On this day in Alabama history: Historian Jay Higginbotham was born

Jay Higginbotham during a visit to Russia. (Mobile Press Register Collection, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama)
July 16, 1937
Prieur Jay Higginbotham, who wrote books on local and world history and founded the Mobile Municipal Archives, was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He also lived and studied in New York and Washington, D.C., before moving to Alabama in 1962 to teach in the Mobile public schools. A world traveler, Higginbotham titled his memoir “Fast Train Russia.” His books on Southern history included several focused on the Mobile area. He was the director of the Mobile archives from its founding in 1983 until his death in 2017. His writings were translated into over 20 languages and distributed in more than 125 countries.
Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.