Brighton, AL

Brighton is a Jefferson County city whose story begins with a rail line and the coal-and-iron economy around Birmingham and Bessemer. The Bessemer and Birmingham Railroad laid its streetcar line in 1889, lots went on sale in 1892, and Brighton incorporated in 1901. The town took its name from the English seaside resort, but its working history was tied to Woodward Iron Company until that operation closed in 1979. A 2015 historical marker for William Miller, an African American miner and labor activist lynched in Brighton in 1908, also places the city within Alabama's hard history. Brighton is small, but its name, rail line, industry, and memory all point somewhere.