Rains to be inducted into Hall of Fame

Albert McKinley Rains

Longtime Alabama congressman Albert McKinley Rains will be inducted into the Alabama Men’s Hall of Fame during a luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Sept. 22 at The Club in Birmingham.  Rains, who died in 1991 at age 89, represented Alabama’s 5th Congressional District from 1945 to 1965. The district includes Gadsden, where he practiced law before and after his terms in the U.S. Congress.  His legislative proposals expanded Federal Housing Administration programs that made housing affordable and available for millions of people. Other programs that bear his legislative imprint include housing for the elderly, urban renewal and redevelopment, nursing homes and rural housing programs. He wrote the nation’s first mass transit bill and was instrumental in legislation that led to the establishment of the Interstate Highway System.

He was deputy solicitor for Etowah County, city attorney for Gadsden and a member of the Alabama House of Representatives before being elected to Congress.