In early 1889, Florence postmaster Bessie McAlester traveled all the way to Indianapolis with a rather unusual mission: convince President-elect Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, to let her, a Democrat, keep her job. And according to the newspapers, she wasn’t shy…
Maxwell Hill in Florence, Alabama has undergone significant transformations over the years, shaping not only the physical landscape but also the way the transportation of the Shoals area operates. The hill is located where East Tennessee Street connects with Royal…
The people of Blackburn (just North of St. Florian) in the northern section of Lauderdale county, were disturbed by an unusual wild animal that was seldom seen, but often heard, roaming in that area during the early Spring of 1912.…
In July of 1890, Tuscumbia Mayor John Steele, was shot through the eye and killed by John Goodwin over a dispute that the Mayor’s son had badmouthed his sister. The bullet went through Mayor Steele’s eye, penetrating his brain and…
What many locals refer to as Sheffield, Alabama’s Spring Creek Lighthouse is actually a Malaria Control base that was built by the Tennessee Valley Authority to combat the malaria outbreak plaguing 30 percent of the nearby population in the mid-late…
In the late 19th century, a traveller revisits the area around this scene of “Lover’s Leap” after being gone 22 years. He beautifully recounts the horrors of the Civil War mixed with the unmistakable beauty of the Shoals area on…
Thomas McGough (1906-2001) purchased the Florence bakery from M.P. Curran in 1941 and 5 years later, phased out the baking side of the business when he incorporated the Southern Frigid-Dough company. Operating as a licensee of American Frigid-Dough, they wholesaled…
While one enterprise on East Tennessee Street named the Florence Bakery existed from the late 1890s until it burned down in 1912 (owned by Mr. J.E. Bowers), it isn’t the same bakery we’re writing about in this post. Success story…
[As written in the Florence Times on Friday, April 11, 1902] Bloody Tragedy in Tuscumbia – April 6, 1902 Nine Men Shot by a Desperate Negro.A Battle Lasting Half a Day. Tuscumbia, April 6. — The foregoing represents the bloody work…
In the 1800s, before cars had been invented, one way people got around was in wagons. Florence had several wagon and buggy manufacturing companies throughout the 19th century (most pre-1870). But the biggest and most famous of them was the Florence Wagon Co.