Lily Flagg's Signal - Huntsville (AL) History Stuff

Fun fact: you can access all of the editions of Huntsville's first Black-owned newspaper, "The Huntsville Gazette," for free on the Library of Congress website. It was started by Charles Hendley in 1879!

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84020...

Online educational content is fun because of the rule of thirds:
A third of people say "Wow, didn't know this."
A third say "I knew this, thanks taking the time to explain/teach."
Then the final third see that and go "Everyone knows that, how stupid are you to think this is interesting?!"

Huntsville (AL) fun fact: there's a house in Twickenham that was built facing backwards; the front porch faced the backyard. Renovations in the 1920s while Henry Chase owned it were intended to make it look "less backward" by adding columns to the front and redoing parts of the interior.
(517 Adams)

Every time I see kudzu now, I think of them! (And the fact that Henry Chase lived in my beloved Backwards House!)

History with SueAnne: Baseball before the Trash Pandas SueAnne Griffith gives us all the history details of Baseball in the Rocket City

Hey look, I'm talking baseball history on TV!
www.tvliving.com/2025/01/28/h...

Is "Peter Pan" just a Kidz Bop version of Oscar Wilde's "Dorian Gray"?!

(A thought from a group chat that I needed to share)

Six baseball players in uniform pose in front of an electric street car.

One of my favorite historic photos of Huntsville, Alabama: baseball players posing in front of one of the city's street cars. Unsure of the exact date, but the electric street cars were 1900-1931.
🎙️🐄
(From the Monroe photos in HMCPL Special Collections)

Fun fact: Chase Nursery, which operated for decades northwest of town in the area now (fittingly) known as Chase, did many of their transactions by telegraph, with buyers sending plant orders in code. In addition to roses and fruit trees, they also sold... Kudzu. 🙃

And Pierce is ever so slowly walking to work, in the middle of the road, blocking the trolley.

Greatly appreciated! J. Emory Pierce could never.

If you're at a Southern university/institution that is closing your LGBTQ or DEI/DEIA offices please reach out to us. We are helping people preserve their department's archival history and will work with you to help ensure folks remain anonymous.

Fun fact, the guy who started the "Huntsville Times" once bought a wooden house at the Five Points intersection and then built a stone "castle" around it. It was torn down in the fifties, and now two gas stations and a chicken restaurant sit on that site.

Fun fact: the Huntsville in Texas was actually named after the Huntsville, Alabama. The Texas one was founded by two guys named Ephraim and Pleasant Gray, and they named their new settlement after their Alabama hometown, Huntsville.

Ooh nice, thanks for sharing!
(I see Von Braun and company getting a mention. Timely, as that's an episode I'm writing now. It's... A lot.)

(I am open to suggestions.)

Still trying to figure out how to balance what stuff goes on which platforms, but I'm thinking daily-ish Huntsville (Alabama) history facts here, plus the occasional "Uh, what?!" reactions to...*gestures at current events*

Hello there, history nerds! 💜