Balpha Lonnie Noojin

• September 20th, 2021

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a standard ingredient for business or political success in Alabama was to be the descendent of a weathered confederate veteran from Central or South Alabama.

Lonnie Noojin found another way in attaining his successful position in the state. In the first place, he was born (in August 1885) in the hills of Marshall County in North Alabama, but to confuse matters even more, his grandfather, who had been sent to Alabama when he was left fatherless, returned to his native state Kentucky to don the blue, rather than the gray uniform. These circumstances apparently did not bother the exceptionally versatile Noojin; thus, he started life with no special advantages other than a sound mind and a sound body.

Noojin was educated in the public elementary and high schools about Attalla and Sand Mountain and graduated from high school in 1902. He worked for a year, to acquire enough funds to attend college, and in 1903 he entered North Alabama Conference College (Birmingham Southern). He remained there for one year and then left school to accumulate funds for further studies. He then entered The University of Alabama and received the Bachelor of Science degree from the Capstone in 1908. He was particularly active while at the University, serving as both the associate editor of the student newspaper and the school annual and also as president of the University Glee Club. When Phi Beta Kappa was reactivated in 1913 at the University for the first time since Civil War Days, he was one of the few former students chosen for induction.

Noojin was a superb athlete and was an outstanding member of the University baseball team Following graduation, he played professional baseball in a number of minor leagues in the South, ultimately playing in the major leagues for the Cincinnati Reds. After his playing days, he served as manager of the Asheville team in the Carolina League.

Noojin moved from professional baseball into education, and for some years taught at the Agricultural School in Blountsville, and for one year at the Agricultural School in Albertville. His tenure in Albertville was a fortunate period in his life, for there he met Willie Lucille McNaron, a granddaughter of the town’s founder, Major L. S. Emmet, a member of the historical Robert Emmet family of Dublin, Ireland. He married her in December of 1916.

From Albertville, he was invited to Howard College in Birmingham (Samford University) as Director of Athletics, coach of football and baseball, and Principal of Howard Academy High School. After some years at Howard, he was summoned to the Capstone in 1915 as Director of Athletics and Instructor in Romance Languages. To look at his record, we surmise that giants walked the earth in those days, for it is recorded that not only was he Director of Athletics, but also Instructor of English, French, and Spanish as well as Physics and Chemistry. Considering the number of subjects Noojin was expected to teach and the additional duties assigned to him, it is not surprising that in 1919 he resigned from the university to join his brother, R. 0. Noojin, in the hardware business in Gadsden.

The Noojin brothers operated a hardware store until 1923, when they founded the Noojin Supply Company, selling both hardware and building materials. Three years later, Lonnie bought his brother’s interest in the firm and became the sole owner. Throughout the years, Noojin worked hard to make his business successful and became active in a long list of civic and philanthropic activities.

During the next four decades, he became a member of the Board of Directors of the American National Bank of Gadsden, a member of and Secretary to the Board of Directors of the Alabama Power Company, and a member of the Board of Directors of the Gadsden Chamber of Commerce. He served as Lieutenant Governor of the Alabama Kiwanis Club, member of the Gadsden Rotary Club, member of the Board of Directors of the Associated Industries of Alabama, and Chairman of the Highways User’s Conference. He also served as President of the Gadsden Music Association, the Alabama Building Material Association, and the Southern Retail Hardware Association. He was Chairman of The University of Alabama Alumni Association from 1939 to 1940 and founded the Alumni Loyalty Fund of that association. Additionally, he was President of the Board of Trustees of the Wesley Foundation for The University of Alabama, President of the Board of Trustees of the National Home and Property Owners Foundation, a member and Chairman of the Board of Stewards of the First Methodist Church of Gadsden, and a member of the Newcomen Society, the Defense Saving Bond Committee for the State of Alabama, and the Board of Trustees of The University of Alabama.

As a member of the Board of Trustees of the University, he was appointed by Governor Jim Folsom to be a member of the Steering Committee to recommend a location for the University of Alabama Medical School, which at the time was to be moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham. Noojin was chosen as a member of a committee whose job was to build new facilities and to acquire the existing Hillman and Jefferson hospitals. His interest in medical school was so great that he contemplated turning his business over to his son and moving temporarily to Birmingham so that he could actively oversee and protect the interest of the State and the University. Unfortunately, Noojin died before the work was completed.

In any discussion of the life of Lonnie Noojin, his political affiliations play a large part, for he was an outstanding figure in the Alabama State Republican Party. He was a member of the Republican State Committee and was for his last twelve years the Republican National Committeeman for the State of Alabama.

Noojin had a capacity for understanding problems and solving them that was long recognized in the state. As difficult as it was to be a Republican leader during the days of Franklin Roosevelt, and particularly in a one-party South, Noojin led his party with energy and diligence.

As a Republican National Committeeman, Noojin was identified with the Wilkies and the Tafts. Both he and his wife knew the Deweys quite well and the families occupied adjoining hotel suites when Dewey was nominated for President. It was rumored that Senator Taft said that if he were elected President the cabinet member he would pick from the South would be Lonnie Noojin. Even though Noojin took a stand with the minority party in Alabama, he had numerous friends among the Democrats who thought highly of him. Members of both parties knew him to be a man of his word. Democratic Lieutenant Governor of Alabama, J.C. Inzer, for example, said that:

Lonnie Noojin believed in and worked for good government. He was an able and forceful leader in all matters seeking to make our cities, state, and nation a better place in which to live. He was honest, faithful, courageous, and charitable, beloved by his family, his church, his friends, and his country. Mr. Noojin’s life was a shining example of the kind of life each of us should strive to live.

On September 7, 1950, Noojin passed away in Gadsden, Alabama, a highly successful businessman who lived gracefully and endeared himself to all who had the opportunity to know him. Perhaps his most appropriate epitaph was his own comment to a Catholic sister nurse at the Holy Name of Jesus Hospital in Gadsden: “All I have ever done which was worthwhile in my life is what I have tried to do for humanity and concerning things of the spirit.”

Daniel Pratt

• September 17th, 2021

Daniel Pratt helped provide cotton gins for Alabama’s predominant antebellum economic activity, founded Alabama’s most prominent early industrial town, and helped lay the foundation for postbellum development in manufacturing and railroad transportation.

In 1819, Pratt left his home state of New Hampshire and traveled to Savannah, where he worked for a year as a carpenter. In 1827, Pratt returned to New Hampshire for a visit and met and married Ester Ticknor. In 1831, Pratt realized the advantage of taking cotton gin manufacturing to fresher cotton fields and Pratt and his wife left for Alabama. In 1938, Pratt purchased land on Autauga Creek. It was on this land that Pratt would realize a lifelong goal:  the building of a town, Prattville, as the site for his enterprises. He established a cotton gin factory, a cotton mill, a grist mill, a woolen mill, and a foundry, which combined, employed more than 200 people. By the late 1800s, Pratt’s gin business had grown so large that he contracted with mercantile firms in six strategically located cities to sell his gins. Pratt had become the largest cotton gin manufacturer in the world. At the end of the Civil War, Pratt shifted his reliance upon a cotton economy to the new industrial order:  iron and railroad transportation. In 1949, the Alabama Newcomen Society honored Pratt posthumously as “Alabama’s First Industrialist.”

Ed Leigh McMillan

• September 17th, 2021

Ed Leigh McMillan started out to be a good country lawyer but became “Mr. Forester” because of his leadership in the lumber industry.

At an early age, McMillan developed a great respect for the law and history, a devotion that he clung to throughout his life. McMillan received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1909 and a Bachelor of Law degree in 1910 from The University of Alabama. McMillan moved to Brewton, married Iva Lee Miller, and began to practice law. In 1914, he became a legal advisor to the T.R. Miller Mill Company Incorporated of Brewton. McMillan became president of Wiggins Estate Company, director of Cedar Creek Store Company, president of the old Citizens Bank, and leader of the First Methodist Church. He was also the state chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee in World War I, a member of the State Banking Board from 1935-1949, president of the National Alumni Association for The University of Alabama, and chairman of the War Finance Committee for Alabama from 1941-1946. In 1950, McMillan was named president of T.R. Miller Mill Company, becoming the head of the oldest lumber business in continuous operation in Alabama. He was quick to recognize the advantages of the scientific forestry approach to the timber industry; advocate the protection of forests from fire, disease, and insect infestation; and utilize artificial reforestation by planting seedlings on a commercial basis. McMillan played a key role in the creation of Conecuh National Forest.

Charles Henderson

• September 9th, 2021

Known as Alabama’s “business governor” for his many commercial interests and for maneuvering the state out of debt, Charles Henderson was also a successful local politician, education supporter, and philanthropist whose public contributions to the city of Troy and Pike County created schools and a hospital for children.

Henderson was born on April 26, 1860, at the family farm at Gainer’s Store, an area now known as Henderson, 12 miles south of Troy. He was one of six children of Jeremiah Augustus Henderson and Mildred Elizabeth Hill Henderson. Jeremiah Henderson represented Pike County at the Alabama Secession Convention and served in the Fifty-Seventh Alabama Regiment during the Civil War. He then moved to Troy and established himself as a merchant, becoming one of the wealthiest men in southeast Alabama.

Charles was educated in the private schools of Pike County, where he was greatly influenced by a teacher who had been a Baptist missionary. Henderson enrolled at the Baptist-affiliated Howard College (now Samford University), then located at Marion, but was forced to leave after two years upon his father’s death in 1877. He returned home to manage the family business. Because he was only 17, he had to seek an act of the state legislature to be permitted to run a business. With two of his brothers, he entered the mercantile business known as Henderson Brothers, which became a phenomenally successful concern that brought prosperity to the Henderson family and to the town of Troy.

Henderson and his brothers sold this business to an uncle in 1890, and the future governor established the Charles Henderson Wholesale Grocery Company. In addition to that venture, he was the majority stockholder and president of both the Pea River Power Company and the Standard Telephone and Telegraph Company. Henderson also served on the board of directors and was a stockholder in the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Troy, the Standard Chemical and Oil Company, the Troy Compress Company, and the Alabama Warehouse Company.

Henderson entered local politics when a group of Troy citizens urged him to run for mayor of that city. He was elected in 1886 and served three terms before withdrawing from public life to devote himself to his flourishing business empire. After a brief respite, he agreed to run again in 1901 and after winning, served a total of 12 years as mayor. During his tenure, the town established a public school system, and he helped to establish and serve as a trustee of the Troy State Normal College, now Troy University. On November 7, 1887, Henderson married Laura Montgomery of Raleigh, North Carolina, who was a teacher in Troy’s new public school system. The couple had no children, and Laura shared her husband’s devotion to numerous civic and cultural affairs.

Henderson’s career took another direction in 1906 when he was elected to the Alabama Railroad Commission. He was appointed president of the commission and served two terms from 1907 to 1915. Using his membership on the commission as a stepping stone to higher office, Henderson ran for governor in 1914, defeating former governor Braxton Bragg Comer in a Democratic Party runoff. He easily defeated the Republican, Progressive, and Socialist Party candidates in the November general election.

When Henderson took office in January 1915, the state was deeply in debt (nearly $1 million by one account), with dim prospects for balancing the budget. With the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, the price of cotton plummeted, and the economy of the state was devastated. Within two years, however, the economic picture brightened, and the state began to share in the nation’s wartime prosperity as federal monies flowed into the state for the Muscle Shoals munitions development and training camps. Wages for Alabama workers increased and neared the national average. Henderson paid off outstanding debts and placed the small surplus in the treasury. Having seen the result of basing the state’s economy on a single crop, Henderson devoted much of his remaining life to encouraging agricultural diversification. He himself was a significant landowner, having an estimated 3,000 acres in Pike County when he became governor.

Henderson also faced continued problems surrounding Prohibition. As an Episcopalian, he was less committed to total abstinence than the Baptists and Methodists who made up the bulk of the state’s population. He, like former governor Edward O’Neal, favored allowing local governments to determine their own rules, but the majority of the new legislature favored absolute statewide prohibition. Henderson vetoed the legislation, only to have his veto overridden. Thus, Alabama was a dry state before national prohibition was instituted, with Alabama’s approval and ratification, by the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919.

After the United States declared war on Germany in 1917, Congress passed conscription legislation. The process of drafting young men into the armed services revealed that a disproportionately large number of Alabamians were rejected because of poor health or for illiteracy. Henderson called on the legislature to provide additional funding for the state’s Department of Health and for public schools. The legislature permitted school districts to levy a property tax for local schools, and many lawmakers took advantage of this legislation to increase community funding for schools.

Although Henderson was clearly a representative of the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, he encouraged progressive causes where he saw a need. He commissioned the Russell Sage Foundation to study the state’s governmental institutions. That report, issued late in 1918, declared that Alabama’s educational, public health, child services, and prison systems were woefully inadequate. It affixed blame for the substandard programs on the state’s inequitable tax system, a subject that has remained contentious up to the present. Henderson advocated reform, but subsequent governors Kilby and Graves acted on most of the issues raised by the Sage Foundation report.

Henderson also proposed reform of the court system, but when the legislature delivered only a part of his request, he vetoed their measure. He succeeded in passing a primary election law that established procedures for certifying candidates and for setting the dates for such elections. Henderson also worked to reform the health care and living conditions of state prisoners. He lobbied for support of the state’s highway commission, and Alabama was among the first states in the country to receive funds from the federal “good roads” bill backed by Alabama senator John H. Bankhead. Henderson’s administration was marked by a workable blend of conservative economy and mild, but important, progress.

Following his term as governor, Henderson returned to Troy to manage his business affairs, but he continued in public service. Gov. William W. Brandon appointed him to the new Alabama State Docks Commission and made him a trustee of Auburn University. He received an honorary degree from the University of Alabama in 1923. In late 1936, Henderson contracted influenza and then suffered a mild stroke. His condition worsened, and he died in Troy on January 7, 1937. At the time of his death during the depths of the Great Depression, Henderson’s estate was estimated to be worth $3 million. He provided trusts for his wife and sister, but the remainder of his estate was placed into a trust for the public good. For 20 years the proceeds went to the construction of public school facilities in Troy, and later monies were used to support the Charles Henderson Memorial Hospital for Crippled Children. A number of his relatives attempted to break the will, but its validity was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in two separate cases. Through this notable donation and his steady tenure as governor, Henderson’s legacy survives. An armory in Troy was named for him posthumously, as was a World War II Liberty Ship, the USS Charles Henderson.

Biographical information provided by the Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Braxton Bragg Comer

• September 9th, 2021

Historians have claimed that the Progressive era in Alabama politics began with the governorship of Braxton Bragg Comer (1848-1927).

Scion of a well-to-do family, this successful industrialist and planter spent four stormy years as Alabama’s governor that were marked by progress in education, railroad regulation, tax funding, and conservation. This same person, however, used strong-arm tactics toward labor and demonstrated a lack of genuine concern for children in the labor force. Comer’s brand of progressivism, which sought to serve the new industrial-urban interests while not disturbing the traditions of the old plantation system, brought numerous collisions with powerful interests.

Braxton Bragg Comer was born at Spring Hill, in Barbour County, on November 7, 1848, to John Fletcher Comer and Catherine Drewry Comer, who moved from Virginia to Georgia before finally settling in the southeastern section of Alabama’s Black Belt in the 1840s. John Fletcher Comer was a county judge in Georgia and in Alabama owned a cotton plantation and a lumber mill. He gave his son a good private education, and in 1864 young B. B. Comer entered the University of Alabama, where he remained until forces under the command of U.S. general James H. Wilson burned the school buildings in 1865 during the Civil War. He subsequently attended the University of Georgia and finally received a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts from Virginia’s Emory and Henry College in 1869. Three years later, he married Eva Jane Harris of Cuthbert, Georgia, with whom he would have eight children. The Comers were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Under Comer’s management, the family plantation at Comer Station in Barbour County prospered and grew to more than 30,000 acres.

Like many postwar planters, Comer branched out into merchandising. In 1885, he used the money he made as a merchant-planter in Barbour County to become a partner in a wholesale grocery business in Anniston, in Calhoun County. He sold his interest in the firm in 1890 and moved to Birmingham, where he became president of the City National Bank and bought cornmeal, flour, and textile mills. Comer achieved his greatest business success in the development of Avondale Mills, a textile venture that grew into one of Alabama’s largest industrial enterprises.

While in Anniston, Comer learned that his Atlanta competitors could undersell his and other Alabama businesses because of Georgia’s lower freight rates. By the time he had built Avondale Mills, Comer was the state’s most vocal advocate of controlling Alabama’s railroad rate structure. The Birmingham Commercial Club, which Comer helped to organize in 1893, and the Birmingham Freight Bureau, also led by Comer, both investigated freight rate discrimination and recommended that rates be controlled by expanding the powers of the state railroad commission. Comer’s organized efforts failed to persuade legislators of the need for reform during the 1890s, but he and his allies renewed their efforts at the Constitutional Convention of 1901, where they campaigned to include in the document the establishment of an elected railroad commission with extensive powers to regulate rates. When that effort failed, the reformers compromised and accepted a provision in the document that gave the legislature sweeping authority over railroad rates.

The 1906 gubernatorial campaign in the Democratic primary (complicated by the nonbinding selection of candidates to replace Alabama’s two elderly and ill U.S. senators should they die in office before the next legislative session) was one of the most memorable in Alabama’s history. The Democratic Party dropped the word “Conservative” from its formal name, demonstrating that it was now comfortable with a more Progressive platform. The state’s railroads supported Comer’s chief opponent, Lt. Gov. Russell Cunningham, but the line between progressives and conservatives was not clearly drawn. On issues other than railroad rates, Cunningham was as progressive as Comer, who came under severe criticism for his opposition to child labor reform. Comer was a better campaigner and orator than Cunningham, and his verbal attacks on the railroads so aroused Alabama audiences that he won the primary with 61 percent of the vote and the November election with more than 85 percent. A majority of the legislators elected were committed to rate reform, and with this sympathetic legislature to enact and implement his programs, Comer proved to be one of Alabama’s most effective governors.

Comer’s administration as governor had a profound impact on Alabama. He used his powers to aid both the general public and business interests. His successful anti-railroad campaign protected industry—especially cotton mills—from paying excessive rates, and control of the rates also protected consumers. His administration made great strides in education, public health, road building, and conservation of the state’s resources. On the other hand, Comer’s attempt to bring Prohibition to the state failed, and his lukewarm approach to child labor was not laudable. He discussed reform of the convict-leasing system but ended up simply trying to find ways to make the system bring more revenue to the state. His actions in the coal strike of 1908 demonstrated that his view of labor had changed little from his plantation days. Comer was a progressive, but a conservative one.