Just wanted to add a couple of caches here at the Welcome Center. This one should be pretty easy as long as there are no muggles about. The staff was very friendly when we visited, and travel information and brochures are available and organized by region.
FUN FACTS ABOUT ALABAMA
1. Alabama introduced the Mardi Gras to the western world. First celebrated in 1703 in Mobile, the festival is held annually on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Lent begins.
2. In 1836 Alabama became the first state in the United States to declare Christmas a legal holiday.
3. The world's first Electric Trolley System was introduced in Montgomery in 1886.
4. Alabama is the only state with all major natural resources needed to make iron and steel. It is also the largest supplier of cast-iron and steel pipe products.
5. Montgomery was the first capital and the birthplace of the Confederate States of America. It served as capital from February 1861 until the seat of government moved to Richmond, Virginia in May of that year.
6. Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819. The state is the 30th-largest in total area, and the 24th most populous.
7. The town of Enterprise houses the Boll Weevil Monument to acknowledge the role this destructive insect played in encouraging farmers to grow crops other than cotton.
8. Baseball player Henry Louis (Hank) Aaron was born in Mobile in 1934. He held the Major League Baseball record for home runs for 33 years, with 755.
9. World heavyweight champion boxer Joe Louis was born in Lexington in 1914. He died in 1981. Louis held the heavyweight title for 12 years from 1937 to 1949 and is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time.
10. Track and field star and four-time Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens was born in Oakville in 1913. Owens, who died in 1980, was ranked by ESPN as the sixth greatest North American athlete of the twentieth century and the highest-ranked in his sport.
11. "Alabama" is the official state song, and was written as a poem by Julia Tutwiler, a distinguished educator and humanitarian from Tuscaloosa.
12. Baseball player Willie Howard Mays was born in Westfield in 1931.
13. A skeleton of a prehistoric man was found in Russell Cave in 1953, near Bridgeport. Archaeologists have since discovered the bodies of numerous individuals buried within the cave. It is believed that the cave was first occupied as many as 10,000 years ago.
14. At 2,413 feet Cheaha Mountain is Alabama's highest point above sea level.
15. Huntsville is known as the rocket capital of the World. In 1956 the Army Ballistic Missile Agency was established at Huntsville's Redstone Arsenal. Workers at Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center built the first rocket to put humans on the moon.
16. The Alabama Department of Archives is the oldest state-funded archival agency in the nation.
17. The musical singing group Alabama has a Fan Club and Museum in Fort Payne. The band has over 30 number one country records on the Billboard charts to their credit and have sold over 75 million records, making them one of the world's best-selling bands of all time.
18. In 1902 Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill performed the first open heart surgery in the Western Hemisphere by suturing a stab wound in a young boy's heart. The surgery occurred in Montgomery.
19. To help fund education Alabama instituted its state sales tax in 1937.
20. Mail is delivered by boat in Magnolia Springs. This city has the only all-water mail route in the United States.
21. Washington County is the oldest county in Alabama. Organized on June 4, 1800, it held the first territorial capital of Alabama, St. Stephens (1817-1819). In 1807 former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested at Wakefield in Washington County, during his flight from being prosecuted for alleged treason.
22. In 1995 Heather Whitestone served as the first Miss America chosen with a disability. She is hearing impaired.
23. Alabama's geographic center is located in Chilton - a community located 12 miles southwest of Clanton.
24. The word Alabama is believed to have come from the related Choctaw language and was adopted by the Alabama tribe as their name.
25. The United States Army Chemical Corps Museum in Fort McClellan contains over 4000 chemical warfare artifacts.
26. Hitler's typewriter survived from his mountain retreat and is exhibited at the Hall of History in Bessemer.
27. Blount County was created on February 7, 1818 and is older than the state.
28. Winston County is often called the Free State of Winston. It gained the name during the Civil War when the county voted to secede from the state of Alabama, which had seceded from the Union.
29. Mobile is named after the Mauvilla Indians. It was founded by French colonists in 1702 as the capital of French Louisiana.
30. Peter Bryce is recognized as the state's first psychiatrist. He was born in 1834 and died in 1892.
31. The Alabama State Flag was authorized by the Alabama legislature on February 16, 1895.
32. People from Alabama are called Alabamians, or alternatively as Alabamans. Either is correct.
33. On January 28, 1846 Montgomery was selected as capital of Alabama. It is the fifth city to serve as capital.
34. Tallulah Bankhead entertained as a star of stage, screen, and radio during the 1930s-1950s. She was born in Huntsville in 1902 and died in 1968.
35. Singer and entertainer Nathaniel Adams (Nat King) Cole was known as “the man with the velvet voice.” He was born in Montgomery in 1919 and died in 1965.
36. Alabama resident Sequoyah devised the phonetic, written alphabet of the Cherokee language. He lived from about 1770 to about 1844.
37. The Birmingham Airport opened in 1931. At the time of the opening a Birmingham to Los Angeles flight took 19 hours.
38. Alabama's mean elevation is 500 feet at its lowest elevation point.
39. Audemus jura nostra defendere is the official state motto. Translated, it means "we dare defend our rights."
40. General Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek Indians in 1814 at Horseshoe Bend. Following the event, the Native Americans ceded nearly half the present state land to the United States.
41. At the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864, Admiral David Farragut issued his famous command, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
42. Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), born in West Tuscumbia, was an author, political activist and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a bachelor of arts degree.
43. The Talladega Superspeedway has the record for the fastest recorded time by a NASCAR stock car in a closed oval course, with the record of 216.309 mph set by Rusty Wallace on June 9, 2004.
44. The Iron Bowl is the annual football contest between the University of Alabama Crimson Tide and the Auburn University Tigers, which represent the two largest public universities in the state. The series is considered one of the best and most hard-fought rivalries in all of US-sports. From 2009 to 2015, the winner of the game eventually went on to play in the national championship game six times, winning five of those titles.
45. Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football team, is the seventh-largest stadium in the United States and eighth-largest in the world. Its capacity is 101,821.
46. Although he only lived 29 years (1923-1953), Mount Olive's Hiram King "Hank" Williams is regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century. He has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame, including the Country Music Hall of Fame (1961), the Songwriters Hall of Fame (1970), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1987).
47. The first European explorer known to have visited Alabama was Hernando de Soto in 1542, who led an Spanish expedition in search of gold and a passage to China. He is the first European doucumented to have crossed the Mississippi River.
48. Moundville Archaeological Site on the Black Warrior River in Hale County was the political and ceremonial center of a regionally organized Mississippian culture chiefdom polity between the 11th and 16th centuries. At its height, the population is estimated to have been around 1000 people within the walls, with 10,000 additional people in the surrounding countryside.
49. Alabama's state constitution, with over 300,000 words, is the longest state constitution in the world. With over 775 amendments, it is also the most amended state constitution in the world.
50. Birmingham is home to The Vulcan, which is the world's largest cast iron statue. The Vulcan is 56 feet tall and weighs 120,000 pounds.