Historical HIghlights from previous issues of The Alabama Baptist

Historical HIghlights from previous issues of The Alabama Baptist

50 Years Ago
February 1966

The new Birmingham Baptist Hospital located on Princeton Avenue began to admit patients to its facilities Feb. 21. It was a “new, all-modern” facility with a capacity of 500 beds. An open house was held for the public in the hospital that featured a 12-bed intensive care unit, an 18-bed post anesthesia recovery room and eight major operating rooms along with special operating rooms for eye surgery, dental surgery and fractures. The main floor featured a lobby, a chapel and offices for the chaplain and his secretary. Each patient floor provided a visitors lounge as well as a prayer room. Occupancy of the new building was the completion of the first phase of a large expansion program launched by the Birmingham Baptist Hospitals two years prior. Another new hospital that was part of the program was under construction on Red Mountain and was set to open in late 1966 or early 1967.

100 Years Ago
February 1916

The Feb. 23 issue of The Alabama Baptist featured a story about the Home Mission Board’s work in Cuba including a hand-drawn map that showed the locations of its churches. “Our work in Cuba grows steadily and encouragingly,” reported B.D. Gray, corresponding secretary. The Cuban missions field covered by Southern Baptists in February 1916 included the four western provinces of the island, a little less than half of the territory of the republic during this time. Santa Clara was the missionaries’ best-manned province; however, they only had an average of one missionary for every 50,000 of the population. Southern Baptists had churches at 12 points, five of which had a population of more than 10,000. There were four organized churches and 10 preaching stations in Havana, which has a population of 636,000. 

150 Years Ago
February 1866
Reconstruction was in its infancy in the South and by February the paper recorded that Howard College was not recovering to its former standards as quickly as Judson College in Marion. Through the Alabama Department of the Christian Index, the editor encouraged his fellow brethren to not be immediately discouraged if their expectations were not met. He stated that money as well as students were needed to put the college back where it had been five years before.
Freedmen on the east side of the Alabama River were doing much better than freedmen in other portions of Alabama, the paper said. Most had stayed with their former owners and made what was perceived to be good wages as they worked “kindly and cheerfully.” It was believed that a majority of the freedmen who had been involved in churches would remain with those churches and that their separation from white churches would be inevitable.