On This Day In Alabama History: Vestavia Hills Incorporated

By Alabama NewsCenter Staff

After the road from the Birmingham Water Works filter plant at the base of Shades Mountain to its top was extended, a few wealthy Birmingham residents began to build estates along it to escape the noise and pollution of the industrial city below. One of them was George Battey Ward. The former Birmingham mayor in 1924 built a home and named it Vestavia because it was modeled after the temple of the Roman goddess Vesta in Rome. After Ward died in 1940, developer Charles Byrd bought the estate and conceived of a planned community of 1,000 homes named Vestavia Hills. Byrd began building homes in 1946 during the housing boom after World War II, and soon the town had an elementary school and several churches. The city was formally incorporated on this day in 1950.

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