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George H. Carroll Lion Habitat

The George H. Carroll Lion Habitat is a 12,764-square-foot , climate-controlled facility located on the campus the University of North Alabama that houses the only two live lion mascots in the United States, Leo III and Una. The lion habitat, which was dedicated on October 7, 2007, bears the name of the late owner of the construction firm Pressure Concrete, which built the facility and donated labor, materials and funds. No federal or state dollars or tuition fees were used in construction of the habitat. The habitat cost $1.3 million. Feeding and caring for the lions cost $35,000 annually. All costs of maintaining the animals are covered by charitable contributions. Certified Alarm Company of Alabama provided a sophisticated alarm and surveillance system, which is monitored at all times. The facility exceeds all the requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Association of Zoos and Aquariums , a professional accrediting agency. UNA's live lion mascot tradition began in 1973, when then-President Dr. Robert Guillot personally acquired a 12-pound lion cub, now known as Leo I, from a Knoxville, Tennessee, zoo. Since then, his birth date, April 14, has been celebrated as the official lion mascot birthday - an annual event that attracts kindergarten and elementary school children from throughout the Shoals region. The current lions, which are siblings, were born November 18, 2002, at a USDA-sanctioned refuge owned by Glen and Kathy Eldridge in Greenville, New Hampshire.

University of North Alabama

The University of North Alabama is a coeducational university located in Florence, Alabama, and the states oldest four-year public university. Occupying a 130-acre campus in a residential section of Florence, UNA is located within a four-city area that also includes Tuscumbia, Sheffield and Muscle Shoals. The four cities comprise a metropolitan area with a combined population of 140,000 people. The University of North Alabama, which celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2005, has undergone numerous sweeping changes in the course of its long history. Originally founded as LaGrange College in 1830, it was reestablished in 1872 as the first state-supported teachers college south of the Ohio River. A year later, it became one of the nations first coeducational colleges. Within the last half century, the University of North Alabama has developed into a comprehensive regional university exerting a major influence over the cultural, social and economic life of Northwest Alabama and providing educational opportunities for students pursuing undergraduate and graduate majors offered through the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business, Education and Nursing and Health. UNA has strong commitment to improving academic quality, an effort perhaps reflected in the 2008 edition of U.S. News and World Reports Americas Best Colleges, which ranked the university as a top tier public university. UNA also underwent continued growth in 2009, with 7,243 undergraduate and graduate students enrolled for the fall semester.

Braly Municipal Stadium

Tom Braly Municipal Stadium is a 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 national football championship game until 2014, which is broadcast on ESPN. The 14,215-seat stadium, home field of the University of North Alabama, was chosen as the host stadium for the Division II National Championship game in 1986. The stadium is a block east of the university campus and adjacent to the Florence Middle School/Freshman Center. The middle school was formerly Coffee High School, but was transformed in 2004 when Florences two public high schools merged. Braly is named for Thomas Braly, Jr., a Coffee High School coach who was principal of the school from 1945 until his death in 1963. Seating capacity has increased by 6,200 seats since 1980 . The original playing surface featured a sand foundation that enabled the field to withstand six inches of rain at one time without altering the footing. however that surface was replaced with ProGrass synthetic turf during the summer of 2010. Other renovations include a $175,000 scoreboard with a message center installed in 1995 and a 1998 renovation that doubled the working press area as well as provided additional restrooms and viewing booths for game administration. The 1995 scoreboard was replaced in 2010 with a $57,000 LED based scoreboard along with a new elevator to the press box and a resealing of the running track around the field. The new three-level press box consists of a first level that seats up to 50 sportswriters. The second level has areas for coaching staffs from competing schools, the public address announcer, the clock operator, the stadium manager, and also provides space for radio crews from both home and visiting teams. The third floor is used by television and film crews.

Forks of Cypress Cemetery

Forks of Cypress Cemetery is a historic cemetery near Florence, Alabama. The cemetery contains the graves of Forks of Cypress owner James Jackson, several member of his family, and numerous slaves who worked on the plantation. Jackson, an immigrant from County Monaghan, Ireland, purchased the estate in 1818 and built the main house in 1830. The cemetery was established soon after the estate; the oldest interment, dating from 1819, is William Augustus Moore, a relative of Jackson's wife, Sally. The cemetery is situated on 5 acres about 1000 feet from the site of the main house. It is divided into the Jackson family plot, which is surrounded by a 4-foot tall stone wall, and the African-American section which contains graves of slaves who worked the plantation and later tenant farmers. Antebellum markers are the most elaborate, showing influences from popular residential architectural styles such as Greek Revival and Classical Revival. Most were made of grey limestone or marble and were variations of obelisks. Later monuments are primarily of granite, and are smaller, in deference either architecturally to the more elaborate markers that preceded them, or to the ancestral founders of the family. Two African-American slave jockeys are buried inside the family plot wall, showing the importance to Jackson of his stable of race horses. The slave cemetery is the resting place of over 250 of the plantation's workers, as well as many of their free decedents. The graves, mostly unmarked, represents one of the largest African-American cemeteries in the region. Author Alex Haley's great-grandmother, Ester, is buried in the cemetery. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Downtown Florence Historic District

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.

Wood Avenue Historic District

The Wood Avenue Historic District is a historic district in Florence, Alabama. The residential neighborhood was primarily developed after Reconstruction, although five houses date from before the Civil War. By the time of Florence's economic boom of the 1880s, the most fashionable upper-class neighborhood in Florence, today known as the Sannoner Historic District, had already been filled in, leading development to move to Wood Avenue to the west. Most homes built during this time were large, Victorian structures, including many elaborate examples of Queen Anne architecture. As the economy slowed in the 1910s, more modest homes were constructed, primarily bungalows. Although they now make up nearly half of the buildings in the district, the first bungalow in the area, the Wade-Ware House, met resistance from neighbors when it was built in 1916, arguing that its style was not up to the standards of the neighborhood. After the completion of Wilson Dam in 1926, Florence's economy quickened once more and larger homes began to be built in the district. Houses of this era tended to be Georgian Revival in style, although other revival styles, such as Spanish Colonial and Tudor are represented. As the neighborhood filled in, the focus of development shifted to the north and west, including in the Walnut Street Historic District. The district was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage and the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. Its boundaries were increased in 1996 and 1997.

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