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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;leeg, post: 3413676, member: 17073&quot;]&quot;The Alabama Centennial Commission, led by Mrs. Marie Bankhead Owen, having completed its centennial celebrations in 1919, saw little reason to exclude the state from the gravy train. Encouraged by Senator John H. Bankhead, (Sen. Bankhead died in March 1920, the same month as Mrs. Owen’s husband. She was appointed to her husband’s position in April.) Representatives William B. Bankhead, Lilius Rainey and others, Congress willingly passed a bill on May 10, 1920, authorizing up to 100,000 half dollars honoring Alabama’s ex post facto centennial.</p><p><br /></p><p>Appointed director of the Alabama Department of Archives and History on the death of her husband, Thomas M. Owen, in March 1920, Marie Owen ran both department and Centennial Commission according to her own rules. She was politically connected, socially admired and possessed the tenacity of a badger.</p><p><br /></p><p>An early proposed design for the coin was rejected by the Commission of Fine Arts and it was not until June 1921 that new suggestions were made. Mrs. Owen’s prosaic idea was to portray the state seal on the obverse, and portraits of governors William Bibb (1819) and Thomas Kilby (1919) on the reverse. (The designs should be credited to Mrs. Owen and the sculpting to Laura Fraser.)<b>. . .</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p>Mrs. Owen wanted a large initial delivery before October 26, when President Harding was scheduled to visit Birmingham for dedication of a new Masonic temple. Laura Fraser’s plaster models did not arrive at the Philadelphia Mint until October 6, 1921, and Owen directed a steady of stream of telegrams and letters to mint director Frank Scoby and Philadelphia Mint Superintendent Freas Styer encouraging prompt production and delivery. Accordingly, the first 6,006 Alabama halves were struck on October 22. All were from dies with ‘2X2’ on the portrait side. Four coins were reserved for the Annual Assay Commission and two for Special Assay.</p><p><br /></p><p>Five thousand pieces were shipped to Mrs. Owen by express as soon as the state issued payment to the mint for the coins. (This was done with special permission of Governor Kilby since the Centennial Commission had finished its work the previous year<b>. . .</b>&quot;<b>1</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><p><br /></p><p><b>1</b>. Roger Burdette, New research explains Alabama Centennial Half Dollar Mintage.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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