By Jeff Benton | May. 31, 2011 | Montgomery Advertiser
Algernon Blair (1873-1952) was born in Brooklyn to English parents who immigrated to the United States in 1863. The family was in Macon, Ga. by 1880. There, Alexander Blair worked as an architect. One son followed in his father's footsteps, becoming an architect, but Algernon, after graduating from high school at 15, worked as his father's business manager. Algernon's interest was not in design, but in construction.
By Rick Harmon • August 8, 2010
By being able to reach a blazing 6 mph, it earned the name The Lightning Route. While that may not seem like a high-speed route today, no one can argue that The Lightning Route wasn't before its time.
W. R. Robertson, in his Reminiscences of the Early Settlers of Montgomery County, says about the Montgomery of the 1840s: "Montgomery was composed of a good class of people to begin with; they were as a rule moral and sober, notwithstanding they could buy whiskey for twenty-five cents a gallon." This happy condition evidently did not last long.
THE PRESIDENTS
182 years later, most of us know that the town of Montgomery was formed in 1819 by the merger of John Scott's East Alabama Town and Andrew Dexter's New Philadelphia. We know that Dexter had named New Philadelphia's five east-west streets for the first five presidents of the United States and its six north-south streets for six naval heroes of the War of 1812, but how much do we know about these leaders?
November 25, 2007
Montgomerians have enjoyed Oak Park with its interesting and diverse history for more than a century. In 1886, the Capital City Street Railway Company purchased the 105 acres to serve as a city park. Soon after, in 1889, the Highland Park Improvement Company bought the property to use in their neighborhood development plans. By 1899, Montgomery officials were persuaded by Mayor John Clisby to purchase a 45-acre section of the land. The acreage, then called Oak Grove, cost $25,000.