The Alabama Iron Complex That Forged Birmingham

Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, Alabama

Birmingham’s Sloss Furnaces ruled the iron world for nearly 100 years, pumping out metal that built the South. Now this ghost of the Industrial Age stands silent but proud, its rusted towers still reaching for the Alabama sky. Here’s the story of America’s only preserved blast furnace.

Colonel Sloss Started As A Railroad Man in 1850s

Colonel James Withers Sloss, who helped found Birmingham, started the Sloss Furnace Company in 1881 after spending years developing railroads in Jones Valley.

Before his iron business, he ran the Nashville and Decatur railroad line in the 1850s.

Together with other businessmen, he bought 30,000 acres to create the Pratt Coal and Coke Company, which grew into the area’s biggest mining operation.

His smart deal with the L&N Railroad in 1871 filled a key 67-mile gap between Birmingham and Decatur.

This railroad know-how helped him set up good transportation for raw materials and finished iron.

The L&N later put over $30 million into Alabama projects including mines, docks, and steamship lines.

The Furnaces Produced 24,000 Tons In First Year

Building began in 1881 on 50 acres given by the Elyton Land Company just for industrial growth.

Harry Hargreaves, who had learned from English inventor Thomas Whitwell, managed the building work.

The first blast started in April 1882, and within just one year, the furnaces made an amazing 24,000 tons of high-quality iron.

The Whitwell stoves were the first of their kind in Birmingham, reaching 60 feet high and 18 feet wide. The starting equipment had two blowing engines and ten boilers, each thirty feet long and forty-six inches wide.

Hargreaves, from Switzerland and England, added cutting-edge European furnace technology.

Louisville Exposition Awarded Sloss Bronze Medal in 1883

The iron from Sloss quickly got noticed for its quality, winning a bronze medal at the Louisville, Kentucky Southern Exposition in 1883, just a year after starting production.

The medal named Sloss as making “best pig iron,” showing how good it was for foundry use. This recognition helped Birmingham become a serious player in the national iron market.

Iron from Sloss was especially valued for its high silicon content and good grain structure, making it perfect for foundry work.

Virginia Investors Bought The Company After Sloss Retired

When James Sloss retired in 1886, he sold the company to investors who guided it through big growth.

In 1899, it became Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company, but oddly, despite having “steel” in the name, they never made any steel.

Wall Street money men raised three million dollars to pay for this purchase and growth. The company changed names a few times, first becoming Sloss Iron and Steel Company in 1887 under J.F. Johnston’s leadership.

Virginia businessman Joseph Bryan, who led the investment group, shaped Birmingham’s growth for more than 20 years.

The company got bigger by buying blast furnaces, coal mines, and ore beds in northwest Alabama from owners who went broke during the 1890s economic downturn.

Alabama Ranked Fourth In Pig Iron By 1890

By 1890, Alabama had become the fourth-highest pig iron producing state in America, with Birmingham and Sloss Furnaces leading this industrial boom.

Over time, Sloss Furnaces grew to become the world’s largest producer of pig iron.

During the 1880s, Alabama’s pig iron production jumped from 68,995 to 706,629 gross tons, with nineteen blast furnaces built in Jefferson County alone.

Sloss sent large amounts of iron to foreign markets starting in the 1890s, competing with major production centers in Middlesbrough, England, and Glasgow, Scotland.

By World War I, Sloss-Sheffield was among the world’s largest pig iron makers with seven blast furnaces and 1,500 beehive coke ovens.

After rebuilding furnaces in the late 1920s, the company could make 400 tons per day.

Pig Iron Got Its Name From Its Appearance

The term “pig iron” that made Sloss famous came from early steel making methods. Workers poured hot ore from the blast furnace into long trays called runners.

The ore flowed from a main branch to smaller side branches. Someone noticed that the offshoots looked like piglets with a sow, and the name “pig iron” stuck around.

Sloss used this sand-casting method until the 1920s. Workers would break the cooled iron bars off the central “sow” channel and load them for shipping.

Southern foundry operators preferred sand-cast iron because it cooled more slowly, creating a better open grain and large crystal pattern.

Breaking and loading these pig iron bars was some of the hardest work at the furnace, needing heavy sledges and crowbars.

Company Operations Spread Throughout Alabama By 1900

The company grew to own complete ironmaking facilities with blast furnaces, iron-ore mines, coal mines, coke ovens, and limestone quarries, all within Alabama.

By 1900, about 2,000 workers kept the furnaces running day and night without stopping. Sloss-Sheffield owned 120,000 acres of coal and ore land across Alabama.

They ran five Jefferson County coal mines, two red ore mines, several brown ore mines, and quarries in North Birmingham.

The iron ore came mostly from company-owned Sloss #1 and Sloss #2 mines on Red Mountain.

The company built towns near its mining operations, including Blossburg, Brookside, and Cardiff.

North Birmingham Plant Added Two More Furnaces

As the company grew under new owners, they built two more furnaces – Sloss Furnace No. 3 and Sloss Furnace No. 4 – which formed the “North Birmingham” plant.

These went up along Huntsville Road near Village Creek between 1887 and 1889, making the company able to produce much more.

The North Birmingham growth included building a new community just for workers. New blowers went into the plant in 1902 to make the furnaces work better.

More equipment updates followed with new boilers added in 1906 and again in 1914. The North Birmingham site became a key part of the company’s business for many decades.

Black Workers Faced Dangerous Jobs And Segregation

At Sloss, the workforce was strictly divided, with African-Americans doing the dangerous physical labor while white workers had management jobs.

The company separated more than just work areas, keeping different bath houses, living areas, company picnics, and even lunch spots.

This system lasted until the late 1960s. Despite bad conditions, Sloss paid better than rural jobs, offering about $1.50 per day in the early years.

By 1941, almost half of Birmingham’s workers had jobs in iron, steel, and mining, with more than two-thirds of these workers being African-American.

James Sloss found white locals unwilling to do manual labor and instead used a plantation model hiring formerly enslaved people.

Even with decent wages, workers could lose nearly half their monthly pay ($15-20) to company housing and store costs.

Sloss Quarters Housed 48 Worker Families

During modernization and growth, the company built 48 small houses near the downtown furnace for Black workers, creating a neighborhood known as “Sloss Quarters” or just “the quarters.”

Company housing partly aimed to reduce workers missing shifts and Monday morning no-shows. Sloss had about 600 African-American workers during its busiest times.

Coalburg Mine Had 90 Prisoner Deaths In 1890

Sloss used many convicts in its mines, including the Coalburg mine, known for terrible conditions and high death rates. In 1890, 90 out of 1,000 prisoners died in the mines.

Sloss kept using convict labor even after other big companies, including the Tennessee Iron, Coal and Steel Company (TCI), had stopped this practice.

The Virginia investors who bought from Sloss picked Southern locations because labor costs less there.

Workers faced extremely dangerous conditions, with heat reaching 150 degrees in summer and no breaks during 12-hour shifts.

Workers often breathed poisonous gases, and many died from burns or breathing problems. The convict-lease system let the company rent prisoners cheaply for dangerous work, basically forcing labor for the hardest jobs.

James Dovel Rebuilt Furnaces Between 1927-1931

Construction boss James Dovel made many improvements to the furnaces between 1927 and 1931, completely rebuilding them to his designs.

This big push for modernization and growth helped Sloss-Sheffield become the second-largest seller of pig iron in the Birmingham area and among the largest worldwide.

Dovel’s patents included a better hearth and bosh jacket, improved cooling system, and changed interior furnace shapes. His design used fewer fire bricks and made a larger space at the top, holding more material.

These new ideas helped keep heat in, making more iron while using less coke.

Dovel also patented and built a gas washer and heat recuperator that warmed the cold blast air. The updated No. 2 furnace, finished in July 1927, increased daily output from 200 to 400 tons.