December 14, 1819
December 13-30, 1868
December 14, 1849
December 16, 1898
December 19, 1871
This Week in Alabama History
December 13 - December 19
Alabama becomes a state. The Alabama Territory had been created in 1817 when Mississippi became a state. By November 1818 the population had grown sufficiently to apply for statehood. The Alabama constitutional convention met in July 1819 and William Bibb was elected governor. In December President James Monroe signed the resolution admitting Alabama to the Union as the 22nd state.
Listen: Click the play button below to hear Archives Staff discuss this event on Alabama Public Radio.
Other Events this Week
Thirty-eight of Alabama’s sixty-seven counties were created or established during the month of December beginning with Madison County on December 13, 1808, and ending with Chilton County on December 30, 1868.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Alabama statehood the capitol in Montgomery is destroyed by fire. The building had been erected only two years earlier, after Montgomery succeeded Tuscaloosa as the seat of state government. Construction of the new capitol was completed in 1851.
U.S. President William McKinley visits Tuskegee Institute at the invitation of Booker T. Washington, the school's president. To Washington the visit signified that he had achieved his goal of "build[ing] up a school that would be of so much service to the country that the President of the United States would one day come to see it."
The city of Birmingham is incorporated by the state legislature. The act called for the governor to appoint the first mayor and eight aldermen and allowed the mayor to require all male inhabitants ages 18-45 to work five days each year on the streets and roadways of the city.