Frank Gamble Blair, 1860-1938, Mayor of Tuscaloosa from 1904 to 1906

F G Blair452.jpg

Title

Frank Gamble Blair, 1860-1938, Mayor of Tuscaloosa from 1904 to 1906

Subject

Mayors
Civic leaders

Description

Frank Blair (September 8, 1860 - October 9, 1938) was born in Buffalo, Illinois, the son of Alexander McGinley Blair and Amanda Gamble Blair, both of whom were Pennsylvania natives.

 The family ultimately moved to Ottawa, Kansas, where the elder Blair was involved in railroad promotion, and part owner and president of one of two local banks. The rival bank was owned by Peter Shiras, an Ohio native who had served during the Civil War in the cavalry force of Union General James H. Wilson that invaded Alabama in the Spring of 1865. Shiras was not among General John T. Croxton's Brigade that destroyed parts of Tuscaloosa and Northport, but was involved in the Battle of Selma on April 2, 1865.

Joining these two prominent, wealthy rival banking families, Frank Blair married the daughter of Peter Shiras, Edna Shiras, on July 20, 1868. The couple appears to have remained in Kansas for some period of time, but in 1895 moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where Frank and his father constructed and operated a grain elevator (the Western Elevator Company) and engaged in mining operations in the Brookwood area.

This was a period when resentments arising out of the Civil War were still acute among some older Tuscaloosa residents and it was likely for this reason that Blair always stressed that he was from Kansas without mentioning he was a native of Illinois. He was still an outsider, however, and although successful in business and achieving election as a City Alderman in 1900, there is evidence he and his wife had some initial difficulty gaining traction in local social circles. This appears to have changed when Edna Blair's sister, Mary Shiras, married Dr. Alston Fitts, a member of an old, prominent Tuscaloosa family.

But Frank Blair was still not that popular, at least no yet. Blair ran for mayor of Tuscaloosa against the incumbent, William G. Cochrane, in 1902 but lost. According to some accounts, Cochran accused Blair of being a "Damn Yankee" whose father had been one of Croxton's raiders, and this myth may have had an impact on the electorate. However, Blair beat Cochrane in a rematch in 1904 and served a two year term as Tuscaloosa mayor.

When he was sworn in, Blair committed to the "upbuilding of greater Tuscaloosa" in terms of infrastructure and improving the city's finances and quality of life. Among Blair's most enduring accomplishments as mayor was to change the designation of streets from names to numbers. Naturally this type of change was not popular among older residents, and they also may have resented that Blair utilized a planning expert from Detroit, Michigan, to create the new designations.

Blair's service to the Tuscaloosa community did not end when his term as mayor expired. He began a five year stint as Waterworks Commissioner in 1906, a thankless job given that the source of Tuscaloosa's water was then the polluted Warrior River. In 1909, Blair developed Tuscaloosa's first residential subdivision, Pinehurst. The personal residence he built there was later purchased by H.E. Westervelt, the president of Gulf States Paper Corporation. In 1910, Blair was instrumental in the construction of a branch of the L & N Railroad from Birmingham to Tuscaloosa through the Brookwood coal mine area. In 1916, Blair was a charter member and president of the Rotary Club, and in 1919 he organized the Tuscaloosa Country Club of which he remained president through 1934. It was during this period (1932) when a killer tornado struck Tuscaloosa and Northport, and Blair was heavily involved in leading disaster relief efforts. Before his death in 1938, Blair also served as a member of the State Docks Commission.

Following Blair's death, the editor of The Tuscaloosa News wrote that: "Frank Blair was as hard-headed, clear-sighted [a] businessman as ever walked the streets of this town, and luckily for us, he elected to turn his talents into political and civic channels as well as into his own personal channels."

Blair was inducted into the Tuscaloosa County Civic Hall of Fame in 2001, the first year of the award that was designed to honor citizens who had made long-term, significant contributions to the development of the county while at the same time celebrating the community's history and heritage.

 

Sources: James Pickett Jones. Yankee Blitzkrief: Wilson's Raid Through Alabama and Georgia (Lexington, Ky., 2000) 75-100, 147-151; Frank Wilson Blackmar, Kansas: A Cyclopedia of State History, Embracing Events, Institutions, Industries, Counties, town, Prominent Persons, Etc...with a Supplementary Volume Devoted to Selected Personal History and Reminiscence (1912), 3:1077; "Confirmed Reports by Engineers and Contractors," Engineering and Contracting 33 (June 29, 1910): 34;Tuscaloosa Area Virtual Museum; The Rotarian 10 (March, 1917): 235; Tuscaloosa News, January 13, 1931, January 26, 1931, May 8, 1932, May 7, 1933, January 7, 1934, October 10, 1938, March 10, 1938, March 10, 1950, September 21, 1952, September 15, 1967, April 24, 1969, November 19, 1978, March 17, 2001; Tuscaloosa Times-Gazette, May 19, 1902, Alugust 19, 1902, December 18, 1902, July 3, 1904, July 10, 1904, July 12, 1904, July 13, 1904, November 12, 1904, November 16, 1904, November 19, 1904, December 7, 1904, December 8, 1904, December 10, 1904 (publishing Blair's inaugural address).

Source

Chamber of Commerce of West Alabama

Contributor

Chris McIlwain (Description)
Betty Slowe (Description)

Type

Photograph

Identifier

703

Coverage

Tuscaloosa (AL)

Original Format

Photograph

Physical Dimensions

8 inches x 10 inches