1950s-themed Leeds Historic Walking Tour set for April 15
LEEDS, Ala. (TRIBUNE) – Downtown Leeds will travel back in time to the 1950s for this year's Historic Walking Tour, set for April 15 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
'We are incredibly excited to offer this immersive experience to our community and visitors alike,' said Ron Howard, 2025 History Walk Captain. 'The 1950s was a transformative decade, and we're eager to showcase how Leeds reflected the spirit of that time. This walking tour will bring history to life in a fun and engaging way.'
According to Nathan Prewett of the Trussville Tribune, the tour will feature:
Historic re-enactors who the public can interact with.
Displays showing the architecture, businesses, and daily life of Leeds in the 1950s.
Music by Leeds High School Jazz Ensemble and Elvis tribute artist Aiden Joiner
Food trucks
The self-guided tour will also take walkers past landmarks and historic sites as well as other gatherings including Market on Main, Yellowhammer Antiques' Springfest, the Cornhole Tournament Fundraiser, Greenwave Giveaway Dinner, and more.
The tour is presented by Leeds Historical Commission, Leeds Redevelopment Authority, Leeds Area Chamber of Commerce, Leeds Jane Culbreth Library, and the Leeds Historical Society with support from Leeds Water Works Board and Leeds Main Street.
The walking tour will be held along Parkway Drive between 7th and 9th Street.
For more information, visit leedstrailsandtours.com.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Daywatch: Dispatches from Route 66
Good morning, Chicago. Our Route 66 road trip began at the end, at the famed fishing pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. On a breezy Sunday afternoon, the first day of June, a steady stream of visitors waited their turns to pose with one of the pier's most popular attractions: a Route 66 sign, perched on a pole 12 feet above the wooden planks, advertising the spot as the 'end of the trail.' Except, it's not really the end. That distinction resides a mile east, at Lincoln and Olympic boulevards, the 'official' end of a route that since its decommissioning in 1985 does not officially exist. Read the full dispatch from Tribune reporter Jonathan Bullington and photojournalist E. Jason Wambsgans. Have a suggestion for a stop along their drive? Share it with us. Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including the future of a grocery tax in Chicago, the Fire calling dibs on The 78 and our picks for the best food and drink festivals to attend this summer. Today's eNewspaper edition | Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Elon Musk blasted President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' of tax breaks and spending cuts as a 'disgusting abomination' yesterday, testing the limits of his political influence as he targeted the centerpiece of Republicans' legislative agenda. As the city gets set to borrow $518 million for infrastructure projects and $92 million more toward Mayor Brandon Johnson's massive affordable housing plan, aldermen and the mayor's team argued yesterday over which of them are to blame for recent credit downgrades that will end up costing taxpayers more. Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing aldermen to add a city grocery tax in Chicago as the long-established state grocery levy expires. Johnson's top finance leaders urged aldermen to implement the tax soon during a meeting of the City Council's Revenue Subcommittee. Failing to install the tax would blow an additional $80 million hole in Chicago's 2026 budget as the city already faces a budget gap of around $1 billion, Budget Director Annette Guzman said. A parade of witnesses in Michael Madigan's recent corruption trial — including Madigan himself — insisted there were airtight protocols in place to avoid any potential conflicts of interest between the powerful Democratic House speaker's public duties and his private job as a property tax attorney. But in asking a federal judge to sentence Madigan to 12 ½ years in prison, prosecutors wrote in a lengthy court filing Friday that in reality he was working behind the scenes to exert his unmatched political powers to help his own bottom line. A new report on hemp-derived THC highlights growing concerns over its safety, legality and impact on health — even as Illinois lawmakers have failed again to keep the products away from children. The report by the University of Illinois System Institute of Government and Public Affairs notes that the lack of regulation of hemp means there is no state oversight of ingredients, potency or marketing to kids. The black-crowned night heron is the world's most widely distributed species of its kind, found on every continent except for Australia and Antarctica. But it's been endangered in Illinois since the 1970s as the population has declined across the Great Lakes region because of human harassment and disappearing wetlands. For the last 15 years, however, Chicago has become a popular summer hub and the location of the last remaining breeding colony of the species in the state, specifically atop the red wolf enclosure at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Hundreds of black-crowned night herons flock there starting in mid-March every year, migrating from nearby Indiana and Kentucky, and from farther away like Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, and more recently, even Cuba. There may be a few more balls in the air at The 78 than just the Chicago Fire's proposed $650 million soccer stadium. In the wake of the announcement that the Fire's privately financed, 22,000-seat stadium could open for play before the 2028 MLS season, the White Sox said they are still considering building their proposed new ballpark at the South Loop site as well, potentially creating a new pro sports nexus in Chicago. Column: Did the Fire just call dibs on The 78? Or are the White Sox's ballpark dreams still alive? Editorial: Soccer-loving Joe Mansueto comes through for Chicago and its Fire In his soft-spoken but businesslike manner, D'Andre Swift offered four words yesterday regarding his outlook for the 2025 season: 'Excited about this year.' Swift shared that sentiment after the first of three Chicago Bears minicamp practices at Halas Hall and at the end of a response to a question regarding his reflections on 2024. The movement du jour is for a museum to describe its offerings as 'immersive.' It's become a cliché, but it does nod to a cultural trend that predated, then was amplified by, the pandemic: Experiences, not exhibitions, are coaxing folks off their couches and into cultural institutions. That trend crops up in our museum preview this year. In fact, some of these suggested events don't even take place within the confines of their host institution. Festivals are one of the best parts of summer in Chicago, ranging from blowout concerts to small neighborhood parties. Food and drinks are key to any celebration, but sometimes they're the real headliners. The city and surrounding suburbs host annual bashes including burger competitions, beer and wine tastings, and celebrations of vegan fare. Enjoy the weather by heading to one of these 30 festivals.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Daywatch: Dispatches from Route 66
Good morning, Chicago. Our Route 66 road trip began at the end, at the famed fishing pier jutting out into the Pacific Ocean. On a breezy Sunday afternoon, the first day of June, a steady stream of visitors waited their turns to pose with one of the pier's most popular attractions: a Route 66 sign, perched on a pole 12 feet above the wooden planks, advertising the spot as the 'end of the trail.' Except, it's not really the end. That distinction resides a mile east, at Lincoln and Olympic boulevards, the 'official' end of a route that since its decommissioning in 1985 does not officially exist. Read the full dispatch from Tribune reporter Jonathan Bullington and photojournalist E. Jason Wambsgans. Have a suggestion for a stop along their drive? Share it with us. Here are the top stories you need to know to start your day, including the future of a grocery tax in Chicago, the Fire calling dibs on The 78 and our picks for the best food and drink festivals to attend this summer. Today's eNewspaper edition | Subscribe to more newsletters | Asking Eric | Horoscopes | Puzzles & Games | Today in History Elon Musk blasted President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' of tax breaks and spending cuts as a 'disgusting abomination' yesterday, testing the limits of his political influence as he targeted the centerpiece of Republicans' legislative agenda. As the city gets set to borrow $518 million for infrastructure projects and $92 million more toward Mayor Brandon Johnson's massive affordable housing plan, aldermen and the mayor's team argued yesterday over which of them are to blame for recent credit downgrades that will end up costing taxpayers more. Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing aldermen to add a city grocery tax in Chicago as the long-established state grocery levy expires. Johnson's top finance leaders urged aldermen to implement the tax soon during a meeting of the City Council's Revenue Subcommittee. Failing to install the tax would blow an additional $80 million hole in Chicago's 2026 budget as the city already faces a budget gap of around $1 billion, Budget Director Annette Guzman said. A parade of witnesses in Michael Madigan's recent corruption trial — including Madigan himself — insisted there were airtight protocols in place to avoid any potential conflicts of interest between the powerful Democratic House speaker's public duties and his private job as a property tax attorney. But in asking a federal judge to sentence Madigan to 12 ½ years in prison, prosecutors wrote in a lengthy court filing Friday that in reality he was working behind the scenes to exert his unmatched political powers to help his own bottom line. A new report on hemp-derived THC highlights growing concerns over its safety, legality and impact on health — even as Illinois lawmakers have failed again to keep the products away from children. The report by the University of Illinois System Institute of Government and Public Affairs notes that the lack of regulation of hemp means there is no state oversight of ingredients, potency or marketing to kids. The black-crowned night heron is the world's most widely distributed species of its kind, found on every continent except for Australia and Antarctica. But it's been endangered in Illinois since the 1970s as the population has declined across the Great Lakes region because of human harassment and disappearing wetlands. For the last 15 years, however, Chicago has become a popular summer hub and the location of the last remaining breeding colony of the species in the state, specifically atop the red wolf enclosure at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Hundreds of black-crowned night herons flock there starting in mid-March every year, migrating from nearby Indiana and Kentucky, and from farther away like Louisiana, Florida and Georgia, and more recently, even Cuba. There may be a few more balls in the air at The 78 than just the Chicago Fire's proposed $650 million soccer stadium. In the wake of the announcement that the Fire's privately financed, 22,000-seat stadium could open for play before the 2028 MLS season, the White Sox said they are still considering building their proposed new ballpark at the South Loop site as well, potentially creating a new pro sports nexus in Chicago. In his soft-spoken but businesslike manner, D'Andre Swift offered four words yesterday regarding his outlook for the 2025 season: 'Excited about this year.' Swift shared that sentiment after the first of three Chicago Bears minicamp practices at Halas Hall and at the end of a response to a question regarding his reflections on 2024. The movement du jour is for a museum to describe its offerings as 'immersive.' It's become a cliché, but it does nod to a cultural trend that predated, then was amplified by, the pandemic: Experiences, not exhibitions, are coaxing folks off their couches and into cultural institutions. That trend crops up in our museum preview this year. In fact, some of these suggested events don't even take place within the confines of their host institution. Festivals are one of the best parts of summer in Chicago, ranging from blowout concerts to small neighborhood parties. Food and drinks are key to any celebration, but sometimes they're the real headliners. The city and surrounding suburbs host annual bashes including burger competitions, beer and wine tastings, and celebrations of vegan fare. Enjoy the weather by heading to one of these 30 festivals.
Chicago Tribune
01-06-2025
- Chicago Tribune
Rand McNally maps helped travelers find their way
Now is the time of year when families start thinking about a summer vacation. In the pre-internet era, that meant getting out the creased, dog-eared maps from the car's glove compartment. Spread across a kitchen table, the maps fueled dreams of cross-country travel, unburdened by the reality of endless hours in an overstuffed vehicle. Those vacation planners are indebted to Rand McNally. The Chicago area-based publisher pioneered road maps that were distributed at gas stations, beginning with Gulf Oil, in 1920. From time to time, the company had stores stocked with maps, atlases and guide books Road maps were a logical extension of Rand McNally's business plan. It had published railroad maps since 1872. Still, it had to learn a new trick to produce road maps. It isn't difficult to match a railroad map to a railroad. Its freight and passenger cars carry the line's logo. Stations and freight depots bear its name. But America's early highways weren't lined with numbered signs. So how would a motorist know where they were by following a wiggly line on a map? John Brink, a Rand McNally cartographer, came up with a solution: Creating symbols for highways that were printed on the road maps and also put on signs attached to electrical and telephone poles along those roads. He won $100 in a contest the company ran for employees to develop new map products. The company advertised Brink's creation with the slogan 'Follow the Blazed Trail,' Janice Petterchak reported in 'Mapping A Life's Journey, The Legacy of Andrew McNally III.' The original cardboard signs were damaged by the weather. Others were pilfered by vandals, prompting a revised method: Painting the telegraph poles and advertising: 'Follow the Painted Poles.' If a map user got on a highway to their destination, the painted poles kept them headed the right way. But towns might have several highways, so a map user could choose the wrong one. Because of that, another system of road identification was created by H. Sargent Michaels. His 'Photographic Automobile Maps' provided pictures of intersections and turning points along a route. Rand McNally purchased the rights to it and in 1909 issued 'The Rand McNally Photo-Auto Guides.' 'My mother and father took a busman's honeymoon to Milwaukee,' Andrew McNally III, the company's leader from 1948 to 1974, told the Tribune in 1982. 'They took pictures of every turnoff from here to there. So came the Chicago-to-Milwaukee guide.' A newspaper clipping in the family's scrapbook continued the story: 'He also took pictures of puzzling intersections, and when his company — Rand McNally & Co. — printed the road map resulting from his trip, white arrows in the pictures the honeymooners had taken showed which route to follow.' Around 1917, numbers were substituted for symbols and painted poles, eventually leading to the numbering of all major roads in the United States. Andrew III's great-grandfather was Andrew McNally, an apprentice from Ireland hired in the late 1850s by William H. Rand who had a small print shop on Lake Street. At first, they did printing for the Chicago Tribune. But with an increasing number of railroad lines coming to Chicago, the partners decided to concentrate on the railroad industry. The Tribune predicted, 'It cannot but at once attain a wide circulation.' But on Oct. 8, 1871, their building was destroyed by the Great Chicago Fire. McNally had the foresight, according to company lore, to bury two of their printing machines in the sand at Lake Michigan. When the fire ended, the company was able to resume business with the salvaged equipment and within a short time were printing 100,000 tickets a day. In 1872, their first map appeared in the company's 'Railroad Guide.' Theirs was the first American company to produce maps from wax engravings — a method McNally learned in Ireland. Instead of creating new plates for updates, they could patch existing plates, dramatically reducing production costs. Shortly, they added a touch of class by including verses by poet Robert Browning in the timetables of the Chicago and Alton Railroad. They also inspired another artist. Helen Beck did a striptease act at Chicago's 1933 World's Fair. Cecil B. De Mille, the famed Hollywood director, said she needed a catchier name. Spotting a Rand McNally map on her agent's wall, the stage name 'Sally Rand' was chosen. The company's influence went well beyond helping vacationers navigate the nation's roads. Charles Lindbergh, the first pilot to fly solo over the Atlantic Ocean, used Rand McNally railroad maps to navigate when flying over land. During World War II, a boatload of refugees fled Japanese-occupied Java and made it to Australia by charting the thousands of miles of their escape with a Rand McNally Pocket Atlas. As the company prospered, Andrew III, whose father Andrew McNally II ran the company from 1933 to 1948, came of age thinking nothing of taking off for faraway places. During his freshman year at North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, he visited an uncle in England. Subsequently he and a chum returned there. They had an audience with the prime minister and the prince of Wales. The lord mayor of London hosted a luncheon where they met authors and artists interested in British-American relations, according to Petterchak's book. During World War II, Andrew III volunteered, and, after a quickie officer's training course was commissioned a lieutenant in the Army Map Service. He was mildly surprised we won 'with maps primarily based on outdated British cartography,' he told a reporter. Andrew III succeeded his father as Rand McNally's president in 1948. The company expanded greatly during his tenure at the top. Upon taking over, he decided to move the headquarters from their cramped building at Clark and Harrison streets to a spacious campus in Skokie. It became the largest mapmaker in the United States, printing tickets for airlines and publishing books, atlases and globes and even later expanded into storefronts. The McNallys had majority control of the company and didn't have to answer to stockholders with different ideas. Ward, the company's founder, died in 1890, having been in ill health and selling his share of the business to the McNallys, and they never made a public stock offering. In 1994, Andrew III said, tongue in cheek, that 'the reason the business stays in the family, is that we never got rich enough to neglect it.' But printed maps were becoming a thing of the past as computers became prevalent, and Andrew III's successors didn't share his reservations about selling the company piecemeal. In 1997, the family divested itself of the business. Its corporate offices in Skokie were sold in 2008 to Ida Crown Jewish Academy.
