Encyclopedia of Alabama

Olan Mills Studio, co-founded by Olan and Mary Stephenson Mills, formally opened in downtown Tuscaloosa in March 1933. Until 2011, when company president Olan Mills II sold it to its major competitor, it was among America's most significant 20th-century portrait photography businesses. Olan Mills, a Nebraska native, hitchhiked to Muscle Shoals, from Florida, in search of a business opportunity. On the way, he met photographers who travelled door-to-door selling enlarged copies of photographic portraits belonging to their customers. He joined them and began to learn the photography business. He married Mary Stephenson, who worked for a portrait studio in Selma, in 1930. In 1933 the couple was awarded a contract to take portrait photographs of students for the University of Alabama yearbook. Until 1935, the company offered only two products: 8 x 10-inch black-and-white prints on paper and smaller porcelain prints, which were printed on white translucent glass that resembled porcelain china. By 1935, Mary Mills, who was experienced in art and in hand-finishing photographs, had created a distinctive, easily recognizable portrait style for Olan Mills Studio. This new style, an 8x10 duotone portrait lightly touched up with oils, replaced the old 8x10 black and white prints. By 1939, the company had more than doubled in size, with 500 employees and a fleet of six airplanes and 100 cars, which had logged more than two million miles in the previous business year. In November 2011, when Olan Mills II sold the family-owned company, it had hundreds of studios across the nation and more than 20 in Alabama, mostly in Kmart and Belk stores, and a large and very active Church Directory Division, which since the 1970s produced church yearbooks that include portrait photographs of individuals and families. In 2011, Lifetouch Inc. announced the purchase of all three Olan Mills facilities and two years later announced the closure of two of them. In 2019, the last facility was closed. Image shows the first Alabama branch of the Olan Mills Inc. photography studio in 1938. It was located on the corner of 7th Street and 22nd Avenue in Tuscaloosa. (Photograph courtesy of the University of Alabama) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/olan-mills-studios-in-alabama/

On August 15, 1806, a federal contract was signed for establishing a postal road from Athens, Georgia, to New Orleans, Louisiana. A few months earlier, in April, Congress appropriated $6,400 to build one that would link Athens to Fort Stoddert on the Mobile River north of Mobile, in Alabama. The route was through Creek territory in lower Alabama. When completed, the post road would connect Washington and New Orleans over a distance of some 1,100 miles—300 miles shorter than the existing Natchez Trace. Alabama's Federal Road helped usher in a new era of national expansion, communication, and exploitation of Native American groups. It functioned as a major thoroughfare for the western migration into the Old Southwest for the first three decades of the 19th century. The land rush became known as "Alabama Fever" and it contributed to Alabama becoming a state in 1819. With the advent of steamboats and railroads, travel over the Federal Road diminished considerably. Worsening economic times in 1837 further reduced traffic along the road. In 1844, Samuel Morse's invention of the telegraph radically improved communication across large distances, lessening the need for frontier post roads as well. Photograph shows a remaining section of the Old Federal Road in Monroe County, near the Butler County line. (Photograph courtesy of Greg Waselkov) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/federal-road-in-alabama/

August 12 is World Elephant Day, which was established to raise global awareness about the threats elephants face, ranging from poaching to habitat loss. To mark the day, here's an article about Miss Fancy, a beloved elephant who delighted visitors at the now closed Avondale Zoo in the Birmingham area. (She's not as famous at the elephant mascot for the Crimson Tide.) Miss Fancy, an Indian elephant that was purchased from a circus, resided at the zoo from 1913 to 1934. Her caregiver at the zoo was John Todd, who at that time was the only African American elephant handler in the United States. Miss Fancy and Todd entertained at the zoo and also enjoyed walks around the neighborhood, especially to visit schoolchildren during lunch breaks. Many children climbed on her back, thrilled with their short elephant ride. Often, children shared their lunches with a delighted Miss Fancy. Her existence in the neighborhood was in large part due to the children, as they had raised $500 toward her purchase through penny drives. During her time in the city, Miss Fancy would lead parades and serve as a mascot for Howard College (present-day Samford University). Miss Fancy also enjoyed escaping from the zoo and her handler to roam the streets on her own. The local press reported that Miss Fancy was especially drawn to watching people through windows. While frightening to some, one girl reported delight in waking up to see Miss Fancy looking back at her through her bedroom window. Faced with financial difficulties during the Great Depression, Avondale Zoo sold Miss Fancy to the Cole Brothers Circus, where she toured under the name Bama until 1939. She died at a zoon in Buffalo, New York, in 1954. Miss Fancy is referenced in Fannie Flagg's 1987 novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café. Postcard image shows Miss Fancy in a park setting with a handler. (Photograph courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/miss-fancy/

August 7 is designated as National Lighthouse Day, in recognition of the 1789 Act of Congress that placed the nation's scattered lighthouses under federal control. The state's first lighthouse and range lights (fixed lights placed some distance apart and at differing heights for navigation) were built in 1822 at Mobile Point where Fort Morgan now stands. The 55-foot tall brick structure boasted a new Fourth Order lens, which was visible from a distance of between 12 and 14 miles in good weather. (Lighthouse lenses are "ordered" depending on their focal length, size, and power.) The Mobile Point lighthouse was the main guide for shipping on Mobile Bay until the Sand Island lighthouse was completed in 1838. The photograph shows the heavy damaged Mobile Point lighthouse sustained in August 1864 during the Battle of Mobile Bay. The damaged structure was replaced after the war with a temporary wooden tower and a Sixth Order light followed by a 50-foot iron tower in 1872. In 1966, the federal government replaced the 1872 structure with 125-foot tower. In 2004, the state of Alabama dismantled the lighthouse and its lens was on display at Ft. Morgan. Alabama's lighthouses were exclusively in and around Mobile Bay. (Photograph courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/lighthouses-of-alabama/

2026 Horseshoe Bend National Military Park Symposium
“Memory and Meaning and the Creek War”
held at Pebble Hill in Auburn, Alabama
August 22, 2026
9 AM - 12 PM
101 S. Debardeleben St., Auburn, Ala.
The event is free and open to the public. No registration required.

The Battle of Mobile Bay began on the morning of August 5, 1864, when Confederate guns from Fort Morgan opened fire on U.S. Navy rear admiral David Farragut's advancing fleet. It was the last major naval engagement of the Civil War. Mobile Bay was one of the most well-defended of southern ports. The main entrance was flanked by two substantial fortifications, Fort Morgan on Mobile Point and Fort Gaines on Dauphin Island, both defended by impressive artillery batteries. In addition to the forts, the channel was protected with a triple line of mines, commonly called torpedoes at the time, that were suspended below the surface and could sink or cripple any ship that hit one of them. Early in the action, the ironclad monitor USS Tecumseh hit a torpedo, sinking to the bottom of the bay with 94 men. The famous quotation, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!," which is attributed to Admiral Farragut, reportedly occurred after Farragut tied himself to the rigging of the USS Hartford to better observe and direct the battle. By mid-morning, Farragut's fleet seemingly had accomplished the impossible: racing past the forts, skillfully navigating the torpedo mines, and capturing the Confederacy's most powerful ship, the ironclad warship CSS Tennessee. The commander of the Confederate fleet, Franklin Buchanan, who was wounded by iron fragments from an exploding shell smashing into his leg, surrendered the Tennessee at about 10:00 a.m. To capture Fort Gaines, a combined bombardment of Federal ships and artillery was employed. The fort was surrendered on August 8 at 9:30 a.m. Federal guns began bombarding Fort Morgan on August 22, and its commander surrendered the following day. Although the city of Mobile remained in Confederate hands until the final days of the war, the port was closed to Confederate blockade runners, thus cutting off supply lines. The image shows a lithograph of the 1886 illustration entitled "Battle of Mobile Bay ... Passing Fort Morgan and the Torpedoes," by J. O. Davidson. The scene captures the sinking of the ironclad USS Tecumseh near Fort Morgan. Confederate gunboats are shown in the foreground on the left and U.S. Navy vessels approaching the bay are seen on the right. (Illustration courtesy of the National Museum of the U.S. Navy) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/battle-of-mobile-bay/

August 3 is National Watermelon Day. Reuben F. Kolb, Alabama's Commissioner of Agriculture from 1886-90, was recognized for his watermelon crops, specifically "Kolb's Gem," which was noted for its hardiness. Kolb initially devoted 20 acres of land to watermelon cultivation but eventually expanded to 200 acres given the breed's success. He was also was one of the early pioneers of peach production in Alabama during the 1880s. The Eufaula (Barbour County) native was prominent member of the Farmers' Alliance and was instrumental in creating the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries in 1883, making it the last state to create such an office. Kolb ran unsuccessful campaigns for governor as a Populist in 1892 and 1894. (Photograph of Kolb C=courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/reuben-f-kolb/

Alabama's first state constitution was officially adopted on July 30, 1819. It went into effect on August 2, 1819. It was drafted by a convention of delegates meeting in Huntsville (Madison County) from July 5 until August 2, 1819. The delegates included lawyers, physicians, ministers, planters, farmers, a surveyor, and a merchant. The document they created served as the transitional constitution as Alabama moved from a territory to a state. Statehood was granted on December 14, 1819. The first constitution created a system of government like the federal government by distributing power across three branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The document was progressive for its time in that it removed the educational and property-holding requirements for white male voters as in many other states. Furthermore, it did not restrict the holding of political offices to property owners, taxpayers, or members of the state militia and allowed voters to directly vote on members of the state House and Senate as well as the governor and amendments. Image shows a line drawing of Constitution Hall, where Alabama's first state constitution was signed in 1819. A replica of the building now stands on the same spot in the Alabama Constitution Hall Historic Park and Museum complex. (Image courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/alabama-constitution-of-1819/

Birmingham native Virginia Foster Durr, whose life spanned most of the 20th century, had a front-row seat for the New Deal, McCarthyism, and the civil rights movement. She spent years working to abolish the poll tax and to end segregation. Durr was one of the founding members of the Southern Conference for Human Welfare. The SCHW was a biracial coalition formed in Birmingham in 1938 to challenge racial segregation and improve living and working conditions in the South. She was drawn to the SCHW primarily because of her interest in ending the poll tax, but she was also attracted to the group's work with labor unions and its stance on civil rights. The NCAPT accepted support from anyone who opposed the poll tax and made no distinctions based on political affiliations. As a result, Durr was plagued by rumors that she was a Communist. Because Durr and her husband did not participate in the red-baiting of the postwar years, they were often targeted by anti-Communist activists. In 1954, Durr was called to New Orleans to testify before the Internal Security Committee, an agency similar to the House Un-American Activities Committee in its objective of investigating alleged Communists. The hearings in New Orleans came on the eve of the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which was expected to strike down segregation in public education. Scholars have suggested that Durr was targeted because Senator James Eastland wanted to strike back at Hugo Black, who had joined in the unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of Brown. Black was Durr's brother-in-law. In response to questioning, Durr gave her name, stated that she was not a Communist, and then refused to answer further questions, standing in silent defiance of the committee as she was questioned, occasionally taking out a compact and powdering her nose. (Photograph of Virginia Durr, with two of her young children, courtesy of the Birmingham Public Library Archives) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/virginia-foster-durr/

Morrison's Cafeterias, founded in Mobile, prospered from the 1950s through the 1970s as America's shopping-mall culture developed. The first Morrison's was opened by J. A. Morrison in Mobile on September 4, 1920. Its cafeteria dining concept of self-serve home-style cooked food offered at a modest cost, which was unique at the time, became synonymous with the southern United States. At its peak, the company expanded to more than 150 restaurants that offered meals 365 days a year with more than 100 food items prepared "homemade" daily. (Photograph of Morrison's Cafeteria storefront courtesy of the Mobile Press-Register.) Read the EOA article: https://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/morrisons-cafeterias/