Issue link: https://alabamapower.uberflip.com/i/921986
33 who played on the University of Alabama's first football team, bought a Jasper city block. In 1924 he began building the house she would occasionally stay in during her acclaimed career on stage, screen, radio and TV. It had fallen into disrepair in 2007 when a foundation was established to restore the house and open it to the public. A $1 million renovation retained the tiger oak floors, fireplace mantels, chandeliers, crown molding, arched doorways, heating radiators and other aspects of the original house. "We like to call it the People's Home," says Barbara Brown Medders, who grew up admiring the two-story tan brick building. "It was very important to the foundation that the house is open to everyone without charge." Today there are monthly free concerts in the amphitheater where Tallulah sunbathed. Her dad could have become president, being third in line of succession to FDR. He did, however, start a local foundation that offered low-interest loans to families like Medders', who took advantage by building houses and farms around Jasper. The Bankhead House includes a sculpture of John Hollis Bankhead II, which is the only thing that survived when Walker High School burned. There is the desk of J.H. Bankhead Sr., which is one of few original pieces of furniture retained from the Bankhead House. Atop an 1870s-era Alabama Senate desk is a book of letters written by the first Bankhead to hold office. William B. Bankhead's former study room includes a bust sculpted by his second wife, Florence McGuire; a signed photograph from President John F. Kennedy to Elliot; Bevill's gavel from his chairmanship of the Environmental and Waterways Committee; and historic mementoes from the other Bankeads, Manasco and Elliot, whose former home is available for private tours and whose daughter volunteers at the museum. "I used to play here when I was little," says Medders, who's been the Bankhead Center coordinator for three years. "It's like I'm meant to be here." Tallulah hugs her father in one photo in the home, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Tophat worn by J.H. Bankhead, below. Local foundation restored the Bankhead House and opened it free to the public.