Finley Roundhouse
The Finley Roundhouse is a historic railway roundhouse located in the Acipco-Finley neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama. It is one of the last two surviving railway roundhouses in the City of Birmingham and one of three surviving in the State of Alabama. It is also the largest reinforced concrete roundhouse in Alabama. It was built by the Southern Railway in 1915. History The Southern Railway built the Finley Roundhouse in 1915 as part of its new Finley Yard facility on Birmingham's Northside. The Finley Yard was named in honor of former railway president William Wilson Finley (1853-1913). The railway began acquiring land in the North Birmingham area in 1912 for the new facility under Finley's supervision. There were a number of facilities on the railway's Alabama Great Southern Railroad mainline near Downtown Birmingham and these facilities were small and couldn't keep up with the growing industrial traffic propagated by the booming steel and iron industry, and the Southern pla ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% from the 2020 Census, making it Alabama's third-most populous city after Huntsville and Montgomery. The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289, and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States. Birmingham serves as an important regional hub and is associated with the Deep South, Piedmont, and Appalachian regions of the nation. Birmingham was founded in 1871, during the post- Civil War Reconstruction period, through the merger of three pre-existing farm towns, notably, Elyton. It grew from there, annexing many more of its smaller neighbors, into an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on mining, the iron and steel industry, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Best Friend Of Charleston
The ''Best Friend of Charleston'' was a steam-powered railroad locomotive widely considered the first locomotive to be built entirely within the United States for revenue service. It produced the first locomotive boiler explosion in the United States. History The locomotive was built for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company by the West Point Foundry of New York in 1830. Disassembled for shipment by boat to Charleston, South Carolina, it arrived in October of that year and was unofficially named ''The Best Friend of Charleston''. After its inaugural run on Christmas Day, it was used in regular passenger service along a demonstration route in Charleston. At the time, it was considered one of the fastest modes of transport, taking its passengers "on the wings of wind at the speed of ." The only faster mode of travel was by an experienced horse and rider. On June 17, 1831, the ''Best Friend'' was the first locomotive in the US to suffer a boiler explosion. The blast i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tourism In Alabama
The state of Alabama has invested in aerospace, education, health care, banking, and various heavy industries, including automobile manufacturing, mineral extraction, steel production and fabrication. By 2006, crop and animal production in Alabama was valued at $1.5 billion. In contrast to the primarily agricultural economy of the previous century, this was only about 1% of the state's gross domestic product. The number of private farms has declined at a steady rate since the 1960s, as land has been sold to developers, timber companies, and large farming conglomerates. Non-agricultural employment in 2008 was 121,800 in management occupations; 71,750 in business and financial operations; 36,790 in computer-related and mathematical occupation; 44,200 in architecture and engineering; 12,410 in life, physical, and social sciences; 32,260 in community and social services; 12,770 in legal occupations; 116,250 in education, training, and library services; 27,840 in art, design and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Historic American Engineering Record In Alabama
History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well as the memory, discovery, collection, organization, presentation, and interpretation of these events. Historians seek knowledge of the past using historical sources such as written documents, oral accounts, art and material artifacts, and ecological markers. History is not complete and still has debatable mysteries. History is also an academic discipline which uses narrative to describe, examine, question, and analyze past events, and investigate their patterns of cause and effect. Historians often debate which narrative best explains an event, as well as the significance of different causes and effects. Historians also debate the nature of history as an end in itself, as well as its usefulness to give perspective on the problems of the p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Properties On The Alabama Register Of Landmarks And Heritage By County (Jefferson–Macon)
This is a list of properties on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage, sorted alphabetically by county. This list contains all entries for Jefferson County through Macon County, the other listings may be found here. The Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage is an official listing of buildings, sites, structures, objects, and districts deemed worthy of preservation in the U.S. state of Alabama. These properties, which may be of national, state, and local significance, are designated by the Alabama Historical Commission, under the authority of the Alabama Legislature. General criteria for inclusion in the Alabama Register includes that the property is at least 40 years old; is associated with events of state or local significance; is associated with the lives of persons of state or local significance; is representative of a type, style, or period of architecture; or is associated with Alabama's history or prehistory. It must also possess integrity of location and c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Irondale, Alabama
Irondale is a city in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. It is a suburb of Birmingham, northeast of Homewood and Mountain Brook. At the 2020 census, the population was 13,497. Irondale is the location of the Irondale Cafe. Author Fannie Flagg used this for her fictional setting in her novel ''Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe'' (1987). The city is the site of Catholic radio/television broadcaster Eternal Word Television Network, or (EWTN). The city's annual Whistle-Stop Festival attracts thousands to its eclectic mix of art, food and music. History On October 5, 1887, the people of Irondale petitioned for incorporation. The town incorporated as Irondale (after Irondale Furnace) on October 19, 1887, following a vote on October 17, 1887. The 1916 Irondale earthquake, magnitude 5.1, caused some damage in the area, and was felt in neighboring states. In 1981, Mother Angelica founded the Eternal Word Television Network, after starting operations in a garage. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina, the county seat of Charleston County, and the principal city in the Charleston–North Charleston metropolitan area. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean formed by the confluence of the Ashley, Cooper, and Wando rivers. Charleston had a population of 150,277 at the 2020 census. The 2020 population of the Charleston metropolitan area, comprising Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester counties, was 799,636 residents, the third-largest in the state and the 74th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States. Charleston was founded in 1670 as Charles Town, honoring King CharlesII, at Albemarle Point on the west bank of the Ashley River (now Charles Towne Landing) but relocated in 1680 to its present site, which became the fifth-largest city in North America within ten years. It remained unincorpor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 living within the city limits, it is the eighth most populous city in the Southeast and 38th most populous city in the United States according to the 2020 U.S. census. It is the core of the much larger Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to more than 6.1 million people, making it the eighth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Situated among the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains at an elevation of just over above sea level, it features unique topography that includes rolling hills, lush greenery, and the most dense urban tree coverage of any major city in the United States. Atlanta was originally founded as the terminus of a major state-sponsored railroad, but it soon became the convergence point among several rai ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South Carolina Canal And Railroad Company
The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company was a railroad in South Carolina that operated independently from 1830 to 1844. One of the first railroads in North America to be chartered and constructed, it provided the first steam-powered, scheduled passenger train service in the United States. Chartered under act of the South Carolina General Assembly of December 19, 1827, the company operated its first line west from Charleston, South Carolina in 1830. The railroad ran scheduled steam service over its line from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hamburg, South Carolina, beginning in 1833. Some sources referred to the railroad informally as the ''Charleston and Hamburg Railroad'', a reference to its end points, but that was never its legal name. In 1839, The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company, which had built no track of its own, gained stock control of The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, which continued to operate under that name. In 1844, The South ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Birmingham District
The Birmingham District is a geological area in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama, where the raw materials for making steel, limestone, iron ore, and coal are found together in abundance. The district includes Red Mountain, Jones Valley, and the Warrior and Cahaba coal fields in Central Alabama. Industrial development The industrial development of these resources began, in limited fashion, before the American Civil War (attracting the attention of Wilson's Raiders in the course of that conflict). Beginning in 1871 with the founding of the City of Birmingham and the construction of the first blast furnaces, the development of the district enjoyed explosive growth, slowed only by a deficit of skilled labor and investment capital. This boom earned for Birmingham the nicknames "The Magic City" and "Pittsburgh of the South", and also spurred the growth of several independent industrial cities and dozens of company towns. By the end of the 19th century, Birmingham was the third ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Norfolk Southern Railway
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31,250 km) in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia, and has rights in Canada over the Albany to Montréal route of the Canadian Pacific Railway. NS is responsible for maintaining , with the remainder being operated under trackage rights from other parties responsible for maintenance. Intermodal containers and trailers are the most common commodity type carried by NS, which have grown as coal business has declined throughout the 21st century; coal was formerly the largest source of traffic. The railway offers the largest intermodal rail network in eastern North America. NS was also the pioneer of Roadrailer service. Norfolk Southern and its chief competitor, CSX Transportation, have a duopoly on the transcontinental freight rail li ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alabama Great Southern Railroad
The Alabama Great Southern Railroad is a railroad in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It is an operating subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS), running southwest from Chattanooga (where it connects with the similarly owned Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway) to New Orleans through Birmingham and Meridian. The AGS also owns about a 30% interest in the Kansas City Southern-controlled Meridian- Shreveport Meridian Speedway. In 1970 AGS reported 3854 million net ton-miles (5627 million net tonne-kilometers) of revenue freight and ; at the end of that year it operated of road and of track. (Those totals do not include Class II subsidiary Louisiana Southern.) History The AGS's oldest predecessor was the Wills Valley Railroad, chartered by the Alabama Legislature in February 1852 to extend from a point on the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad northeast to the Georgia state line. In January and February 1854 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |