Annie’s Town

Violence has always been an enemy of law enforcers in Anniston, Alabama, but in 1914-15 that truth reached new heights. Over an eight-month span, six Anniston Police Department officers were shot and killed in a spasm of violence directly related to bootlegging and illegal saloons in the city. Twice Anniston had two police officers shot and killed on the same day. One of its police chiefs was murdered by a bootlegger. And one of the subsequent trials produced a swift verdict and a delayed execution that Annistonians watched against the sheriff's wishes. 

In 1952, the Army disregarded the advice of a top officer and decided to hold open-air biological warfare tests at Fort McClellan in Anniston, Alabama. In those tests the Army used two different bacterial agents that seem to have led to elevated rates of pneumonia cases among Anniston residents that winter. The bacterial agents were delivered in gaseous plumes and bacterial-filled bombs. But no one in the general public knew about it -- until a reporter for The Anniston Star newspaper used the Freedom of Information Act in 1981 to get declassified documents and publish these astonishing details.

Sam Noble and Daniel Tyler, the founders of Anniston, Alabama, wanted to create a utopian factory city in the postwar New South that not only made them money but kept vice from creeping onto its streets. But they failed. As soon as the city was opened to the public in 1883, Anniston became known for its rampant whiskey reputation, and arrests of prostitutes and their clients at "bawdy houses" were common. So much for their Model City being free from vice.

When the founding families of Anniston, Alabama, laid out the city's street grid, they named its largest road after C.T. Quintard, an Episcopal priest who served as a Confederate Army chaplain during the Civil War. But why? Quintard had no true connection to Alabama or Calhoun County -- other than, of course, his close relationship with a very important person in Anniston's past.

If Anniston's politicians and newspaper had their way, the Army post created in 1917 during World War I wouldn't have been named after Union Gen. George B. McClellan of the Civil War. McClellan was a Philadelphian who graduated from West Point and had no connection to Alabama -- plus, he was a Yankee! And a New Jersey governor! And a failed presidential candidate! In this week's episode, Annie's Town takes a look at what names Annistonians preferred for their new Army post and the disappointment they felt when Little Mac was the Army's choice.