Northwest Alabama

Last Updated on January 29, 2024 by Ranchers

Understandably, northwest Alabama encompasses a large swath of undefined land, but our landmark for this trip was the Northwest Alabama Regional Airport, so any complaints can be forwarded to Google. Our first stop, about thirty minutes north of Birmingham along I65 was the Ave Maria Grotto, a testament to the ingenuity and artistic vision of a Benedictine monk.
We continued along routes 36 and 157 for another hour and a half to arrive in Lauderdale County along one of the widest stretches of the Tennessee River to traverse Alabama. From the county seat of Florence, the historic sites of Hellen Keller’s birthplace, the Rosenbaum home (the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in Alabama), and both FAME and Muscle Shoals music studios are all within 20 minutes of each other. Pretty remarkable for such a tiny population.
Tuscumbia, part of the Muscle Shoals District, also known as America’s First Frontier Railroad Town has a fully restored depot to its original condition. It is less than five minutes from Helen Keller’s birthplace and worth the phot op, especially if you are fascinated by trains like I am.

Ave Maria Grotto

At first blush, the grotto has the feel of a Rte. 66 attraction. It is an oddity to be sure, but it represents much more than a simple gimmick to bring tourists in (although the monks absolutely used the work to drive tourism). The beginnings of the grotto stem from the work of Brother Joseph Zoetl who emigrated to Alabama’s only Benedictine monastery. History does not indicate whether or not Brother Joseph was attempting to atone for something, but he must have had an awful lot of help from the Brotherhood just to find St. Bernard Abbey in 1892.

Brother Joseph was assigned to the Abbey boiler room for his daily duties which must have been a combination of heavy physical labor and extreme boredom. To pass the time, Brother Joseph began to construct some miniature rock grottoes around tiny religious figurines using stone, concrete, and donated material/trash such as broken plates, ceramic tile, marbles, and seashells. His superiors liked the work and began to sell them at the Abbey gift shop, selling over 5,000. During this time, he also began to construct miniature replicas of Holy Land structures. Building on the popularity of the grottoes, the superiors once again pressed Brother Joseph to continue his work despite his advancing age. The miniatures were initially placed in the monastery gardens but their popularity forced them to be moved where they sit now.

Today, the hillside where the first statues were placed has been transformed into a quarter mile walk through about 150 statues, mostly religious, but many are also mythical and fantastic in nature. The works come from Brother Joseph’s extensive readings of history and the Bible. Fortunately, he also had an incredible imagination. Once he had built six buildings from memory about his hometown of Landshut, Germany, Brother Joseph was forced to rely on postcards and printed descriptions for the rest of his works.
I have to say, for a guy with no formal training and only discarded items and a postcard to go by, he did a pretty bang up job. Beginning on the climb up out of the grotto, some additional works have been added by handyman Leo Schwaiger who also served at the Abbey for over 50 years.

One word of caution, while it is not very long, the way out is pretty steep. If you happen to be out of shape, it will take some work to go home. Also, keep in mind that this is a Catholic facility, so try to respect the customs and culture.

Once you have visited the grotto, take some time to visit the crypt before returning to the Abbey gift shop. While it is naturally full of religious iconography, the monks also sell some magnificent bread.

Helen Keller Birthplace

The fact Helen Keller’s birthplace has a name should dispel any notion she was born impoverished in any way. Ivy Green was the home of Confederate Captain Arthur H. Keller and his wife, Kate Adams Keller, an educated woman from Memphis.
But first, a little bit about Helen. Helen Adams Keller was born a healthy child on June 27, 1880, but an unknown illness left her deaf and blind at only 19 months old. Her inability to communicate caused massive tantrums to the degree her parents were going to institutionalize her. As a last ditch effort they took her to an occultists in Baltimore, MD who in turn referred them to Alexander Graham Bell. Yep, that guy. Despite fame and fortune, he was working with deaf children in Washington, D.C. at the time. From Bell, they were referred to the Perkins Institute and in 1887 Anne Sullivan, a Perkins Institute graduate, was recruited to be Helen’s full time teacher at Ivy Green. She eventually learned how to communicate through finger writing, but by age 10 she had mastered Braille and could use a manual typewriter. Just six years later she could speak well enough to attend preparatory school and then college. She is the first deaf and blind person to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe College. During all this time, Anne remained her constant companion.

From that point forward, Helen lived a remarkable life, lecturing in over 25 countries advocating to improve the conditions of the visually the hearing impaired. She also helped create the American Civil Liberties Union, performed on the Vaudeville circuit, earned an Oscar, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. And just in case you want to evaluate your own life against hers, she also met all twelve Presidents between Grover Cleveland to John F. Kennedy.

By today’s standard, Ivy Green is a modest four room home with a central hallway and two bedrooms upstairs. Shockingly surviving the Civil War unscathed, the home is authentic down to the last nail. Entry was a little discombobulated because there was a school tour arriving right when we did, but I assume entrances are timed to when there is a docent available to give you a tour.

There are several other buildings on site, to include an outdoor kitchen and cooks house, butterfly, herbal, memorial gardens, and an outdoor theater. There is also a large Lions Club memorial I found particularly out of place until I read the placards. In 1925, she attended the Lions Clubs International Convention and challenged Lions to become “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.” The Lions Club dutifully took up the mantel and has been an advocate for the blind ever since.

The memorial has both an audio and print version of the speech she gave that day. In 1971, the Board of Directors of Lions Clubs International declared that June 1 would be remembered as Helen Keller Day.

Rosenbaum House

Before I talk about the house, I need to share an anecdote both funny and horrifying at the same time. The Visitor’s Center for the home is across the street in an elementary school. The building is in immaculate condition and I naturally assumed it was still functional, so I asked the person taking tickets about it. Paraphrasing the conversation, he said, “No, this school closed when segregation ended.” So I followed up with “So you closed the perfectly good school solely to avoid school integration?” And he told me with a completely straight face “Oh, no, we didn’t have a racism problem here. All the white kids lived at the top of the hill and all the black kids lived at the bottom so we built two separate schools. But, he emphasized, occasionally black folks would move up the hill and we got along fine because they had money. And any white kids from the bottom of the hill wouldn’t come up here anyway because they wouldn’t fit in.” That’s a grown ass educated human describing how everything was just hunky dory in rural Alabama. I hate to judge, but… Anyway, on to the house.

I’ve always been a fan of architecture, so I was really looking forward to getting into the weeds of this house. While Taliesin West may be one of Wrights most famous designs, the Rosenbaum home represents what Wright was hoping to create as a mass produced yet individualized home for middle income America. The Usonian design is billed as organic architecture intended to easily expand to meet the family’s needs. America’s first modular home. Usonian homes include heavy use of horizontal lines, flat roofs with large overhangs, and extensive use of natural materials. There would also be access to the outdoors from every room in the home.

Unfortunately for Wright, his design concept met harsh reality in the Rosenbaum home and the roof had extensive water problems from its inception. Today, steel beams have been inserted into the roof to support the cantilevered overhangs. Aside from that little problem, the house is visually unique with glass and angles everywhere. It is sneakily multi-leveled with a ramp instead of stairs. Most of the furniture is built in and custom designed for the home, and while it may be visually stimulating, it doesn’t look particularly comfortable. Unfortunately, sampling was not on the agenda to prove my theory.

There are definitely some quirky things about the house I would have difficulty getting behind, notably everything in the house is some factor of 12. So the height of the counters is 36 inches and doors are either 36 or 24 inches. 36, normal, 24, tough for the fat kid. It also means everything from the windows to the doors to the carpet had to be custom made because it doesn’t conform to standard building code.

Given that in 1991, the American Institute of Architects named Wright the greatest American architect of all time I am hardly one to judge his design in a negative light. Overall, except for the incredibly tiny kitchen, the house has an interesting juxtaposition of modern design and really comfortable feel. It is easy to see what Wright was trying to capture through his concept of organic design. Except, of course, for the previously mentioned uncomfortable looking furniture. 

Muscle Shoals and FAME Recording Studios

I think it would be impossible to mention music from the 50-70’s and beyond without including these two recording studios. Not one rock fan in the world hears the name Muscle Shoals without immediately attributing it to Lynrd Skynrd. But the list of recording artists who have graced these two studios is probably too long to list.
Florence, Alabama Music Enterprises, later shortened to FAME, boasts the likes of Etta James, Wilson Pickett, and Aretha Franklin to Alicia Keys and Demi Lovato. Starting in 1959, the studio quickly gained prominence with a hit by Arthur Alexander and has been pushing out hits ever since.
In 1969, the FAME rhythm section departed to form their own studio, Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. Known as the Swampers, they are immortalized in the Skynrd’s Sweet Home Alabama. At the time, Muscle Shoals was unique in that the studio musicians owned the recording studio and ran the business.

For the next nine years, the Swampers played on over 200 albums, with over 75 RIAA Gold and Platinum records, and hundreds of hit songs with artists such as Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bob Dylan, Duane Allman, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Bob Seger, Staples Singers, Rod Stewart, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson, Cat Stevens, Dr. Hook, and the Rolling Stones.

https://famestudios.com/our-history/

After this long string of successes, MSSS moved out of their iconic Jackson Highway facility for larger digs on Alabama Avenue. For the next twenty years the old building was home to a number of retail ventures until it was purchased by a local citizen in 2000 and rehabilitated to an operating music studio. In 2013, the building was fully restored to its former glory.
Both studios are open for tours daily and offer a glimpse into the past of a truly great era in blues, Motown, and rock and roll.