On Saturday, October 29, descendants and former residents of the old town of Birmingham gathered for their annual reunion at Majestics Steakhouse in Draffenville to swap stories and remember the good ole days of the now inundated city their family once called home.
Now completely underwater, Birmingham was situated along the Tennessee River about 12 miles east of Benton. According to Lemon’s Handbook of Marshall County published in 1894, the town was founded in 1849 on a tract of land belonging to Thomas A. Grubbs and Love’s addition was added to the town in 1858.
Shortly before the Civil War, the town of Birmingham was incorporated by an act of the State General Assembly on February 27, 1860 and a post office was soon designated. The name Birmingham was chosen by the founders who believed the town would become another Birmingham, England because of the iron industry that was thriving in the area
Following the devastating flood of 1937, the river which had been a huge part of Birmingham’s growth and prosperity also became the town’s undoing when plans were made to construct Kentucky Lake in order to bring electricity to the valley and control flood waters. The Tennessee Valley Authority purchased 35,133 acres and the residents were told to relocate.
Though the town is gone, many residents keep its memory alive with these annual reunions. George Locker, one of the primary organizers of the reunion, has no memory of the town, but keeps the reunion going in honor of his late father. “I want people to know that Birmingham still existed,” Locker said.
Linda Reed, whose husband was a native of the bygone town, has complied a book chronicling the history of Birmingham. “Birmingham must have been a special place because they talked of it until I felt as if I knew the town and the people almost as much as if I had lived there,” Reed writes in the book entitled Another Time, Another Place: Once Upon A Birmingham.
Left: The town of Birmingham in the 1930s.
Right: Today, Birmingham lies under water.
Today, when the waters are low, remains of foundations and the streets of Birmingham can still be seen under the water off Birmingham Point. The river town of Birmingham has been gone for 72 years now, but those who called this place home still say it was “the best place in the world to have lived.”