Browse Items (210 total)

As a performer and teacher, Zelpha Wells has performed across the U.S. and teaches music lessons free of charge. Wells founded the Zelpha’s Cultural Development Corp., an after school program that encourages positive character development. Her awards…

Tuscaloosa native, W. W. “Foots” Clements took a summer job at the local Dr. Pepper bottling plant during his time at the University of Alabama in 1935. Starting as a small-town distributer, “Foots” was propelled into a life-long sales career. He…

Few people can call the University of Alabama campus home. Students and even presidents of the institution live there only temporarily. Wilma Hosea O’Rourke, born on Nov. 28, 1921, grew up there.

Zeb Hosea, O’Rourke’s father, was a steamfitter…

Willis E. Penfield, civic leader and retired vice president of Gulf States Paper, was elected a director for the company whose production operation he headed many years.

Penfield was a second generation executive with Gulf States Paper. His first…

Willie Bies Jr. was one of the first black police officers in Tuscaloosa. In 1966, he was hired by Police Chief William Marabel.

The Civil Service Board at that time used an employee test that discriminated against blacks, so Marabel hired Bies…

"Pick" Cowden, as he was called, was a farmer-merchant in north Tuscaloosa County, Ala.. He was married on December 17, 1868 to Elizabeth Samantha Dodson ( December 11, 1852 - October 12, 1930), the daughter of William Rufus and Annie Palmer…

William Henry Sheppard, the son of freed former slaves, was born on March 8, 1865, in Waynesboro, Virginia. he was a graduate of Hampton Institute (now Hampton University, in Virginia) and Stillman Institute (now Stillman College, in Tuscaloosa). He…

Portrait of businessman William Engel who in October 1966 helped bring the McGregor-Doniger clothing manufacturing company to Cottondale. Mr. Engel, though from Birmingham, had lived in Cottondale as a child.

A monument for Captain William Dollar, said to have been a soldier in the Revolutionary War (undocumented) stands in the cemetery of Fellowship Baptist Church on Gordo-Reform Road. It Is said that the monument stands on land where Dollar had his…

In 1901, Dr. William Dempsey Partlow became associated with Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa and in 1919 was elected superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals. In 1923, the Alabama School for Mental Defficients was established in Tuscaloosa. It was…