This is the last post in our series on train wreck photographs in the Tom Solomon Collection.
Railroading in the early 20th century could be dangerous, and train wrecks could be horrendous.
This was true for Engineer Richard G. (Dick) Morgan and his Fireman W. Brown Hunter who were driving Atlantic Coast Line passenger train…
In October 1889, tensions between Marshal Domingus and the Farmers Alliance leader George Stinger boiled over into the “Dothan Riot.”
The Domingus name is well known in Dothan.
In 1888, Dothan mayor A.C. Crawford appointed 19-year-old J.L. “Tobe” Domingus as town marshal to keep the peace and help control Farmer’s Alliance members who established their own cotton gin that competed with merchants’ and bankers’ commerce. In October 1889, tensions between Marshal Domingus and the Alliance leader…
The SP 4449 with Amtrak Excursion Train, Miami to Birmingham, passes Ewell Hill, Ewell, AL on Jan. 16, 1977. (Wiregrass Archives)
The Tom Solomon Photograph Collection sends us down a rabbit hole yet again with three unlabeled photos of, as it turns out, the American Freedom Train trip from Miami through the Wiregrass to Birmingham then to Portland, Oregon.
The SP No. 4449 passing through Dothan, Jan. 16, 1977. (Wiregrass Archives)
In 1972, as the US…
The ACL Extra East train on the siding at Grimes, a few miles east of the accident. (Wiregrass Archives)
The year 1963 was historically important in and around Alabama. It opened with the gubernatorial inauguration of George Wallace. That spring, civil rights marches erupted in Birmingham, including Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and the Children’s March. In May, to welcome Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, Governor Wallace raised the Confederate battle flag over the state…
