Alabama History in January

Excerpted from Alabama Department of Archives and History

January 1, 1900: Alabama ushers in 1900 with cold temperaturesand little fanfare. Snow was recorded in Birmingham and Montgomery atthe start of the holiday weekend and freezing temperatures continued toMonday, the first. Most citizens did not celebrate the start of the20th century until 1901 and the Birmingham Age-Herald remarked “the first day of the last year of the nineteenth century dawned dull enough in Birmingham.”

January 1, 1901: Alabama newspapers welcome a new year and a new century. Declaring January 1, 1901, as the first day of the 20th Century (and not January 1, 1900), the Montgomery Journal predicts that “Montgomery can well afford to welcome the year and the century with enthusiasm.” Likewise, the Birmingham Age-Heraldcarries a prominent front-page cartoon with a depiction of Father Timegreeting the twin babies of the new year and the new century.

January 1, 1926: The University of Alabama footballteam wins the Rose Bowl. This was the first of six Rose Bowlappearances for Alabama and the first time a southern football team wasinvited to play in a national bowl game.

January 1, 1953: Legendary singer-songwriter Hank Williamsdies at the age of twenty-nine. Over 20,000 people attended his funeralin Montgomery. Williams was inducted into the Country Music Hall ofFame in 1961 and received the Alabama Music Hall of Fame Lifetime Award for Performing Achievement in 1985.

January 3, 1972: Alabama's legislative districts are reapportionedby federal court order to bring them in line with the principle of "oneman/one vote." Neither the first nor the last such federal courtaction, this plan established single-member districts, which no longernecessarily followed county boundaries.

January 4, 1861: A full week before Alabama secedes from the Union, Gov. A. B. Moore orders the seizure of federal military installations within the state. By the end of the next day Alabama troops controlled Fort Gaines, Fort Morgan, and the U.S. Arsenal at Mount Vernon.

January 6, 1702: French colonists from Biloxi unload goods at Massacre Island to be used for the establishment of Fort Louis de la Louisiane on a bluff twenty-seven miles from the mouth of the Mobile River.

January 7, 1839: The Judson Female Institute opens in Marion. ABaptist college, it was named for Ann Hasseltine Judson, one of thenation's first female foreign missionaries. In 1903 the school wasrenamed Judson College.

January 9, 1965: The battleship USS Alabama is dedicated in Mobile as a World War II memorial. Commissioned in August 1942, the Alabama served primarily in the Pacific, earning nine battle stars. She was awarded to the state in 1964 through the efforts of the USS Alabama Battleship Commission, and since her dedication has become a primary Mobile tourist attraction.

January 10, 1957: Six pre-dawn bombings in Montgomery damage four black churches and two ministers' homes, including that of Montgomery Bus Boycott leader Ralph Abernathy. The violence came on the heels of several shooting incidents in which recently desegregated city buses were fired upon.

January 11, 1861: The Alabama Secession Convention passes an Ordinance of Secession,declaring Alabama a "Sovereign and Independent State." By a vote of61-39, Alabama becomes the fourth state to secede from the Union.

January 12, 1951: Annie Lola Price of Cullman becomes the first woman to serve on the Alabama Court of Appeals when she is appointed to the court by Gov. Jim Folsom.The appointment was especially significant because state law at thetime prevented women from serving on juries. In 1952 Price was electedto the three-person court and served the state as an appeals judgeuntil her death in 1972.

January 15, 1879: The State Bar Association holds its organizational meeting in the State Capitol with former Gov. Thomas H. Watts presiding. During its first year eighty-one lawyers were admitted for membership. The Alabama State Bar Association listed 12,761 members in the year 2000.

January 16, 1830: A charter is granted by the state legislatureto the Tuscumbia Railroad Company. Tracks were built approximately twomiles to Sheffield and were completed in 1832. Though the rail carswere horse drawn and never powered by steam locomotives, it is stillconsidered the first railroad in Alabama.

January 16, 1967: Lurleen Wallaceis inaugurated as Alabama's first female governor--and only the thirdnationwide--as an estimated 150,000 look on. Wallace succeeded herhusband George C. Wallace, who was barred by law at the time from serving consecutive terms. She died in office of cancer on May 7, 1968.

January 19, 1818: The first legislature of the Alabama Territoryconvenes at the Douglass Hotel in the territorial capital of St.Stephens. Attendance is sparse with twelve members of the House,representing seven counties, and only one member of the Senateconducting the business of the new territory.

January 20, 1702: French colonists, led by Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, establish Fort Louis de la Mobile on a bluff twenty-seven miles up the Mobile River from Mobile Bay. The settlement, soon known simply as "Mobile,"moved to its permanent site at the mouth of the Mobile River in 1711.It served as the capital of the colony of Louisiana from its foundingto 1718.

January 26, 1839: Alabama's first state prison is established bylegislative act. In 1842, at the Wetumpka State Penitentiary, thestate's first inmate began serving time for harboring a runaway slave.The first female was incarcerated in 1850 for murder. Today, the Alabama Department of Corrections oversees a multi-facility state prison system.

January 26, 1983: Alabamians are shocked and saddened when retired University of Alabama football coach Paul “Bear” Bryantdies suddenly from a heart attack. Bryant began coaching at Alabama in1958 and went on to win six national championships with the team. In1981 he became football's “winningest” coach with 315 victories.

January 27, 1840: The Alabama legislature passes a jointresolution accepting the disputed boundary line with Georgia. Inrecognizing the line marked by a Georgia commission in 1826, thelegislature stated that “a fixed and known line between this State andGeorgia, is of far higher consequence to us, than the acquisition of aninconsiderable portion of territory.”

January 28, 1846: Montgomery is selected as capital of Alabamaby the state legislature on the 16th ballot. Montgomery won the finalvote largely because of promises of Montgomery city leaders to provide$75,000 for a new capitol and because of the emerging prominence of theBlack Belt region of the state.

January 30, 1956: With the Montgomery Bus Boycott about to enter its third month, segregationists bomb the home of boycott spokesman Martin Luther King Jr.The home sustained moderate damage, but no one was injured. The youngminister addressed the large crowd that gathered after the blast,declaring, "I want it to be known the length and breadth of this landthat if I am stopped this movement will not stop."

January 30, 1966: Alabama experiences its coldest ever recordedtemperature of -27°F at New Market in Madison County. The average lowtemperature during January for nearby Huntsville is around 29°.

January 31, 1902: Tallulah Bankhead,star of stage, screen, and radio in the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, is bornin Huntsville. The daughter of U.S.Congressman William B. Bankhead,Tallulah was most famous for her flamboyant lifestyle, throaty voice,and stage role in The Little Foxes (1939) and her part in the film Lifeboat (1943). [There is some question of the exact birthdate; this is the most generally accepted.]