Personal Challenge 2018 - Week 22

This is the 22nd week of my personal 50-week States of the Union Challenge. Each week I research one of the 50 United States (in the order they attained statehood). I share tidbits of information about the state here on my blog and I create a card that is inspired by something about that state.

This week's state (the 22nd one to attain statehood) is...

Alabama

Date of Statehood: December 14, 1819

Alabama once had wooden roads. The Pratt Cotton Gin Factory in the 1840s needed a reliable route along the Alabama River, so owner Daniel Pratt used pine logs cut in half with the flat side up to act as a pathway that stretched four miles long.

Though Rosa Parks’ refusal to move from her seat on a Montgomery bus helped spark a prominent civil rights movement, she wasn’t the first to take up the issue. Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to move to the back of a public transport nine months prior, on March 2, 1955; Colvin was tossed in jail. One possible theory as to why she didn’t get more recognition is because Parks, an adult, may have been perceived as more appropriate to help advance the cause than a teenager.

One area post office takes the whole inclement-weather pledge very seriously. A route in Magnolia Springs is made up entirely of mailboxes situated riverside. It takes postal workers in a boat more than four hours to service 180 homes along the 31-mile stretch.

The Monroeville courthouse where novelist—and future Pulitzer Prize winner—Harper Lee watched her father practice law got a facelift after To Kill a Mockingbird made Lee a national sensation. It’s now a museum devoted to the book. Visitors can often catch a dramatization of the trial with local actors.

Albertville, Alabama, is the fire hydrant capital of the world.

Two Alabama residents made the first-ever 911 call on February 16, 1968. The local telephone company in Haleyville installed a first-responder system based on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommendations for a national emergency line. Alabama Speaker of the House Rankin Fite called U.S. Representative Tom Bevill. It wasn’t long-distance, though: both men were in the City Hall building at the time. 

When Miss Baker became the first monkey to survive a space expedition in 1959, she was hailed as a hero in Huntsville. When natural causes claimed her in 1984, a graveyard plot was set up outside of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. People sometimes leave bananas on top of her tombstone.

Shelby County Habitat for Humanity holds the record for the world's fastest home building. The house is located in Montevallo and only took 3 hours, 26 minutes and 34 seconds to complete from start to finish.

Scottsboro is the ultimate destination for unclaimed travel baggage. The city is home to the massive, department-store sized Unclaimed Baggage Center, which is where lost luggage gets routed after all attempts to locate owners have been exhausted. The goods are then sold, thrift store-style, to customers. (In case you were wondering, only one traveler has ever bought an item that turned out to be theirs to begin with: a pair of ski boots.)

Operating on the heart was a rare and dangerous business when Luther Hill took a scalpel to a wounded 13-year-old boy in Montgomery in 1902. Thought to be the first cardiac operation in the United States, Hill sutured a knife wound in the heart while his patient was knocked out on a kitchen table.

Here are some unique Alabama laws...

You must have windshield wipers on your car.

It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses.

It is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.

Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.

It’s illegal to wear a fake mustache in church because it could cause laughter.

In Alabama, it's considered a felony to participate in bear wrestling.

It's illegal to play dominoes in Alabama on Sundays.

It is illegal to impersonate a person of the clergy.

I've decided to go with this bit of Alabama information for my card's inspiration... Alabama was the first state in the nation to recognize Christmas as a legal holiday (in 1836). The US as a whole didn't acknowledge it as such until 1870.

Thank you for stopping by my blog today!

Supplies Used

Image: Whipper Snapper All Tangled Up stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black Ink and colored with Copic Markers

Sentiment: Stampin UP! Merry Christmas stamped with Catherine Pooler Midnight Ink

Paper: Recollections Black, Red, and White CS and DP from the Paper Studio Winter Wonderland Paper Pad

Special Features: Imagine Crafts Pico Embellisher and Stickles Glitter Glue

Embellishments: Foof-a-La Buttons and Ribbon from the Thrift Store