Best location in Alabama for a selfie: Beaches
Check out our cover shot for an illustration of this cell phone phenomenon, shot at The Hangout in Gulf Shores. Runners up: Vulcan in Birmingham, Cheaha State Park in Clay and Cleburne counties
Best Alabama export: Cotton
The state’s largest row crop has strong roots in Alabama’s economic development history. The search for land to grow it brought the state’s first settlers to Alabama’s river valleys; its production created two dominant labor systems (slavery and sharecropping.) Although it is no longer a “king” of Alabama’s agriculture, the state’s farmers planted nearly 460,000 acres of cotton in 2011, according to the Alabama Farmers Federation, and the crop is grown in 59 of Alabama’s 67 counties. Runners up: automotive products, peanuts
Best movie about Alabama: “Sweet Home Alabama”
The 2002 hit romantic comedy starred Reese Witherspoon and Josh Lucas (both Southerners in real life, but not Alabamians) and was filmed primarily in the South (but not in Alabama.) Critics praised Witherspoon’s charm, and the movie eventually grossed more than $120 million at the box office, but it wasn’t universally admired: Critics also panned its preposterous story line and lack of true comedy. Runners up: “Forrest Gump,” “To Kill a Mockingbird”
Best statue or historical marker in Alabama: Vulcan
Watching over Birmingham is Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and forge, an appropriate symbol of the city’s iron origins. At 56 feet tall, it’s the world’s largest cast iron statue, according to its website, and was designed by Italian artist Giuseppe Moretti and cast from local iron in 1904. An educational park complex helps interpret Alabama’s industrial history for visitors and residents alike. Runner up: Boll Weevil Monument, Enterprise
Best place to get married: The beach (including responses of Gulf Shores, Orange Best place to go on a first date: The beach
A caveat here: You gave us nearly 100 different responses to this open-ended question. And you’ll see Alabama’s beaches show up in several other categories, so be prepared for some repetition. But the sugar white sands and famed restaurants along Alabama’s Gulf Coast are undeniably attractive, so it’s easy to see why they garnered so many votes for this question. Runners up: an Auburn or Alabama football game, the Fairhope pier
14 JANUARY 2015
Beach and “the beach”) Again, winning with 30 percent of the vote, are Alabama’s beaches. Baldwin County was also the choice for the state’s newest “it” couple, former Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron and model Katherine Webb: They were engaged at a restaurant in Gulf Shores, their rehearsal dinner was held at the FloraBama Yacht club, and the couple married at an Orange Beach church in July. Runner up: Gorham’s Bluff, near Pisgah in Jackson County, northeast Alabama
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