Florence Wagon Works Site

Patton Island is an island in the Tennessee River in Lauderdale County, Alabama, in the United States.Patton Island was named for Robert M. Patton, the 20th Governor of Alabama.

Wilson Lake is the reservoir created by Wilson Dam as part of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The lake stretches from Wilson Dam to Wheeler Dam.

Wilson Dam is a dam on the Tennessee River between Lauderdale and Colbert counties in Alabama. Completed in 1924 by the United States Army Corps of Engineers, it impounds Wilson Lake, and is one of nine Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) dams on the Tennessee River. It was declared a National Historic Landmark on November 13, 1966, for its role as the first dam to come under the TVA's administration. The dam is named for Woodrow Wilson.

The Florence-Muscle Shoals Metropolitan Area, commonly known as The Shoals, is a metropolitan statistical area in northwestern Alabama including the cities of Florence, Muscle Shoals, Tuscumbia, and Sheffield, and the counties of Lauderdale and Colbert. The 2020 Census population for the Shoals is 148,779 and an additional 410,000 commute to the Shoals daily as the economic, social, and educational center of northwest Alabama. The Shoals has also been known as the Tri-Cities and the Quad-Cities by locals. The area is home to the University of North Alabama, located in Florence, and the birthplace of Helen Keller (Tuscumbia) and W.C. Handy (Florence). It is also home to a community college, Northwest Shoals Community College located in Muscle Shoals. Every summer the play "The Miracle Worker" is produced for the public to view on the original Keller homesite. The water pump at which Helen rediscovered language is used as a prop in the play. Other area attractions include the Wilson Dam, the Shoals Theater located in downtown Florence, and a Robert Trent Jones golf course. The Shoals is also noted for its rich music traditions and is sometimes referred to as the birthplace of the Blues because W.C. Handy is credited by many as the father of the Blues. Since the 1970s, 80s, and to some extent even today, The Shoals has been home to a thriving recording industry, particularly based on the sensational output of FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. In the FAME Studios, Dan Penn, Spooner Oldham, Chips Moman, and Rick Hall made soul music including the hit song by Percy Sledge, "When a Man Loves a Woman". Rock groups and musicians including The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Julian Lennon, Bob Seger, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Cher, The Osmonds, Paul Anka, Etta James, Jimmy Cliff, The Staple Singers, Wilson Pickett, and Lynyrd Skynyrd have recorded there. During late July and early August, the area hosts the famed Handy Music and Helen Keller Festivals. Noted attorney, actor, former senator and presidential contender Fred Thompson was born in Sheffield, as was U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell.

Sweetwater Mansion (also known as the Governor Robert Patton House), located in Florence, Alabama, is a plantation house designed by General John Brahan of the Alabama Militia.

Florence is a city in, and the county seat of, Lauderdale County, Alabama, United States, in the state's northwestern corner. It is situated along the Tennessee River and is home to the University of North Alabama. Florence is the largest and principal city of the Quad Cities commonly known as "The Shoals" (which also includes the cities of Muscle Shoals, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia in Colbert County). Florence is considered northwestern Alabama's primary economic hub. Florence is the most populous city of 30 places in the United States with the name Florence, which was slightly larger than Florence, South Carolina. Annual tourism events include the W. C. Handy Music Festival in the summer and the Renaissance Faire in the fall. Landmarks in Florence include the 20th-century Rosenbaum House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright-designed home located in Alabama. The Florence Indian Mound, constructed by indigenous people between 400 BCE and 100 BCE in the Woodland period, is the largest surviving earthen mound in the state and is 43 feet high. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It has been protected by the city since 1945. In 2017 a new, expanded museum was built to replace one built in 1968 that displays artifacts and interprets the ancient and historic cultures of all the indigenous peoples in the area.The type of municipal government is a mayor-council system.

The Cherry Street Historic District is a historic district in Florence, Alabama. Florence was founded in 1818 and quickly prospered as a cotton shipping port on the Tennessee River, but did not see its greatest growth until the latter part of the 19th century. Spurred by industrial development from several mills and iron furnaces as well as the Florence Wagon Works, the demand for middle-class, suburban homes increased. Five houses in the district date from the late 1800s, but the majority were constructed from the late 1910s through the mid 1930s, when the city saw further growth fueled by the construction of Wilson Dam and a large potassium nitrate production plant. The earliest houses in the district are predominantly Queen Anne style, with late 1800s houses being mostly two stories and early 1900s houses mostly one story. During the second wave of construction between 1920 and 1938, most houses built were bungalows. Five apartment buildings were also built to house the influx of workers coming to the area, centered on North Cherry Street and East Tuscaloosa Street, which became known as "Angel Corner" after its developer, J. M. Angel. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.

Tom Braly Municipal Stadium is a 14,215-seat stadium in Florence, Alabama. It is primarily used for American football, and is the home field of the University of North Alabama Lions and the Florence High School Falcons. It also hosted the NCAA Division II Football Championship games from 1986 to 2013, which were broadcast on ESPN. UNA holds a 252-114-8 record at Braly Stadium. It has also hosted 30 of UNA's 47 Division II Playoff games.

The Walnut Street Historic District is a historic district in Florence, Alabama. Development of the neighborhood began in earnest in the 1890s, although the oldest house in the district dates from 1870. Florence's first economic boom after the Civil War began in the 1880s, and the newly minted upper-middle class began building homes to the east of older residential sections, such as Wood Avenue and the Sannoner District. The economy cooled in the 1900s and 1910s, only to pick up again in the 1920s with the construction of Wilson Dam and several textile mills. Houses in the district represent three major types: the earliest constructed are the largest, and have Victorian and Classical Revival details; many houses from the early 1900s are cottages with either Victorian or California bungalow influences; and later 1920s and 1930s homes are usually two-story brick structures with Georgian influences.The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, and its boundaries were increased in 1993 and 1996.

The Alabama Renaissance Faire is a Renaissance fair held annually in downtown Florence, Alabama on the fourth full weekend in October each year.

The Wilson Park Houses are a group of three historic homes in Florence, Alabama. Built as upper-class residences between 1890 and 1918, the houses are adjacent to Wilson Park, laid out as a public space upon the city's founding and later renamed for President Woodrow Wilson. Two of the houses came to be owned by Hiram Kennedy Douglass, who upon his death in 1975 willed the houses to an organization willing to maintain them for the public. The houses are now owned by the city and contain the Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts. The houses were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The Florence Downtown Historic District is a historic district in Florence, Alabama. Florence was founded in 1818 by the Cypress Land Company, who counted among its trustees Creek War General John Coffee, future Governor of Alabama Thomas Bibb, early Huntsville settler LeRoy Pope, and future United States Senator and Supreme Court Justice John McKinley. The company hired Italian surveyor Ferdinand Sannoner, who divided the land into over 400 lots and named the town after Florence, Italy. The first Lauderdale County Courthouse was completed in 1822, and the oldest extant building in the district, the Gothic Revival First Presbyterian Church, was completed two years later. Most of the early buildings was destroyed by a fire in 1866. Development resumed in earnest in the 1880s as Florence's industrial economy developed with the addition of several cotton mills, and the Florence Wagon Works, among others. Other booms occurred in the 1920s with the construction of Wilson Dam, the establishment of the Tennessee Valley Authority in the 1930s, and during World War II as metals and chemical plants were drawn to the area. The majority of buildings in the district are either one- or two-story brick commercial blocks, the older buildings having Italianate and Classical Revival detailing. Notable buildings in the district include the Art Deco Rogers Department Store, the Italianate Southall Drugs, the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse built in 1913, and the Art Moderne old Public Library, built in 1944. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 and was extensively expanded in 2001.