Alabama Short Stories
68 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 days ago - ★★★★ - 27 ratingsAlabama Shorts Stories takes over where our 4th grade Alabama history class left off. We dig a little deeper and find the stories that make Alabama a unique place to live and to visit. It's the perfect listen for when you are a little behind on your Alabama history.
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Episodes
The Cut in Red Mountain
January 11, 2022 09:00 - 13 minutes - 9.12 MBThis is our second story about Red Mountain this season and it is about the actual mountain. For decades there had been talk about tunneling through the mountain to help travelers coming from Homewood, Mountain Brook, and towns to the south. Officials even brought in a famous New York tunnel engineer to assess the plans. Finally, someone suggested they cut a slice out of the mountain and the rest is history. Not only was travel over the mountain improved, but the Red Mountain Expressway Cu...
The Wichahpi Commemorative Stone Wall – Tom’s Wall
January 04, 2022 09:00 - 8 minutes - 5.94 MBTuscumbia native Tom Hendrix had learned about his relatives through the stories his grandmother would tell him. A trip to Oklahoma and a meeting with a woman named Minnie Long would change the course of his life. 8.5 million pounds of stone later, Hendrix had finished a project to honor his great-great-grandmother Te-lah-nay. This is their story on this episode of the Alabama Short Stories podcast. Support the Podcast The podcast is free but it’s not cheap. If you enjoy Alabama Short Sto...
The Club at the End of the World
December 28, 2021 09:00 - 7 minutes - 5.39 MBWhat do you do when it’s December 31, 1999, and the end of the world is upon you? You celebrate at Birmingham’s iconic The Club of course, where the view of the apocalypse is unsurpassed. This is the story of the private club, “The Club” and the Y2K problem when our robot-overlords would soon rise up. This is the first story of three that happen along Red Mountain in Birmingham on the Alabama Short Stories podcast. Support the Podcast The podcast is free but it’s not cheap. If you enjoy Al...
John Pratt - Inventor of the Typewriter
December 21, 2021 09:00 - 7 minutes - 5.18 MBJohn Pratt lived in the sleepy town of Centre, Alabama where he was a writer, lawyer, and teacher. He eventually owned and edited the local paper. Pratt wrote a lot in his many careers. So much so that in an effort to cut down on the writer’s cramp, he invented a machine to write for him. In this episode of the Alabama Short Stories podcast, we learn about John Pratt’s road to inventing the typewriter. Support the Podcast The podcast is free but it’s not cheap. If you enjoy Alabama Short S...
Gordie Howe scores a goal
December 14, 2021 09:00 - 9 minutes - 6.84 MBWhen you think of ice hockey, you don’t think of Birmingham, Alabama. At least you didn’t in the mid-1970s when the Birmingham Bulls of the WHA came to town. For the next few seasons, some of the greatest hockey players of all time would come to the civic center coliseum including Bobby Hull, Wayne Gretzky, and the subject of this episode, Gordie Howe. In a professional career that started in 1946, Howe would score one of his most iconic goals in his career in the football capital of the sou...
Fess Whatley
December 07, 2021 09:00 - 9 minutes - 6.31 MBWhat do Erskine Hawkins, Sun Ra and Cleve Eaton all have in common? They were all students of Fess Whatley, famed Birmingham band leader at A.H. Parker High School. Whatley would end up training musicians that would populate some of the largest bands during his teaching tenure. Learn about Fess Whatley and student Erskine Hawkins in this, the first episode of Season 2 of the Alabama Short Stories podcast. Support the Podcast The podcast is free but it’s not cheap. If you enjoy Alabama Shor...
Alabama Short Stories Season 2 Teaser
November 29, 2021 17:00 - 1 minute - 1.32 MBWelcome to Alabama Short Stories Season 2. I’m your host, Shawn Wright. We have another season of great Alabama short stories that you may not have learned about in your Alabama Civics class or read in books. We have stories about the inventor of the typewriter and the Janney coupler used on trains. Both men were successful in their own ways, and they came from entirely different backgrounds. I tell stories about a man who spent his life on the highways of the south painting on barns and...
Mary Anderson: Inventor of the Windshield Wiper
June 29, 2021 11:00 - 10 minutes - 7 MBSome of the people we will talk about on Alabama Shorts Stories are inventors. You may be surprised at all the items that were created right here in Alabama. The windshield wiper for instance. This simple idea was a game-changer and today we probably take the windshield wiper for granted. As the saying goes, "you don't miss it until they're gone." In this final episode of season 1 of Alabama Short Stories, we learn about Mary Anderson and how a cold and rainy trip to New York City gave her...
Birmingham's Miss Liberty
June 22, 2021 11:00 - 8 minutes - 6.14 MBBirmingham has its share of statues around town. There are statues of people in Kelly Ingram Park, Linn Park, the UAB campus, Samford's Campus, the Birmingham Museum of Art, Five Points South, Rickwood Field, and the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Even Eddie Kendricks of the Temptations is on 4th Avenue North at 18th Street. I could go on and on about statues around town. The big three in Birmingham are Vulcan, Miss Electra, and Miss Liberty. And until 1989, they could see each other from th...
She Painted on Spider Webs
June 15, 2021 11:00 - 10 minutes - 7.23 MBIn an earlier episode of the Alabama Short Stories podcast, we talked about the painter William Frye. An artist who learned the ways of the masters at Heidelberg University in Prague, Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) and painted on traditional mediums such as stretched canvas. In this episode, we learn about Huntsville's own Anne Clopton. A self-taught painter, Clopton took a different path and chose to paint on spider webs. Find out about her choice of medium and why she chose a spider w...
The Portraits of William Frye
June 08, 2021 11:00 - 7 minutes - 4.89 MBMy parents have a set of portraits hanging in their living room of Ephraim H. Foster and his wife Susan A. Watkins. My third great-grandparents. Painted before the civil war, these portraits were passed down in the family to their daughter Bettie Foster. To her daughter, Susie Pointer, then to my grandmother Elizabeth Malone and finally to my father. Interest in these portraits was instrumental in me learning more about my family history. Portraits have always been more than a record. They...
The Sylacauga Meteorite
June 01, 2021 12:00 - 8 minutes - 6.11 MBSylacauga is known for many things. Most famously for its fine white Madre Cream marble, which has is used in buildings all over the world. In Washington D.C. alone, it has been used in some form in the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the U.S. Supreme Court building, in addition to the state of Alabama Capitol and the State Archives in Montgomery. And Sylacauga is known as the hometown of television star Jim Nabors, better known to all of us as “Gomer Pyle.” But this episo...
The First Radio Station in Alabama, WSY
May 25, 2021 09:00 - 12 minutes - 8.51 MBNot only do we get radio from towers located around the state, but we can also now get it from satellites. We can also get a form of radio as podcasts which you download to your phone or electronic device to listen to at your leisure. Some may argue that podcasts are not radio at all, but we can all agree that radio has been around all our lives. In Alabama, it started almost 100 years ago. There were very few companies in the early 1920s that had any experience with the high-powered electr...
Football Goes To Court, Homewood vs. Tuscaloosa
May 18, 2021 09:00 - 8 minutes - 5.81 MBIn 1974 Homewood High School and its football team were only three years old. The coach was only 26 years old. To think that a team this new, this young, could break into the Alabama State 4A football playoffs was unthinkable. But that was right where they stood after beating rival Mtn. Brook 48-6 to finish with a 9-1 record. At the end of the regular season, Tuscaloosa High School had an identical record but was declared the Region 7 champions, with a 5-1 regional record besting Homewood's...
Able and Baker in Space
May 11, 2021 05:00 - 8 minutes - 5.84 MBAlabama is lucky to have its share of astronauts who were born in Alabama or while working with NASA, lived here for a time, specifically in Huntsville. There is a chance you could run into an astronaut in Alabama. It's a slim chance but still a possibility. If you grew up in the '70s and made the annual pilgrimage to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, you have a really good chance to meet Mrs. Baker. She made her trip into space before the Mercury astronauts and lived out her life at the c...
Greenville Basketball and the First State Championship
May 04, 2021 09:00 - 8 minutes - 5.6 MBThirty short years after the first basketball game was played in Springville, Massachusetts, Greenville High School’s basketball season was just getting started. Sports fans in Greenville knew this team was special and that they would go far. The city council appropriated money to have electric lights on the ball court. Everyone in town went to the games. The talk of the town was that these boys would do them proud. The enthusiasm paid off when the team was invited to the 1921 state basketb...
Bear Bryant wants you to call your mama
April 22, 2021 19:00 - 9 minutes - 6.37 MBUniversity of Alabama coach Paul "Bear" Bryant was featured in many commercials during his time as a coach. None stood out more than one he was in for South Central Bell, the regional phone company. Listen in this podcast about how the commercial came about and where the iconic line about his mama came from. Support the Show. Support the Podcast The podcast is free but it’s not cheap. If you enjoy Alabama Short Stories, there are a few ways you can support us. Tell a friend about the p...
Alabama Short Stories Season One Teaser
April 20, 2021 19:00 - 1 minute - 1.12 MBHi, my name is Shawn Wright, the host, and creator of Alabama Short Stories. The podcast that was created to celebrate those stories about Alabama that you don’t hear about often, if ever. They are the stories that were not shared in your fourth-grade civics class. In the first season, we share two different stories of Alabama high school sports teams that had to overcome obstacles on their way towards a state championship. One team gets there and another doesn’t. We tell the stories of ...