By Dixie Norwood MSNHA graduate assistant Did you know that Florence is home to one of the 60 Usonian structures designed by innovative 20th-century architect Frank Lloyd Wright? The Rosenbaum
By Greg Gresham North Alabama Civil War Round Table MSNHA note: This post includes contemporary Civil War accounts using language we consider offensive today. We have many Civil War stories
By Brian Corrigan MSNHA music-preservation consultant Muscle Shoals music marked another tragic milestone last week with the passing of Swampers drummer Roger Hawkins. Born in Indiana, in 1945, Hawkins moved
By Greg Gresham North Alabama Civil War Round Table A few weeks ago, I wrote about the skirmish that pitted Union Cavalry, under Gen. Datus Coon against generals Frank Armstrong
By Greg Gresham North Alabama Civil War Round Table Often, while researching period documents of the Civil War, one finds names of towns, creeks, landmarks, etc.
By Debbie Wilson Executive director, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio What a year! Everything slowed down or came to a standstill all over the world. But not the music. Music continued
By Julia McGee M.A. in public history from the University of North Alabama, December, 2019 Former MSNHA graduate assistant (Text from “Women of the Muscle Shoals National Heritage Area”) The
By Dixie Norwood MSNHA graduate assistant Did you know that an Olympic winner was born here in northwest Alabama? That future Olympic athlete and winner, named Jesse Owens, was born Sept. 12, 1913, in
By Dixie Norwood MSNHA graduate assistant Did you know that a Civil War fort became the site of the first accredited high school for African Americans? In 1862, while Union forces
By Dixie Norwood MSNHA graduate assistant Did you know that the “Father of the Blues” was born and raised right in the heart of the Shoals area? William Christopher Handy was born
By Lee FreemanFlorence-Lauderdale Public Library,Local History-Genealogy Department Throughout the late 1820s and 1830s, there was pressure on the Alabama legislature to abolish slavery, with Quaker agents buying cotton that wasn’t
By Lee FreemanFlorence-Lauderdale Public Library,Local History-Genealogy Department “The Truth is Out There” was the tagline of hit TV show “The X-Files,” in which FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Ducovny) and