Andrew Marre
Andrew Marre (died c. 1896) was a merchant and cotton buyer. He was the first to purchase a Birmingham city lot at the June 1, 1871 auction held by the Elyton Land Company.
Major Marre came to Jones Valley from New Orleans, Louisiana and purchased his a 50-foot by 100-foot lot on the northeast corner of 1st Avenue North and 19th Street for $100. He constructed a two-story stone building there to house his Marre & Allen general store. He also built a house on the southwest corner of 19th Street and Avenue E on the south side of the Railroad Reservation.
Marre was appointed to the first Birmingham Board of Aldermen in the administration of Robert Henley. He was not elected to continue in that post in the 1873 election.
Marre was a founding member of the Birmingham Lodge No. 384 of Free and Accepted Masons in December 1871 and a director of the Birmingham Insurance Company, organized in 1884.
In 1878 Marre bought a lot on the corner of 18th Street and 2nd Avenue South for a new Andrew Marre residence, then left town in February for several weeks to visit his wife in Bryan, Ohio.
References
- "Personal" (February 20, 1878) Birmingham Iron Age
- City Directory of Birmingham and Gazetteer of Surrounding Section for 1884-5 (1884) Volume II. Atlanta, Georgia: Interstate Directory Company
- DuBose, John Witherspoon (1886) The Mineral Wealth of Alabama and Birmingham Illustrated. Birmingham: N. T. Green & Co.
- Dubose, John Witherspoon (1887) Jefferson County and Birmingham, Alabama: Historical and Biographical Birmingham: Teeple & Smith, Publishers; Caldwell Printing Works.
- Caldwell, Henry M. (1892) History of the Elyton Land Company and Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham: Elyton Land Company
- Cruikshank, George H. (1920) History of Birmingham and Its Environs: A Narrative Account of Their Historical Progress, Their People, and Their Principal Interests 2 volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Lewis Publishing Company. - via Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections
- Alabama Writers Project (1941) Alabama: a Guide to the Deep South. Alabama State Planning Commission/Works Progress Administration