"Smoke Over Alabama"

Back to Alabama I go, this time through the pages of the National Geographic Magazine, December, 1931, in an article by Frederick Simpich, "Smoke Over Alabama."  It seems that Alabama's history of pre-Civil War slavery disproportionately overshadows its colorful history, beginning with a visit in 1540 by Spanish explorer, Hernando de Soto. He fought with a Native American chief and left.  The French had a settlement on Mobile Bay approximately in 1702 but the land was claimed by England in the Carolina charter.

Ownership matters were settled when "Congress in 1812 annexed the Mobile district of West Florida to what was then the vague, vast Mississippi Territory," . . . and then the whole of Alabama "was made a state in 1819" (p. 707).

Simpich gives a rich history of Alabama.  "Through Ante-bellum decades. . . Alabama grew up.  Politics bubbled.  Towns, plantations, slaves - all multiplied. . . Cotton was King . . . Then the Confederacy.  Years of war and ruin for Alabama . . . Peace, reconstruction. But tenant farmers now in place of slave work . . . growth of the coal industry . . . railroads, lumber yards, canals, iron mines, steel mills, paper mills, tire factories, dairies, poultry farms.  To-day (1931) smoke rises over Alabama, to challenge the ancient agrarian tradition" (p. 716).

The coal mines near the city of Birmingham were said to be large "enough to last some 2,000 years" (p. 754).  Other important products included the previously mentioned cotton, turpentine from trees, vegetables, watermelons, a marble quarry, bees, and fish from the coast in the Mobile Bay.

There is a large section of color photographs.  "De Soto Falls, on Lookout Mountain, in northeast Alabama" is very picturesque (photo caption, p. 717).  The large azalea bushes are quite colorful (p. 721).  In Montgomery many ante-bellum homes recall the glories of an epoch that is gone: these strongholds of plantation aristocracy give the state capital its unmistakable atmosphere of the Old South of which not even its airports and broadcasting stations can rob it" (p. 722). 

FYI: "Camels were used as work animals before the war between the States on Alabama plantations: (p. 749).

So many Native American names are scattered across the state: Tuscumbia, Tombigee, "Tuscaloosa, Tallapoosa, Opelika and Talladega; Okatupa and Eufaula, Cohaba and Pushmataha, Tuskega" and on and on (p. 749). 

"Packs of hounds are plentiful in Alabama.  Much of the State is still thinly settled and rich in wild life . . . fox hunting is still a popular sport" (p. 733).  "Pageants, fiestas and mass spectacles are popular with the people of Alabama.  Besides Mardi Gras at Mobile and the cotton ball at Birmingham, various folk festivals are held each year in other cities" (photo caption, p. 732).

Alabama is also the land of Spanish moss - "moss so straight and entangled that you can fancy some fairy hairdresser comes each dawn to comb it" (p. 749).  (Please see my travel blog, www.rockingthruworld.blogspot.com, to see my personal love for Spanish moss in the southern United States, Friday, January 31, 2014, "Winter Escape! Day #2: Land of Palm Trees!" through Wednesday, February 26, 2014, "Winter Escape! Day #28: Back to Hilton Head Island!")

The city of Birmingham was only 60 years old in 1931, having grown up at the junction of two railroads.  "Now it is the mightiest industrial city in the South" (p. 755).  Yet Mobile is old enough to have "lasting memories of gallant French, English, and Spanish governors" (p. 755).  In the State Capitol of Montgomery, "The Confederacy was formed . . . a metal star set in the Capitol steps shows where Jefferson Davis stood when he took the oath of office" (p. 755).

Simpich concludes that "Now factory chimneys form Alabama's cloud of smoke by day and pillar of fire by night.  She is no longer at peace with Nature.  Big powder blasts rock the ancient hills. . . and files of behemoth roadmaking machines growl over hilly highways" (p. 758).  While passing through the coastal part of Alabama last June, I remember that there seemed to be waterways everywhere!