NCAAbbs

I really hope this happens. Used to love this place.

Quote:McWane eyes Red Mountain path revival
Cut near old museum site puts rock history on display
Sunday, April 23, 2006
PATRICK HICKERSON
News staff writer

The attraction that for two decades touted Birmingham's geological, paleontological and industrial history before falling into disrepair is being eyed for a comeback.

The Red Mountain paved walkway meanders along the east side of the excavation created in the 1960s to make way for the Elton B. Stephens Expressway, also known as Red Mountain Expressway.

The excavation revealed an uncommon sight: more than 500 million years of geological history with fossils and seams of iron ore and limestone, essential in iron making.

Tim Ritchie, McWane Science Center president, walks the cut past graffiti and broken glass. He glances upward toward the geological strata then looks behind at downtown Birmingham.

"This is what gave birth to Birmingham, Alabama," Ritchie said. "The whole of the area's geology is laid out."

He hopes that a proposed sale of city-owned land that includes the dilapidated Red Mountain Museum would jump-start interest in re-opening the walk as a tourist attraction.

Partnership possibility

That might lead to a partnership involving the state, city, community groups and McWane aimed at re-opening the walkway.

Any sale would require public access to the walkway, Ritchie said.

Money from the sale would be plowed into McWane's proposed Ancient Alabama exhibit that would rise on top of McWane Science Center downtown. That exhibit would outline Alabama's prehistoric periods to the Ice Age.

The city owns the land but McWane has the right to sell it, pending approval of the city and Linn-Henley Charitable Trust. The trust in the 1970s helped Birmingham buy the land. The trust's stipulation, Ritchie said, is that there would have to be a capital improvement to benefit McWane.

One possible buyer would be across the street, St. Rose Academy, which runs a kindergarten through eighth-grade Catholic school. In 1996, it bought the Discovery Place building for educational facilities, said attorney David Wooldridge, who represents St. Rose. He said the school is interested in the land for physical education classes.

Since McWane opened in 1998, a merger of Red Mountain Museum and Discovery Place, the pathway has fallen into disrepair and attracts vandals and the occasional curiosity seeker.

Ridding an eyesore

Ritchie believes re-opening the walkway would rekindle interest in paleontology and geology. The city would see a return of a tourist attraction and get rid of an eyesore visible to thousands along the expressway.

Once the pathway is opened, Ritchie hopes it could connect with nearby greenways such as the Vulcan Trail or the planned Railroad Reservation Park.

"Imagine if they all could be connected," he said.

James Lamb, McWane Science Center's new paleontologist and a Birmingham native, started as a volunteer at the Red Mountain Museum.

"We had people from all over the U.S.," Lamb said. "People from Germany coming to study it, a professor from Wisconsin."

Red Mountain, Lamb recounted, was one of three highway exhibits that highlighted geological phenomena. The others were along Interstate 70 near Denver and Interstate 68 in western Maryland.

During a return visit to the walkway, Lamb hops the fence separating the path with the mountain, getting familiar with old sights such as prehistoric coral and trilobites.

"I haven't looked at this stuff in so many years," Lamb said. "I forgot where all the critters are."

At the apex of the pathway, he gazes south to Shades Mountain, formed during the coal-rich Pennsylvanian Period.

Limestone, iron ore and coal are why Birmingham grew up here, Lamb said.

Some geologists theorize Red Mountain is the dissolved remains of a mighty 14,000-foot mountain that went across the Jones Valley.

After seven years of construction work, the 210-foot cut was finished in 1969.

Workers initially sprayed concrete on the excavated walls to keep falling rocks in check. Geologists, however, protested.

"The museum evolved out of that," Lamb said.

The museum and walkway opened Sept. 14, 1977.

When McWane opened, the Red Mountain Museum collection of fossils became the Alabama Collections Center on the second floor of the downtown building. Lamb joined McWane earlier this year. He is scheduled to receive in May his paleontology doctorate.

Before he was vice president of the Birmingham Paleontological Society, Greg Mestler remembered taking dozens of walks next to Red Mountain.

He supports re-opening the walkway.

"I think it's a fabulous idea," Mestler said. "It's the history of Birmingham in the cut, the iron ore and the limestone."

E-mail: phickerson@bhamnews.com

I'd love to see that walkway reopened. When I was in the sixth grade ('81, '82?) we went there on a field trip. We were out on the walkway when they quickly herded us back on the bus and back to school. My first thought was that someone had done something and gotten us all in trouble, but they were rushing us back to school because it was going to be closed early, because snow was coming.

My parents sent my brother to pick me up, and his old hot rod '69 Chevelle was fishtailing all over the road in the snow. lmfao

Good times.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The walkway was very cool.

I always liked that museum and the walkway. McWain Center is very cool but you could do a more geological and biological center at Red Mountain. Perhaps aim it it at older kids?