History of Florence, Alabama
Florence city is the county seat of Lauderdale County, Alabama. According to the 2005 Census Bureau estimates, the city's population was 36,480.
Florence is the largest and principal city of the Florence - Muscle Shoals metropolitan statistical area known as "The Shoals" (which includes Muscle Shoals, Alabama, Sheffield, Alabama, and Tuscumbia, Alabama metropolitan areas and Colbert County, Alabama and Lauderdale counties). It is considered the primary economic hub of northwestern Alabama.
Florence was surveyed for the Cypress Land Company in 1818 by Italian Surveyor Ferdinand Sannoner who named it after Florence, the capital of Tuscany. Florence, Alabama was incorporated in 1826.
Florence is the birthplace of W. C. Handy, the "Father of the Blues," as well as of pioneering record producer Sam Phillips, who discovered Elvis Presley. T.S. Stribling, a 20th century author and Florence resident, wrote a prose trilogy about the city consisting of The Forge, The Store (which won the Pulitzer Prize), and Unfinished Cathedral. Dred Scott also once resided in Florence, where as a slave, he worked as a hostler at the Peter Blow Inn on Tennessee street. A plaque at the former site commemorates his time there. Bobby W. Miller who marched with Dr. M.L. King in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 and later was credited with ending segregated locker rooms at the Ford Motor Company Die Cast Plant in Sheffield, Alabama, where he was employed from 1962-1974. Miller was shot down twice in Vietnam and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medal. Tom York lived in Florence and is a graduate of the University of North Alabama and spent eight years in radio in Florence (WLAY). In 1957, he joined WBRC-TV in Birmingham, Alabama as their sports director. He also originated the Tom York Morning Show (one of America's longest running one hour local talk shows) on the air for 32 years. He was awarded an Emmy by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1995.
Florence is renown for its annual tourism events, including the W.C. Handy Music Festival in the summer, and the Renaissance Faire in the autumn. Florencian landmarks include the Rosenbaum House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home located in the Southeast.
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