Alabama Heritage Places in Peril

Henderson Park Recreation Center, Tuskegee, Macon County

10/13/2017

(Photo courtesy Michael Panhorst)

When the recreation center was built in Tuskegee’s public park by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression, it was intended for whites only. Jim Crow Era segregation generally prohibited blacks from using the city’s recreational facilities, though many blacks were employed in the operation and maintenance of the handsome brick and stone structure that stands adjacent to the community swimming pool. In 1972 the park was integrated, and in 1985 it was renamed for Edwin B. Henderson (1883-1977), the Father of Black Sports and an important member of the NAACP who died at his son’s home in Tuskegee.

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Finley Roundhouse, Birmingham, Jefferson County

10/13/2017

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(Photo courtesy Michael Panhorst)

The Southern Railroad Company built Finley Roundhouse in northwest Birmingham to service its locomotives in 1915, when the city’s iron and steel production made it a hub of railroad operations.

Like much other industrial architecture of the time, the Roundhouse was built with steel-reinforced concrete walls and roofs. These provided large open spaces for working on enormous locomotives. A double band of clerestory windows under the elevated central portion of the nearly ﬂat roof washes the twenty-ﬁve engine berths in the spacious interior with natural light. Though the railroad tracks inside the building and the ninety-foot diameter turntable that sat in the semi-circular courtyard outside have been removed, the Spartan character of the cavernous interior remains as a testament to Birmingham’s industrial might during the early twentieth century.

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Chilton County Training School, Clanton, Chilton County

10/13/2017

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Chilton County Training School, Clanton, Chilton County

(Photo courtesy Michael Panhorst)

In 1924 the ﬁrst Chilton County Training School for African Americans was completed thanks to contributions of land, labor, and building materials, plus ﬁnancial support from the Rosenwald Fund, a foundation that supported construction of thousands of schools for African Americans in the South during the Jim Crow Era when white school boards routinely discriminated against blacks. The school provided classes for ﬁrst through ninth grades. In 1940 the county purchased ﬁve adjacent acres and added buildings for vocational education and home economics, but the original wooden building burned in 1949.

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Overton Farm, Hodges, Franklin County

10/13/2017

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(Photo courtesy Collier Neeley)

Abner Overton, a tobacco peddler from North Carolina, and his wife, Judy Mae, purchased 160 acres of farm land on Bear Creek in present-day Franklin County in 1817, when the land was part of the Mississippi Territory. In 1819, the year Alabama became a state, the Overton family built a one-room log cabin. Over the course of their lives, they added to the cabin and built two barns, corn cribs, and other agricultural structures, many of which still stand. The farm remained in the family for a century and a half, until the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) purchased it in 1969 as a part of the Bear Creek Water Control Project.

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Fort Davis Railroad Depot, Fort Davis, Macon County

10/13/2017

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(Photo courtesy Robin McDonald)

The Seabord Savanna-Americus Railway Depot at Fort Davis in southern Macon County is characteristic of small town railroad stations constructed across the South at the turn of the twentieth century. The simple wooden structure with board-and-batten siding was built in 1904 to replace an 1892 depot, which had burned. In the 1970s the Seabord System discontinued service to Fort Davis and gave the depot to the Fort Davis Historical Group. A decade later the railroad tracks through town were removed, leaving the quaint station isolated from its original purpose. About that time members of the local Methodist church repainted the old depot.

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Alabama's Endangered Historic Landmarks

Each year since 1994, Alabama Heritage has highlighted threatened historic sites throughout Alabama. The “Places in Peril” list has identified more than 215 imperiled historic resources throughout the state, and is compiled by the Alabama Historical Commission and the Alabama Trust for Historic Preservation. The locations highlight the results of deferred maintenance, perceived obsolescence, development pressures, and lack of funding—forces that now more than ever threaten our cultural legacy. But awareness is a powerful force, too, and can cultivate a renewed determination to be responsible stewards of our heritage. For more information, visit the AHC or the ATHP websites. Alabama Heritage is proud to bring to you a selection of the places designated as perilous. Please keep your comments to information relevant to the featured place in peril. Alabama Heritage reserves the right to delete any comment that we deem inappropriate.

Places in Peril Home

Henderson Park Recreation Center, Tuskegee, Macon County

Finley Roundhouse, Birmingham, Jefferson County

Chilton County Training School, Clanton, Chilton County

Overton Farm, Hodges, Franklin County

Fort Davis Railroad Depot, Fort Davis, Macon County

Alabama's Endangered Historic Landmarks﻿

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Alabama's Endangered Historic Landmarks