The story of coal and iron in Alabama by Armes Ethel 1876-1945 & YA Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress) DLC

Author:Armes, Ethel, 1876-1945 & YA Pamphlet Collection (Library of Congress) DLC [from old catalog]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mines and mineral resources, Coal mines and mining, Iron industry and trade
Publisher: Birmingham, Ala., Pub. under auspices of the Chamber of commerce
Published: 1910-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

A CHAPTER OF PROGRESS 1880-1886 285

was begun on the first furnace of the city of Birmingham—■ the one destined, as it turned out, to become in a few years, at the hands of George B. McCormack, a celebrated landmark in the story of steel as well as the story of iron. The work was begun September 29, 1879, and the furnace went into blast November 30, 1880. The plant was named for Colonel DeBar-deleben's oldest daughter, Alice.

The Williamson furnace later reinforced the rolling mills and the Alice, and these, together with the Linn Iron Works, were all concentrated in the one locality and gave the town a busy look, at its very gates. The industrial population was increased by several hundred; the district's payroll grew, and, the point in question to Aldrich and DeBardeleben, there were now steady consumers of Pratt coal. Other enterprises of this period were the Birmingham Machine and Foundry Company, founded in 1881 by Richard W. Boland, and the St. Clair Mining and Mineral Company, formed in 1881, by George C. Kelley.

The output at Alice furnace at the start was fifty-three tons per day of mill and foundry iron, of the brand Alice. And this was a record breaker for Alabama. To-day, the new Alice, in the hands of the Tennessee Company, turns out per day nearly three hundred tons of pig iron. Vice-president Crockard is so proud of the furnace's record that he is constantly bringing up the latest figures. " Hear about Alice," he will say, " she made two hundred and ninety-two tons yesterday — pretty good, little fellow! " At the time Alice went into blast, a battery of one hundred and fifty coke ovens were installed. Under the expert and economical handling of the Kentucky iron-master, the plant soon got into good going, and, like the Pratt mines, it was a commercial success from the very start.

T. T. Hillman was, as Colonel Shook has observed, " born and bred in a blast furnace." He was the son of Daniel Hillman, Jr., who, with Major Peters and Colonel Sam Tate, had once ridden horseback over the Birmingham district in the years just after the Civil War, as has been related, and invested then in Alabama coal and iron properties. Of his grandfather, the builder of Tannehill forge, in 1830, T. T. Hillman had no personal recollection, as he himself was born in Kentucky, in 1844, just twelve years after that pioneer furnaceman of Alabama had died. When T. T. Hillman was barely two months old, his mother carried him from the old Marable homestead out to Fulton

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