Photo courtesy of the Birmingham Rewound.
More than 70 years ago, the Homewood Christmas Star was welded together at the McConnell Sales and Engineering Corporation shop off of West Oxmoor Road.
This photo from the Birmingham News in November 1955 depicts Ted Carter, a chairman of the Shades Valley Chamber of Commerce decorations committee, and Fred Sikes with the star in the background.
Star-builder Douglass McConnell passed the company onto his son, Art McConnell, who passed in 2020. As the McConnell’s business lives on, the lighting of the 200-pound star offers a tribute to the family who has been a cornerstone of Homewood Christmas tradition for decades.
