Birmingham|Mills City, Alabama (Location Key)

Birmingham (1930 population 260,000) is the largest city in Alabama. It is while driving through it in Sanctuary, on his way from Memphis to Florida, that Popeye is arrested for a murder he didn't commit. Birmingham is probably also the Alabama location that Faulkner calls "Mills City" in "Elly." There is no "Mills City" in the real Alabama. The one in the story is the same distance from Jefferson that Birmingham is from Oxford. Named after Birmingham, England, a major industrial center, Birmingham, Alabama, was founded just after the Civil War as an industrial center, and was well-known for its mills.