National Historic Landmarks https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/taxonomy/term/15/all en Gaineswood, Marengo County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/10 <p>Begun in 1842 and modified in stages over eighteen years (1843-1861), Gaineswood is one of America’s most unusual neoclassical Greek Revival-style mansions. Amateur architect and cotton planter Nathan Bryan Whitfield refined his mansion with the help of skilled African-American craftsmen as the stylistic preference in America shifted from Greek Revival to Italianate. Gaineswood’s sprawling, asymmetrical floor plan and lavish decorative detail brilliantly reflect that shift. Gaineswood is one of the few Greek Revival homes that has Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:29:39 +0000 admin 10 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Kenworthy Hall, Perry County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/11 <p>Kenworthy Hall (built 1858 – 1861) ranks among the most intact surviving examples of architect Richard Upjohn’s distinctive asymmetrical Italian Villa style. Internationally known for his church architecture, and represented by nine existing National Historic Landmarks, Upjohn became one of the most original practitioners of domestic design in antebellum America.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:30:03 +0000 admin 11 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Montgomery (Snagboat), Pickens County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/12 <p>The steam-propelled sternwheel snagboat MONTGOMERY (1925) is one of a handful of surviving steam-powered sternwheelers in the country and is one of only two surviving Corps of Engineers snagboats. Snagboats cleared the western rivers of countless obstructions and allowed the spread of navigation to regions previously inaccessible. MONTGOMERY played a major part in the building of the Alabama-Tombigbee-Tennessee River Project, an alternative river system to the Mississippi, as well as serving to maintain the Apalachicola, Black Warrior, Chattahoochee, Coosa, and Flint Rivers.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:30:31 +0000 admin 12 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Montgomery Union Station and Trainshed, Mongomery County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/13 <p>Constructed in 1898, this an excellent example of late 19th-century commercial architecture served as the focal point of transportation into the city until the advent of commercial air travel. Montgomery Union Station is most significant for its trainshed, which illustrates the adaptation of bridge-building techniques to shelter structures, an important step in the history of American engineering.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:30:56 +0000 admin 13 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Moundville Site, Hale County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/14 <p>Settled first in the 10th century, Moundville is situated on a level area overlooking the Black Warrior River and consists of 34 mounds, the largest of which is over 58 feet high. The site represents a major period of Mississippian culture in the southern portion of its distribution and acted as the center for a southerly diffusion of this culture toward the Gulf Coast.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:31:23 +0000 admin 14 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com St. Andrew’s Church, Hale County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/15 <p>Constructed in 1853, this board-and-batten, Gothic Revival-style edifice exhibits the influence of 19th-century architectural leader Richard Upjohn. Large doors hung on strap iron hinges open into virtually unaltered interior with original pews, organ and stained glass. St. Andrew's is one of the Southeast's outstanding examples of the picturesque movement in American church building.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:31:48 +0000 admin 15 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Tuskegee Institute, Macon County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/16 <p>Perhaps the best-known African-American university in the country, Tuskegee was founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), a man who had been born and reared a slave. With a curriculum designed to provide industrial and vocational education for African-Americans, Tuskegee became the core and symbol of its founder's efforts to ameliorate the economic conditions of the African-American and improve his way of life. Tuskegee is most noted for its contributions in the field of agricultural research; in 1896, Dr.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:32:16 +0000 admin 16 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Brown Chapel, A.M.E Church, Dallas County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/7 <p>Brown Chapel African Methodist Church played a major role in the events that led to the adoption of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Brown Chapel was the headquarters of the Selma Voting Rights Movement and the starting point of the three Selma to Montgomery Marches. Media coverage of the violence during the marches showed that equal access to the ballot was far from being realized. The nation’s reaction to Selma’s “Bloody Sunday March” is widely credited with making the passage of the Voting Rights Act politically viable to an otherwise cautious Congress.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:25:36 +0000 admin 7 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/8 <p>This small, eclectic-style church, built in 1878, served as the original headquarters of the Montgomery Improvement Association, headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which carried out a successful boycott, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, of segregated city buses in 1955.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:28:46 +0000 admin 8 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com First Confederate Capitol, Montgomery County https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com/node/9 <p>On February 4, 1861, delegates from six Southern States which had seceded from the Union met in Alabama’s State Capitol; on February 8, the 37 delegates adopted a “Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of America.” A day later, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was elected President of the Confederation; he was inaugurated on the West Portico on February 18, the Confederate flag flying for the first time over this building. The Confederate Congress met in Montgomery until May 22, 1861, when the capital was moved to Richmond, Virginia.</p> National Historic Landmarks Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:29:09 +0000 admin 9 at https://www.alblackbeltheritage.com