Brookside, AL

Brookside sits in north-central Jefferson County along Five Mile Creek, where the waterway runs toward the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River. The town was built around coal: the Brookside mine opened in 1886, Sloss Iron and Steel bought it the next year for blast-furnace fuel, and recruiters later brought miners from what is now the Czech and Slovak region. The mine shut after the 1920 strike and coal-price collapse, but the Eastern European presence left a lasting mark.

ATTRhttps://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/al1104.photos.032759p / Public domain

St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church's annual Russian/Slavic Food Festival is held the first full weekend in November, with church food and a tradition that reaches back to those immigrant families. The Brookside History Museum occupies the renovated Burrell-Country House, and the Five Mile Creek Greenway ties the town to walking, biking, and canoeing routes through nearby Jefferson County communities. A 2003 flood damaged much of the old commercial district, so Brookside's present-day map is a mix of creek, greenway, church, museum, and the Birmingham-area roads that sit just beyond town.