Lily Flagg's Signal

What's the best way to get your request approved to change your historic house's exterior? Can I put a historic marker in my yard?  What house would you steal if you were a Scooby Doo villain?  Have you ever thought about how one day, 1990s McMansions will be considered historic?  Katie Stamps, Huntsville's Historic Preservation Planner, was cool enough to come on the show today and ta...

I love April Fool’s Day, a day of pranks and misinformation and tomfoolery, so I wanted to tackle a subject that seems to have bamboozled Huntsvillians for a while now: the confederate monument, and really the city’s relationship with the confederacy as a whole.  There’s a lot of misinformation out there, like from the people responsible for the monument, and also some pretty wild but true fun fac...

If you've spent a Halloween in the Huntsville, Alabama, area, odds are you've heard the tale.  Elizabeth Evans Dale Gibbons Flanagan Jefferies High Brown Routt, the so-called Black Widow of Hazel Green, six times married and six times widowed.  That summary doesn't even scratch the surface of the full story, though, with feuding neighbors, spiteful poems, attempted murder, lawsuits, and more morph...

Sometimes, the only way to save a historic structure from demolition is to relocate it - or as I decided to say, "scoot" it - and this was the case for multiple buildings in Huntsville’s past. Today’s episode covers a few of these instances, including the log cabins at Burritt on the Mountain, the Public Inn, the Steamboat Gothic House, the Humphreys-Rodgers House, and the Clemens House, and the v...

In this second-of-its-kind episode, we're doing something a little different: an audio walking tour through the northern part of downtown Huntsville, Alabama, set in the year 1901.  We'll be exploring the Historic Black Business District and discussing the people, shops, churches, and transportation as you'd have seen it over a 120 years ago.  Complete with background sound effects, th...

The thing about throwing a 150th birthday party for a growing city is that you get to pull out all the stops, like holding a week long party with a thousand-person stage production, beard growing contests mandated by the mayor, and an arsenal-sponsored beauty queen. However, such a milestone is also a chance to choose how you’ll be remembered, even if that means writing (and rewriting) your city’s...

Have you ever wanted to pay your student debts in bacon, win a gold medal for cleanest dorm room, learn to fight with a broom, and become multi-lingual while enjoying the finest dining inside a Greek-temple-esque building and being banned from the local theatre?  If you answered yes to any of these, let me introduce you to the Huntsville Female College, an all-girls school that operated here from...

This podcast has been featuring highlights on individual topics from Huntsville's past for , but it's about time this show had a nice little round-up of the basics of the city's history, like the story of its founding and being named for John Hunt, the journey to statehood, some recognizable buildings, and famous leaders like Sam Houston...  Oh, right.  This is the April Fools episode,...

In the spring of 1962, Huntsville businesses were segregated, Easter Sunday church-wear was a fashion statement, and explicitly boycotting a business could get you arrested, but Huntsville's Community Service Committee had a plan to make a statement - and an economic impact - in favor of integration: Blue Jean Sunday. Huge thanks to Scenethat Tours for their sponsorship of this episode (www.sc...

What is Pope's Tavern and why does it have an active archaeological dig? I'm glad you asked! Join me in my chat with Brian Murphy, director of Florence (Alabama) Arts and Museums, and Daniel Rhodes, Pope's Tavern archaeologist and host of the Archaeology After Dark podcast, as we discuss the marketing power of a name and legends, the things learned from a hole in the ground, the import...

When the Civil War came to his newspaper office’s doorstep, a former Alabama governor’s son left his printing press behind and attempted to “strut to Guntersville” in 1862.  A group of Ohio infantrymen and a journaling army band member soon took over and began printing their own publication: the “Huntsville reveille”.  This short lived newspaper lasted only four editions, but its story is one of p...

They say you can't fight city hall, but what happens when city hall fights itself? On one side: the newly elected mayor (Frasier Adams) and his chosen city clerk, police chief, and other officers. Their opponents? The aldermen and their choices for city officials, including a separate police force ready and willing to arrest members in the mayor's faction. The objective? Control of local g...

Huntsville's water works had its bicentennial this year, and a lot has happened in the two hundred years that residents have been pumping spring water throughout the town.  In just the first 35 years, there were public spats, lots of hollowed out logs, a high turnover rate of ownership, some cool hydraulic technology, and a guy who felt the need to purchase 588 pounds of flour all at once. Thi...

In honor of the bicentennial of the Huntsville water works this year, I've done a two-part episode sharing history and fun facts.  In this episode I'll be talking about the system in its time as a public utility, starting in 1858, including expansions, odd fire fighting techniques, diseases, and fancy toilets!  This is part two of two detailing the surprisingly more exciting than you'd...

The library has multiple folders of letters applauding her, it would take a full page to list all her accolades and firsts, and her awards would cover a full wall, but most importantly: her work in public health touched and improved countless lives. Join me today in discussing Nurse Johnnie Loujean Dent (Alabama's first Black Nurse of the Year) and her impact on Triana and other rural and mino...

In this week's episode, I had the pleasure of chatting with Chauncey Robinson, the founder of the Mud Creek Archive, a non-profit whose many local history projects include historic cemetery restoration as well as researching and documenting Huntsville's Black Business District.  Join us as we about the destruction caused by urban renewal, the "bread crumbs" that lead to big resea...

Bricks! Tallulah! Frogs! Mysterious writing in cement! You asked and I answered this season's requests-only episode. All topics were submitted by listeners like you, and the questions led to fun facts about gargoyles, wild fonts in saloon advertisements, and the histories that lie beneath our feet. For more Huntsville, Alabama, history you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, follow u...

What do indescribable natural wonders, an underground barbecue feast, an "Iowa syndicate", and some rare crayfish have in common?  They all could be found in Shelta Cave,  a now-protected area that was one of Victorian-era Huntsville's weirdest tourism destinations! Join me on this journey to not-quite-the-center-of-the-earth to explore this tourist-trap turned nature preserve! For m...

Have you ever wondered what a walking tour through downtown Huntsville, Alabama, may have sounded like in 1901? This "episode" is just that, complete with building histories, descriptions of businesses, notes on current events, and background sound effects. The tour starts at the corner of Eustis and Green Streets and is paced such that you could walk the eight blocks through the current...

"Did you know Huntsville's first hospital was originally a brothel?!"  That's a clickbait-y fun fact that gets thrown around a good bit, but like most stories, there's a lot more to it.  In this episode, I dove down a rabbit hole of census records, newspapers, misspellings, and pedantic court battles to piece together the story of Mollie Teal, the madam who donated her home t...

Members of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were responsible for nature preservation and park construction across the country.  From construction updates and literacy initiatives to silly poetry and inside jokes we'll never understand, the newspapers of Huntsville's CCC camps offer a fun look into the day-to-day lives of the men who built Monte Sano State Park. For more Huntsville, Al...

Did you know Huntsville has nine historic cemeteries, some of which are still active and all of which require constant maintenance and preservation? Join me as I talk with Tara Sloan, the interim director of the city's Cemetery Department, about monument restoration, documenting headstones, and more! For more Huntsville, Alabama, history you can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, follow...

This week's episode is an interview with John O'Brien, local author and historian, on the who, why, and where of how the "Huntsville" we know it was shaped. Join us for a chat on place making, Huntsville's red light district, the early housing authority, urban planning, the city beautiful movement, and a place called Boogertown.  For more Huntsville, Alabama, history you can...

In modern times, we’d call it doom-scrolling: aimlessly flipping through articles filled with frustrating, frightening, or otherwise ominous news.  In Fall of 1918, though, it was just called reading the news.  From war to an influenza epidemic to power outages to literal snake oil salesmen, there was a lot going on, and as such I wanted to combine these reports with what we know now of the time t...

*And now for something completely different* I asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence program, to write a trailer for the podcast and share some fun facts about Huntsville, Alabama.  The results were so humorous, I felt like I needed to share them alongside some of my actual approaches to research and my personal favorite places to find primary and secondary sources. For more Huntsville, Alabam...