Alabama Trivia & Tidbits - Page 4

Looking for Alabama trivia? Try our list Alabama little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

—The state’s official quilt is the Pine Burr Quilt, designated in 1997, which honors the heritage of the Freedom Quilting Bee, an African-American women’s cooperative that organized in 1966 in Wilcox County (pop. 13,183). The group formed when people lost their jobs after registering to vote. The quilting cooperative made and sold quilts to bring in needed money.

first appeared: 4/8/2007

—Chilton County (pop. 39,593) long has been famous for its peaches and has held a peach festival since 1947. The peach was adopted in 2006 as the official state tree fruit.

first appeared: 3/25/2007

—Hummingbird experts Bob and Martha Sargent of Clay (pop. 4,947) band hundreds of hummingbirds that visit their backyard each year. In so doing, the couple assists in recording the birds’ migratory patterns.

first appeared: 3/11/2007

—Folk artist Mose Tolliver used humble house paint to create self-portraits and vivid images of nature and animals. A leader in the modern Outsider Art movement whose paintings today are worth thousands of dollars, Tolliver died in October in Montgomery. He was in his 80s, though his birth date is unknown.

first appeared: 2/27/2007

—In 1922, WSY Radio in Birmingham signed on as the state’s first radio station and was owned by Alabama Power Co. The company later donated the broadcasting equipment to Alabama Polytechnic University in Auburn, now Auburn University, where its call letters were changed to WAPI. In 1928, the station returned to Birmingham.

first appeared: 2/11/2007

—For the first time in 30 years, a rare legless lizard was captured in the state in 2006 by biologists working in the Conecuh National Forest in Covington County (pop. 37,631). The mimic glass lizard can reach 2 feet long.

first appeared: 1/28/2007

—The state’s oldest county is Washington County (pop. 18,097), created in 1800 by proclamation of Gov. Winthrop Sargent of the Mississippi Territory, and named in honor of Gen. George Washington.

first appeared: 12/17/2006

—Phenix City (pop. 28,265) was known as the most corrupt city in the nation until 1954 when the National Guard was called in to crush a crime syndicate and clean up the town. The story was depicted in the 1955 movie The Phenix City Story, with a cast that included Richard Kiley.

first appeared: 12/3/2006

—According to local lore in Colbert County (pop. 54,984), ferry operator George Colbert once charged Gen. Andrew Jackson $75,000 to transport his troops across the Tennessee River in the early 1800s.

first appeared: 11/19/2006

—The Bessemer (pop. 29,672) Hall of History museum is housed in a 1916 railroad depot and showcases artifacts from the city’s past as a mining, steelmaking and industrial center. One of the museum’s more popular artifacts is Adolf Hitler’s typewriter.

first appeared: 11/5/2006

—Established in 1818, Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville is one of the state’s oldest and largest cemeteries. With nearly 100 acres, the cemetery is a popular walking and picnicking spot with hundreds of dogwoods and other blooming trees and unusual carved monuments.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

The W.C. Handy Birthplace, Museum and Library in Florence (pop. 36,264) honors the life of the “Father of the Blues,” born on Nov. 16, 1873, and includes his personal papers, the piano on which he composed Saint Louis Blues and his trumpet.

first appeared: 10/22/2006

—One of the oldest primeval forests east of the Mississippi River is within Dismals Canyon near Phil Campbell (pop. 1,091). The canyon’s natural wonders include waterfalls, sandstone grottos, natural bridges and temperatures about 14 degrees cooler than the state’s summertime average.

first appeared: 10/8/2006

Built over the Surcarnoochee River in 1861, the Alamuchee-Bellamy Covered Bridge has been restored and relocated to the campus of the University of West Alabama in Livingston (pop. 3,297).

first appeared: 9/24/2006

Arthur George Gaston, born in 1892 in Demopolis (pop. 7,540) as the grandson of slaves, went on to become a wealthy Birmingham entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was named "Entrepreneur of the Century” by Black Enterprise magazine in 1992. Beginning as a coalmine worker and with little formal education, Gaston built a business empire that included insurance, real estate, radio stations and funeral homes. He died in 1996 at the age of 103.

first appeared: 9/10/2006

Author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, lived in Montgomery from 1931 to 1932. Today their home is a museum containing personal artifacts, including Zelda's paintings and letters from the couple's tumultuous courtship and marriage.

first appeared: 8/27/2006

Scenes in the 2006 movie Failure to Launch, starring Matthew McConaughey and Sarah Jessica Parker, were filmed at Cherokee Rock Village, a 200-acre park with giant sandstone boulders near Leesburg (pop. 799).

first appeared: 8/13/2006

Civil-rights trailblazer Virginia Foster Durr, born in 1903 in Birmingham, and Mary Celesta Weatherly, a literacy advocate born in 1890 in Hollywood (pop. 950), were inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in March in Marion (pop. 3,511).

first appeared: 7/30/2006

Desmond Doss, the only conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor for non-combat achievements in World War II, stayed atop a cliff under attack on the island of Okinawa to lower 75 wounded soldiers to safety on May 5, 1945. He died in March in Piedmont (pop. 5,120) at age 87.

first appeared: 7/16/2006

Satsuma oranges were an appealing cash crop in Mobile and Baldwin counties in the early 1900s when the easy-to-peel fruit was shipped to markets as far away as New York. Efforts to revive the crop are in the works.

first appeared: 7/2/2006

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