The storefronts at the northeast corner of 18th Street South and 29th Avenue South bend along a curve. The road in front of them doesn't. That corner is still called The Curve because traffic used to swing through it between 18th Street South and the old Montgomery Highway, the road now named Independence Drive. US 31 moved to the expressway in 1970. In the 1990s the intersection was squared off into the T that drivers use today. The buildings kept the old line.
Plenty of Homewood works the same way. Lakeshore Drive runs along the edge of a lake that was drained in 1946, and a hotel near Shades Creek Parkway stands on the site of a country club. Hollywood takes its name from a California city a 1920s developer admired. The Homewood Historic Preservation Commission has now put those stories into one tour you can play in the car.
Sixteen Stops, Five Wards, No Fixed Route
The City of Homewood announced the tour on Oct. 13, 2026. It's free through the TravelStorys app for iOS and Android, and you can also take it online. It has 16 audio and text stops covering the city's five historic wards. You can start anywhere and play one area, or spend about an hour driving the whole thing. Shelia Snoddy narrates. Many listeners will know her voice from her years in radio as Jill Friday. Historic photographs come from the Homewood Public Library, the Birmingham Public Library Archives and the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
The TravelStorys tour page suggests one starting point for each ward:
- Ward 1, Rosedale: 18th Street South and 26th Avenue South, near the view toward Vulcan and Red Mountain
- Ward 2, West Homewood: Oak Grove Road and Oxmoor Road, near Patriot Park
- Ward 3, Edgewood: near the junction of Oxmoor Road and Broadway
- Ward 4, Lakeshore, Mayfair and Windsor: near Samford University and Lakeshore Parkway
- Ward 5, Hollywood: along Hollywood Boulevard and Bonita Drive
The tour was paid for by the City of Homewood, with part of the money coming from a Historic Preservation Fund Grant-in-Aid from the National Park Service. Its own description says the neighborhoods are walkable and worth exploring on foot.
Edgewood Is Built Around a Lake That Was Drained
The biggest missing piece in Homewood is a lake. Edgewood Lake covered 117.4 acres along what is now Lakeshore Drive, and a streetcar line ran to its northern shore. The dam failed in 1923 and again in 1935. In the spring of 1946, Jefferson County drained it. The Homewood Star's history of the lake covers each of those years. The tour connects the lake to the Edgewood Electric Railway, which puts a lakefront that's been gone for 80 years back into the story of the neighborhood around it.
The Edgewood stops also include the Pink House on Edgewood Boulevard. Georges and Eleanor Bridges built it in the 1920s, and it's known for its pink stucco exterior and its "secret garden." The Homewood Star reported that in 2018, plans went to the Homewood Planning Commission to tear the house down and divide the property into six lots. Neighbors spent more than a year raising money and spreading the word, and in the fall of 2019 the house sold to a private buyer. It's still a private home, so the tour stop is something you see from the street.
Rosedale's History Is Written in Names and Addresses
In Ward 1, the missing pieces are businesses and the people who ran them. A 2026 Samford student StoryMap dates the Lee family's Rosedale history to 1909. That year Damon Lee opened a grocery with his son, Afton. The StoryMap describes Damon Lee as a community leader who helped schoolchildren and paid for a bridge on Central Avenue. In 1968, Afton M. Lee Sr. was elected to the Homewood City Council as its first Rosedale resident and first African American member. In 1984, Adrienne Lee became the council's first female member.
D. Lee & Son Grocery and the Lee Realty Co. were at 2629 18th Street South. That's a few blocks from where the tour suggests starting Ward 1, at 18th Street South and 26th Avenue South. The National Park Service listed the Rosedale Historic District on the National Register on March 31, 2004. Its boundaries run roughly from 25th Court South to 27th Court South, between Central Avenue and Loveless and BM Montgomery Street.
West Homewood and Lakeshore Go Back Before the Suburb
The Ward 2 stops go back further. They cover Hall-Kent Elementary, the old Zelosophian Academy site and the Kent family's dairy farm. The academy was a private coeducational school. James Hugh Blair Hall founded it in September 1892, connected to Oak Grove Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Shades Valley.
In Ward 4, the oldest stop is the McDaniel House on Saulter Road. The tour dates it to the 1870s. A local history blog calls it the oldest standing house in the area, dates it to around 1870, and says some of its dates may be uncertain. The same ward includes Samford University's Georgian-Colonial campus. The farmhouse is from the 1870s and the campus is from the 20th century, so a short stretch of road covers a lot of years.
Hollywood Got Its Name and Its Look From Somewhere Else
Ward 5 has the clearest example of an outside idea that stuck. The Homewood Star reports that Clyde H. Nelson incorporated the Hollywood Land Company in October 1924. He named the subdivision after Hollywood, California, and based its look on the Spanish-influenced architecture he had seen in Coral Gables and Hollywood. The first homes were finished in 1925, and a Tudor phase followed in 1926. The Hollywood Historic District was listed on the National Register on May 16, 2002. The National Park Service describes its edges as US 31, US 280 and Lakeshore Drive.
The tour also stops at the site of the Hollywood Country Club. The club was built in 1926 as part of the subdivision and stood along Shades Creek Parkway, across from where Brookwood Village was later built. The clubhouse burned in 1984. Bhamwiki says the Courtyard Birmingham Homewood hotel now sits on the site.
Where to Eat Along the Way
Some of the newest businesses in Homewood are right along the tour roads, so a stop can fit between wards.
- Start at The Curve with lunch. Foo Hai Handmade Noodles and Dumplings opened in August at 1903 29th Ave. S., Suite 101, at 19th Street South, a block from the bend in the storefronts. It took two years to get ready. The founders also run Urban Hai in Midtown Atlanta, and the Homewood menu has a chef's selection that isn't served in Atlanta. It's open daily from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Pair Rosedale with breakfast. Homewood Bagel Company is now at 2907 Central Ave., near the Ward 1 stops. Its website lists hours of 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Homewood Star's October business roundup reported that the bagel shop planned to share the space with Goodies Toy Store, which was leaving its storefront at 3027 Central Ave.
- Take a coffee break in West Homewood. Green Springs Highway is one of the roads the tour uses. Bayt Al-Qahwah, a coffee shop inspired by Yemeni flavors, is at 425 Green Springs Highway. It serves Yemeni-style coffee, honeycomb bread and strawberry milk cake, and stays open until 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.
The calendar gives you two more reasons to be downtown. The Homewood Chamber's Holiday Open House is tonight, Nov. 5, from 5 to 8 p.m., with downtown businesses, refreshments and seasonal activities. That's a short walk from where the Rosedale stops begin. The Christmas Parade and Lighting of the Star is Thursday, Dec. 3, at 6:30 p.m. It starts at the Homewood Public Library and ends with the tree lighting at City Hall Plaza.
The Homewood Star covered the tour's launch in its Oct. 21 story. TravelStorys describes its app as GPS-guided, with audio stories that play automatically as you explore.
If you own a home in Rosedale, Edgewood, Hollywood or one of Homewood's other historic wards, its history is part of what a buyer is getting. At Riverstone Realty Group, we build listing photos, video and copy around that history, so buyers see it before they visit. Request your free home valuation, and we'll show you how we would present your house.
