DID YOU KNOW? Top 10 facts: Alabama
Alabama has a wealth of natural resources. The state is rich in three raw materials needed to make steel – limestone, coal and iron ore – which is why it is home to three of the top pipe-making companies in the US. Birmingham was once referred to as ‘The Pittsburgh of the South’.
1.
Alabama is home to the nation’s oldest baseball park – Rickwood Field, the dream of the Coal Barons baseball team owner Rick Woodward, and opened in 1910 in Birmingham.
2
4 3
5 6
Many literary greats have called Alabama home – from Harper Lee, Zora Neale Hurston, Fannie Flagg, Truman Capote to many notable authors of today, including Rick Bragg, Homer Hickam, Yaa Gyasi and Bryan Stevenson.
8 9 10
Alabama was home to the first flight school in the US. Brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright opened the nation’s first civilian flying school in 1910 in Montgomery, which the Ohio natives chose thanks to the area’s mild weather and flat topography.
Windshield wipers were invented by Mary Anderson in Alabama in 1902.
Alabama has the most snails of any US State – more than 40% of all the snails in the country – attributed to its diverse ecosystem with an abundant amount of rivers and streams.
Alabama was the first State to recognise Christmas as an official holiday in 1836 and Birmingham is home to the oldest Veteran’s Day celebration.
7
It has the longest natural bridge east of the Rockies – Natural Bridge Park in Winston County – a sandstone and iron ore bridge created by erosion over millions of years.
The Alabama Deep Sea Fishing Rodeo on Dauphin Island was founded in 1929 and has become the largest fishing tournament in the world. With 30 awarded categories and a prize package valued at up to $1m, the three-day event attracts more than 3,000 anglers and 75,000 spectators each year.
The world’s first electric trolley system was introduced in Alabama. The Capital City Street Railway, also known as the Lightning Route, was developed by Charles Joseph Van Depoele in Montgomery in 1886.
Alabama workers built the first rocket to put humans on the moon. The Saturn V was critical to making the historic Apollo 11 moon landing programme successful, and it was developed in Alabama at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville by a team of scientists led by Wernher von Braun.
58 Winter 2024 |
ochmagazine.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63
