To continue our Southern Garden Tour (which began in Mobile) we decided to go to the Birmingham area to see Aldridge Gardens.
Known as an industrial city, Birmingham city leaders selected the Roman god Vulcan to represent their city and built a statue to highlight the area’s growing industrial abilities. This statue of Vulcan is 56 feet tall, from toe to spear point, and weighs 101,200 pounds. Vulcan is the largest cast iron statue in the world and the largest metal statue ever made in the United States.
Terrific views of the city of Birmingham:
What is that rusty red group of pipes in the photo above? That’s the Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark!
We called in advance in order to book a guided tour of these historic furnaces. The tour provides an excellent history of industrial Birmingham as well as a unique opportunity to get up close to the furnaces.
We learned that after the Civil War many railroad men, land developers and speculators moved into the area to take advantage of the rich mineral resources. All the ingredients needed to make iron lay within a thirty-mile radius. In 1871 southern entrepreneurs founded a new city called Birmingham and began the systematic exploitation of its minerals.
One of these men was Colonel James Withers Sloss, a north Alabama merchant and railroad man. Construction of Sloss’s new furnace (City Furnaces) began in June 1881. In April 1882, the furnaces went into blast. After its first year of operations, the company had sold 24,000 tons of iron. At the 1883 Louisville Exposition, the company won a bronze medal for ‘best pig iron.’
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| Pig Iron |
Birmingham is not all industrial these days! They do have a lovely art collection at the Birmingham Museum of Art including sculpture surrounding the outside!
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| “Super Line Volume” by Yaacov Agam |
The murals of Merritt Johnson are featured on many walls.
There was a special exhibition, “All Things Bright and Beautiful”:
And another entitled “An Epic of Earth and Water: Clare Leighton and the New England Industries Series”. This exhibition featured several examples of Leighton’s work from block to print. Here is one example depicting the industry of Grist Milling:
The Museum has a large permanent collection of Wedgwood that is beautifully displayed:
I really loved this abstract sculpture by Native American artist Allan Houser:
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| “The Potter” |
We found another beautiful garden in Birmingham.
Check out these blooms and sculpture from the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
More blooms in Monroe, Louisiana next month!
