of Jefferson County was founded.
• Floyd and Lallouise McGraw planted a live Christmas tree at Vincent's Town Hall.
• Frank Hartley Anderson founded the Southern Printmaker's Society.
• Donald Beatty, piloting a Sikorsky S-43, set a speed record for a flight between the continental United States and the Panama Canal Zone.
• The Birmingham Housing Authority was incorporated.
• June 6: Two people died when the New Florence Hotel was destroyed by fire.
• Thanksgiving: The Apollo Boys' Choir performed for the Roosevelts at the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia.
• December 26: A Christmas tree started a fire that destroyed the Mercy Home Orphanage.
• December 27: A fire damaged the upper floors of Andrews Hall at Birmingham-Southern College.

Business

• The Drummond Company was founded by Heman Drummond.
• Theodore Swann sold the Swann Chemical Company.
• Walker Mattison took over as manager of the Pickwick Club.
• Glenn Messer sold his interest in the Messer Field airfield.
• The Waters family purchased the Lyric Theatre.
• O'Neal Steel established a service center at its North Avondale plant.
• The Brown-Service Funeral Company purchased the James Van Hoose residence on 20th Street South for its new headquarters.
• John Proferis opened the Casino Restaurant on 20th Street North.
• The Ideal Department Store relocated to 2nd Avenue North as "New Ideal".
• Ruth Jackson opened the Poro School of Beauty Culture in the Nelson Building on 17th Street North.

Sports

• January 1: The 1934 Alabama Crimson Tide football team completed a national championship season by beating Stanford in the Rose Bowl.
• June 23: Legrant Scott hit a record 4 doubles in a game for the Birmingham Barons against the Atlanta Crackers.
• July-August: Millard Hayes pitched in seven games for the Washington Senators.
• Wedo Martini finished his Major League career with the Philadelphia A's.
• 1935 Birmingham Barons
• The 1935 Alabama Crimson Tide football team went 6-2-1
• Billy Bancroft succeeded Shorty Propst as coach of the Howard College Bulldogs football team.
• Howard Bailey appeared in one game with the Philadelphia Eagles.
• Rudy York was selected as the Texas League's Most Valuable Player.

Works

The Loveman's building, shortly after it was completed in 1935. Photo by O. V. Hunt. courtesy BPL Archives

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• Robert Van de Graaff patented the Van de Graaff generator.
• Mississippi and Rumba, films starring Gail Patrick

Books

• Black to Nature, and With Benefit of Clergy, novels by Octavus Roy Cohen

Buildings

• The Blach's building was extesively remodeled.
• The Carver Theatre opened on 4th Avenue North.
• The Grant's Mill Road bridge over Lake Purdy was constructed.
• The Horton Mill Bridge over the Locust Fork River in Oneonta was completed.
• A Lane Park Arboretum was completed with the planting of 5,000 trees by the Works Progress Administration and Birmingham Federation of Garden Clubs.
• A new Loveman's building was constructed in place of the one destroyed by a 1934 fire.
• The New Ideal building was completed.
• Construction of Smithfield Court housing project began.
• The Tennessee Coal Iron & Railroad Company opened a new Tin Mill at its Fairfield Works.
• A bridge over the John Allen Branch connecting Alabaster and Siluria was completed.
• The Shannon-Wenonah Road Bridge over Little Shades Creek was completed.

Music

• "The Object of My Affection" by the Boswell Sisters
• March: Blues singer Lucille Bogan made her final recordings on the Banner label in Chicago, Illinois.

People

• Hugo Black was apponted to the Senate Committee on Education and Labor.
• Sonny Blount studied at Alabama A&M University.
• Octavus Roy Cohen moved to Hollywood to write screenplays.
• Paul Cole retired from the Birmingham Police Department.
• Claude Fore succeeded Knox Wooley as Shelby County Sheriff.
• Betty Lou Gerson began her radio acting career on "Arnold Grimm's Daughter".
• Bibb Graves succeeded Benjamin Miller as Governor of Alabama.
• Birmingham Police Department dispatcher Claude Gray began working at WAPI-AM.
• William Grubb retired from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.
• Arthur Harman succeeded Oliver Carmichael as President of Alabama College, State College for Women.
• Thomas Knight succeeded Hugh Merrill as Lieutenant Governor of Alabama.
• Abraham Mesch succeeded E. M. Levi as rabbi of Temple Beth-El.
• Fred McDuff succeeded James Hawkins as Jefferson County Sheriff.
• Harry Pembleton was hired as a staff architect for the Federal Housing Administration.
• Gordon Persons was appointed to the Rural Electrification Authority.
• Capers Satterlee was appointed rector of St Andrew's Episcopal Church.
• Charles Whelan Jr was appointed to the United States Parole Commission.
• Big Joe Williams signed with Bluebird Records in St Louis, Missouri.

Births

• January 9: Leon Vlahos, confectioner
• February 3: John Ed Willoughby, radio host
• February 14: Robert Miller, 9th Episcopal Bishop of Alabama
• February 14: Sandra Sokol, art collector
• February 14: Bill Mason, dermatologist and art collector
• March 2: Gene Stallings, Alabama Crimson Tide football coach
• April 8: Brandy Ayers, Anniston Star publisher
• April 24: Leah Rawls Atkins, historian and water skier
• May: Rena Hudson, long-time Mayor of Warrior
• May 17: Jody Ford, hair stylist and salon owner
• June 9: Kirkwood Balton, businessman
• June 24: Charlie Dees, baseball player
• July 30: J. Mason Davis, attorney
• September 20: Tom Lankford, news reporter, photographer and editor
• December 6: David Mathews, president of the University of Alabama
• October 20: Miller Gorrie, construction magnate
• October 25: Willis Burks, actor
• October 28: Baseball player Bob Veale
• November 24: James Ferguson, former Million Dollar Band director
• November 25: Jim Boone, newspaper publisher
• December 24: Cecil Whitmire, president of Birmingham Landmarks
• December 25: Paul Hubbert , president of the Alabama Education Association
• Doug Barfield, Auburn Tigers football head coach
• Robert Carter, Alabama State University professor
• Bob Curlee, Baptist minister and playwright
• Chriss Doss, former Jefferson County Commission president
• Henry Emfinger, historian, museum founder
• Cleveland Hammonds, Birmingham City Schools superintendent
• Rollie Hill, mechanic and "Cookie Man"
• Jim Hilyer, first coach of the UAB Blazers football team
• Roland Ingram Jr, physician
• Miriam McClung, painter
• Shelly Millender Jr, auto salesman and radio host
• Jake Reiss III, bookseller
• Nolan Shivers, 49-year veteran of the Birmingham Police Department
• Charles Townsend, former principal of Jackson-Olin High School

Marriages

• June 2: Mary Harmon Black to Paul Bryant
• July 3: Vet Boswell to John Paul Jones
• Martha Belle Hilton to James Sulzby Jr

Awards

• Miss Alabama: Adelynn Owen

Graduations

• Architect Helen Davis graduated from the Alabama Polytechnic Institute.
• Restauranteur John Holcomb Jr earned his bachelor of science in chemical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology
• Football player Don Hutson graduated from the University of Alabama.
• Soprano Irene Jordan graduated from Woodlawn High School.
• Architect Hugh Stubbins graduated from Harvard University.
• Writer Margaret Walker earned a bachelor of arts at the University of Chicago.

Deaths

• February: Giuseppe Moretti, sculptor
• February: William Gunn, druggist
• March: William Hassinger, chemist and industrialist
• March 28: Malachi Wilkerson, choir director
• April 1: Henry Stockmar, former Alderman
• April 25: David McLendon, Mayor of Birmingham
• June 11: Harry Jones, hardware salesman and former Alderman
• October 27: William Grubb, U.S. District Court judge
• October 28: Virgil Thomas, miner and union activist
• December 22: Pattie Ruffner Jacobs, suffragist leader
• December 30: Manoah Henry, Jefferson County Treasurer
• Robert Baugh, sporting goods dealer
• Lucille Douglass, artist and printmaker

Context

Amelia Earhart became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California. The FBI killed the Barker Gang, including Ma Barker, in a shootout. Porky Pig made his debut in a Looney Tunes cartoon. Adolf Hitler announced German rearmament in violation of the Versailles Treaty. Persia was renamed Iran. The Dust Bowl continued to plague the western United States. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was created. Babe Ruth appeared in his last career baseball game. Alcoholics Anonymous was founded. James J. Braddock defeated Max Baer at Madison Square Garden Bowl to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world. The board game Monopoly was first released. The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) was created.

Notable 1935 births include Elvis Presley, Sonny Bono, Bob Denver, Jimmy Swaggart, Dudley Moore, Lee Meriwether, Ron Paul, Geraldine Ferraro, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Julie Andrews. Notable deaths in 1935 included Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), Will Rogers, Wiley Post, Huey Long, and Walter Liggett. The Nobel Peace Prize went to Carl von Ossietzky. The top films were Mutiny on the Bounty, Becky Sharp, Top Hat, and The Littlest Rebel. Mutiny on the Bounty was Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Top hit songs included Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers' "Cheek to Cheek", Shirley Temple's "On The Good Ship Lollipop", the Dorsey Brothers' "Lullaby of Broadway", Cole Porter's "You're the Top", and Bing Crosby's "Silent Night, Holy Night".

1930s

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