Brookside's Unique Heritage - Brookside, AL - Alabama Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Slovak immigrants left their homes in villages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to settle in Brookside, Alabama, in the 1890s. By 1910, Slovak families constituted approximately 37% of Brookside’s population. The marker is located on the church lawn at the intersection of Park Avenue and Pastor Street. The marker was placed by the Alabama Tourism Department and the City of Brookside.

Marker Name: Brookside's Unique Heritage Marker Type: Urban Addtional Information:: Originally settled by the Samuel and Mary “Polly” Fields family in the 1820s, Brookside enjoyed a quiet life as an agricultural community until industrialists discovered rich coal deposits here. Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company mined the area to produce its own coal for use in the blast furnaces located in Birmingham. Brookside’s unique ethnic makeup, however, sets it apart from similarly founded Alabama towns. While quite a variety of ethnic groups called Birmingham home, Slovak immigrants left their homes in Nieletz, Saros, and other villages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to settle in Brookside, Alabama, in the 1890s. By 1910, Slovak families constituted approximately 37% of Brookside’s population. They established two churches, a school, and a social organization and firmly rooted their eastern European traditions in the fabric of Brookside’s daily existence. Date Dedicated / Placed: 2010 Marker Number: None

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