Photo courtesy of the city of Mountain Brook.
Aerial view of Mountain Brook Village from 1952.
The small businesses tucked inside Mountain Brook exude a feeling of homeyness to residents and visitors alike.
In her 1989 book “A History of Mountain Brook, Alabama, and Incidentally of Shades Valley,” author Marilyn Davis Barefield explains that developer Robert Jemison began the construction of the Tudor-style Mountain Brook Village during the 1920s.
Jemison “kept his standard on a high level, giving the purchasers in Mountain Brook a shopping center created with the same taste used in the residential sector.”
While the shopping center drove commerce to the area, Jemison’s builders also incorporated green islands and trees to shade visitors.
Mountain Brook Pharmacy was one of the first stores to open in the village, located on the corner of Canterbury and Montevallo Roads. In 1928, the store became Gilchrist’s Drug Store. Visitors would stop by for prescriptions, refreshments and snacks. Today, Gilchrist’s serves food and drinks alongside its other merchandise.
“What a change from Waddell with its narrow dirt roads and individually planned, random stores with limited supplies,” Barefield writes. “The sleepy little dairy community was in the throes of growing into one of the most notable residential towns in the United States, with a shopping area of which the people could be justifiably proud.”
