Archive for the ‘Oral History’ Category

This weekend, I headed out to the park with Adrian Kirksey and Louise Taylor, family members meeting for the very first time.  Adrian, a native of Kentucky, began researching his family tree several months ago and learned that he had family who worked in the mines on Red Mountain.  He then found Louise and Red Mountain Park and we all ended up atop the mountain on Saturday talking about his great uncle who died in the Songo mine, and his great grandfather with the incredible work ethic.  Adrian gave us all chills when he talked about how moving it was to stand in the exact same place where many of the men in his family stood years ago.  Wow.

Relatives Louise Taylor(L) and Adrian Kirksey(R) meet for the very first time and talk about their family's remarkable history on red mountain.

Always in the back of my mind is the fact that underneath this park we’re building lies the remains of a workplace that was unlike anything around here today.  Hundreds of feet below us, there were several jobs being executed with extreme caution and care each and every day.  What exactly were those jobs and how were they done?  Below is a short clip of one of our oral history interviews with Isaac(Ike) Maston, who begins to tell us of the different tasks men were doing undergound around the clock:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp9hK7gFnds

These are the words ore miner Willie Cammack used to tell us how he felt about preserving Birmingham’s red mountain history.  Willie was an Ishkooda miner who visited the No.14 slope where he worked on February 19, 2010.  Our Park Ranger captured some of what he had to say about Red Mountain Park’s past, present, and future.  Enjoy:

This week’s blog is dedicated to our dedicated volunteers, the Friends of Red Mountain Park!  We had a great opportunity to thank them on Friday night, so that’s exactly what we did.  And they thanked one another with some great awards.  It all went down at our oral history exhibit at the Lite Box Gallery–if you still haven’t checked it out, you must go soon.  Last day is Saturday!  (W, TH, F 12-5,  Saturday 10-2)