Ensley and Tuxedo Junction

Ensley and Tuxedo Junction
ISBN-10
0738586803
ISBN-13
9780738586809
Category
History
Pages
127
Language
English
Published
2011
Publisher
Arcadia Publishing
Authors
David B. Fleming, Mary Allison Haynie

Description

With dreams of building a vast steel production operation, Memphis planter Enoch Ensley founded a city in the wooded valley at the heart of Jefferson County, Alabama. He named the city Ensley, after himself, and established the Ensley Land Company to acquire and develop 4,000 acres for industrial facilities and a town. As field workers left their farms to work in steel mills and businesses sprang up on the valley floor, Ensley became a diverse place of hopes and desires. A strong community of churches, businesses, civic clubs, and neighborhoods developed around the factories and railroads. Jazz music was the social thread of Ensley's African American community, known as Tuxedo Junction. Musicians such as Erskine Hawkins famously mastered the style. The annexation of Ensley into Birmingham established the "Magic City" as the largest and wealthiest in Alabama and the heart of the Southern steel manufacturing economy.

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