Prior to the establishment of Birmingham, the Avondale community was known as King's Spring as residents clustered around the spring which ran from a cave in the area now known as Avondale Park. Likely the only blood shed in Jefferson County, during the War Between the States took place at the site of Kings Spring. Union soldiers were watering their horses at the spring, and Confederate troops fired upon them and drove them away. The wife of Jefferson County Sheriff Abner Killough was shot in the breast by a stray bullet as she watched the skirmish from her front porch.
The Birmingham Zoo was once located at Avondale Park. in the 1960s and 70s, Avondale Park became the closest experience Birmingham had to the hippie culture as rock concerts were held and Avondale Park became the center of the hip culture in the Birmingham area as young people would make weekend treks to hang out at Avondale Park. Ampng the concerts was a 1969 concert by the Allman Brothers.
Today, a beautiful lake remains as the center of Avondale Park. Behind the park is a large amphitheater, still a place for concerts, including the annual Birmingham Folk Festival, held each Fall. Also, the Avondale Park Arts Alliance conducts an annual Art in Avondale Park festival, to be held this year on Saturday, October 31.
But on a daily basis, you find romantically inclined couples strolling through the park, ducks alternating between the lake and the sidewalks, and laid-back citizens fishing in the lake. Adjoining ball fields are regularly used, including regular soccer games in the large field. A late afternoon walk through Avondale Park with the sun reflecting off the lake, is as peaceful and serene as any scene this writer has experienced in any urban setting.
2 comments:
I have many fond memories of going to Avondale park to feed the ducks in the pond and other fun summer activities. Thanks for the nice photo.
There is a disconnect here with "Culture from a Conservative Viewpoint."
Public parks like Avondale date from the City Beautiful movement around the turn of the century. See http://xroads.virginia.edu/~cap/CITYBEAUTIFUL/city.html
It was a movement of liberals and socialists wanting to tax and spend honest taxpayer money on social schemes destined to fail. One of its leaders, Daniel Burham, was an admitted leftist.
Here and there, Big Spring park in Huntsville is another example, you can see these monuments to the sporadic leftists Alabama has produced.
All of these movements and momuments now stand discredited, alongside the Soviet Union, next to the success of American capitalism.
The proper conservative economic principle here is that property is always best left in private, not public, hands so it can be used productively, not go to waste, like Avondale did as the center of hippie culture, and as part of the free enterprise market system. If Avondale was in private hands, it could be producing profit, generating jobs, and turning Alabama around.t
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