Wiregrass Seniors Magazine January 2019 JANUARY ISSUE | Page 11

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Ms Baker’s Grave in Huntsville
7. Two Alabama residents made the first-ever 911
call on February 16, 1968. The local telephone com-
pany in Haleyville installed a first-responder system
based on (FCC) recommendations for a national
emergency line. Alabama Speaker of the House
Rankin Fite called U.S. Representative Tom Bevill. It
wasn’t long-distance, though: both men were in the
City Hall building at the time. Which one was tele-
marketing the other?
8. Scottsboro is the ultimate destination for unclaimed
travel baggage. The city is home to the massive,
department-store sized Unclaimed Baggage Cen-
ter, which is where lost luggage gets routed after all
attempts to locate the owners have failed. The goods
are then sold, thrift store-style, to customers. I know
I have made a couple of forced “Donations” to their
cause.
9. Operating on the heart was a rare and dangerous
business when Luther Hill took a scalpel to a wounded
13-year-old boy in Montgomery in 1902. Thought to
be the first cardiac operation in the United States,
Hill sutured a knife wound in the heart while his
patient was knocked out on a kitchen table. His
insurance wouldn’t pay because THAT kitchen table
was not a part of his plan.
10. Alabama one-upped every other state in the
nation when it became the first to recognize Christ-
mas as a legal holiday in 1836. The U.S. as a whole
didn't acknowledge it as such until 1870. Alabama
will probably be the last to Un-recognize it.
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