Birmingham Churches and their Cornerstones 82

Irondale United Methodist Church is located in the Birmingham suburb of Irondale, Alabama. The city is most famous as the inspiration for the novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987) and the movie Fried Green Tomatoes (1991). (I first saw the movie on a Wesley Foundation spring break trip in eastern Kentucky.) The church was founded in 1887, a century before the novel was published, as part of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. It moved from the center of town to its present location in 1962.

The Rev. Dr. Matt Andrews became pastor of the church in fall 2023. He is the husband of my Samford University colleague and former student, Dr. Emily Snider Andrews.

For more information on the church’s history, see its history on its website and its entry on Bhamwiki. Read this first post for more on this series on Birmingham churches and their cornerstones.

Map of Posts in this Project

Each site in this project is mapped below. Clicking on an icon will bring up a box with a link to the post on the site. Please use it to browse the collection.

The color and shape of the location markers indicate the character of the cornerstones at each site. Stones like this, with only the church name and date, are light blue. Ones with multiple names are red. If there is more than one stone at the site a shape is used. Click here for full information on the icons.