40 Interesting Facts About Alabama

Here are 40 Interesting Alabama facts.

1-5 Alabama Facts

1. Alabama did not repeal its ban on interracial marriage until 2000. – Source

2. An Alabama bloodhound joined a half marathon after her owner let her out to go pee. She ran the entire 13.1 miles and finished 7th. – Source

3. An estimated 1 in 4 Alabamans is functionally illiterate, meaning they’re unable to manage daily living and employment tasks that require reading skills beyond a basic level. – Source

4. In 1991, a billionaire in Alabama had a bunch of life-sized dinosaurs built and placed randomly in a 10,000-acre wooded area around his home. – Source

5. An Alabama school tried to ban “The Diary of A Young Girl” by Anne Frank in 1983 because, according to the board’s records, it was “a real downer.” – Source

6-10 Alabama Facts

6. There is a store in Alabama where you can buy items found in unclaimed airport baggage. – Source

7. The highest paid state employee in the USA is Nick Saban, the Alabama football team head coach, making $7.09 million a year. – Source

8. Alabama is the only U.S. state where a law prohibiting the sale of sex toys remains on the books, though Alabama residents are permitted to buy sex toys with a doctor’s note. – Source

9. Despite the U.S. denial for 26 years, eight members of the Alabama Air National Guard volunteered to pose as Cuban rebel pilots during the Bay of Pigs invasion. Of these 8, 4 were killed when promised air cover never arrived, with two of the pilots dying in a firefight after being shot down. – Source

10. In Alabama, it is illegal to wear a fake mustache that causes laughter in church. – Source

11-15 Alabama Facts

11. In 1957, the KKK planned to set up a burning cross at a college in Alabama. However, because it was finals week, the students were all in their dorms and heard the KKK outside. The students then attacked the KKK with bats and golf clubs and forced them to retreat. – Source

12. Claudette Colvin was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, nine months prior to Rosa Parks. She was not promoted because she was a teenager who was impregnated by a married man. – Source

13. Garth Williams, the illustrator of Stuart Little, wrote a kids book in 1958 called “The Rabbits’ Wedding”. An Alabama State Senator claimed the book was “propaganda for integration and intermarriage,” as the book featured a bunny with white fur and another with black. – Source

14. Lee County, Alabama sheriff’s office told people who had fallen behind on child support that they had won tickets to the Alabama/Auburn football game. Then arrested them when they came to collect their free tickets. – Source

15. University of Alabama’s visitor’s locker room is named the “Fail” room after alum & donor James M. Fail, who said, “I figured it was the most appropriate opportunity I would ever have to use my name.” – Source

16-20 Alabama Facts

16. In 1998, someone pulled an April Fools, claiming Alabama had redefined pi to 3.0 to bring it in line with biblical values. Politicians got calls complaining. – Source

17. Alabama has the most aquatic biodiversity of any place in North America and the Mobile Basin, the most diverse river system in the United States, is known as “the Amazon of America”. – Source1

18. In 1933, a University of Alabama professor voluntarily allowed a black widow spider to bite him as scientists recorded him suffering in agony for three days. Before this, there were skeptics who believed black widows were not dangerous to humans. – Source

19. Former Alabama state Senator Steve Windom didn’t leave his chair during a 12-hour dispute, notably urinating in a jug, because he was afraid the Democrats would steal it. – Source

20. George Wallace was re-elected as Governor of Alabama in the 80’s by winning over many black voters. He would then appoint over 160 African Americans into positions of power in the state. – Source

21-25 Alabama Facts

21. A group of African slaves from Ghana were set free in Alabama in 1860 and went on to form their own self-governing society that maintained the use of their traditional language and culture until the 1950s. – Source

22. Alabama’s constitution is the world’s longest in-use constitution, with 926 amendments. Most deal with local county-level matters, as state power is heavily centralized, and cover things like a single county’s school taxes, court fees, or bingo games. – Source

23. In 2014, The State of Alabama paid Universal Records $75,000 for 5-year rights for the phrase “Sweet Home Alabama”. – Source

24. A man in Alabama has spent three decades building a stone wall by hand to honor his great-great-grandmother, a Yuchi Indian woman who was forced along the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma following the slaughter of her family by whites and then spent 5 years walking more than 1,000 miles back home. – Source

25. There was a newspaper written solely by the patients of an Alabama insane asylum during the late 1800s. – Source

26-30 Alabama Facts

26. Jeremiah Haralson, the first African American of the Alabama House of Representatives and later a member of Congress, is believed to be the only member of Congress to have been killed and eaten by wild animals. – Source

27. Only one of the stained-glass windows of the Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama remained relatively intact after the bombing that killed 4 innocent girls in 1963. It depicted Jesus Christ as a shepherd with his face blown-out. – Source

28. An Alabama man went to the hospital for a routine circumcision and left without a penis. – Source

29. Alabama’s state insect is the Monarch Butterfly, but the state butterfly is the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail. – Source

30. In 1898, nearly three-fourths of Alabama’s state revenue came from leasing inmate labor to private entities such as coal mining companies and plantations, oftentimes located in other states. Alabama did not end the practice until 1928. – Source

31-35 Alabama Facts

31. In Alabama, burning down a house is not legally considered arson unless another individual can claim possession of the property and the house is not burned down for an unlawful purpose. – Source

32. From 1932 until 1972 an experiment run by Public Health Service officials followed 600 African American men with syphilis in Alabama. They were never told they had the disease and were never treated. Some were actively denied treatment. – Source

33. Alabama once funded the construction of a bridge with a rooster auction; it made so much money they were able to improve surrounding roads as well. – Source

34. In 2009, a federal judge arrested an Alabama sheriff for inadequately feeding prisoners to pocket jail food money (released the next day). – Source

35. Arab, Alabama got its name from a misspelling of its founder’s son’s name, Arad. – Source

36-40 Alabama Facts

36. The oldest known Mardi Gras celebration was held in Mobile, Alabama in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans was founded. At the time, Mobile was the capital of French Louisiana. – Source

37. Dialing 9-1-1 for Emergency Services in the United States is only 50-years-old. The first one went into service on Feb 16th, 1968 in Haleyville, Alabama. – Source

38. Alabama has the most fast food restaurants per capita @ 6.1 per 10k people. – Source

39. In Magnolia Springs, Alabama there is a postal delivery route delivered by boat. – Source

40. Up until an Alabama Supreme Court case in 1871, a husband had the legal privilege to “beat his wife with a stick, pull her hair, choke her, spit in her face or kick her about the floor”. The prohibition quickly spread to other states. – Source