Tannehill Furnace | |
Location | Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, USA |
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Coordinates | 33°14′52″N87°4′4″W / 33.24778°N 87.06778°W |
Area | 2,063 acres (835 ha) |
Built | 1859-62 |
Built by | Hillman, Daniel |
Website | Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park |
NRHP reference No. | 72000182 |
Added to NRHP | July 24, 1972 |
The Tannehill Ironworks is the central feature of Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park near the unincorporated town of McCalla in Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. [1] Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Tannehill Furnace, it was a major supplier of iron for Confederate ordnance. [2] Remains of the old furnaces are located 12 miles (19 km) south of Bessemer off Interstate 59/Interstate 20 near the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. The 2,063-acre (835 ha) park includes: the John Wesley Hall Grist Mill; the May Plantation Cotton Gin House; and the Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama. [1]
Ironmaking at the site began with construction of a bloomery forge by Daniel Hillman Sr. in 1830. [1] Built by noted southern ironmaster Moses Stroup from 1859 to 1862, the three charcoal blast furnaces at Tannehill could produce 22 tons of pig iron a day, most of which was shipped to the Naval Gun Works and Arsenal at Selma. Furnaces Nos. 2 and 3 were equipped with hot blast stoves and a steam engine. Brown iron ore mines were present two miles (3 km) distant. [3]
The Tannehill furnaces and its adjacent foundry, where kettles and hollow-ware were cast for southern troops, were attacked and burnt by three companies of the U.S. 8th Iowa Cavalry on March 31, 1865 during Wilson's Raid. The ruins remain today as one of the best preserved 19th-century iron furnace sites in the South. [4]
Also known as the Roupes Valley Iron Company, these works had significant influence on the later development of the Birmingham iron and steel industry. An experiment conducted at Tannehill in 1862 proved red iron ore could successfully be used in Alabama blast furnaces. The test, promoted by South & North Railroad developers, led to the location of government-financed ironworks in the immediate Birmingham area (Jefferson County). [5]
The furnace remains and its reconstructed portions were named an American Society for Metals historical landmark in 1994. [6] The park is an American Battlefield Trust Heritage Site, [7] a stop on the Alabama Appalachian Highlands Birding Trail, [8] and was listed among the top 10 Alabama parks and nature areas visited in 2016. [9]
Birmingham is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2022 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 196,910, down 2% from the 2020 Census, making it Alabama's third-most populous city after Huntsville and Montgomery. The broader Birmingham metropolitan area had a 2020 population of 1,115,289, and is the largest metropolitan area in Alabama as well as the 50th-most populous in the United States. Birmingham serves as an important regional hub and is associated with the Deep South, Piedmont, and Appalachian regions of the nation.
Red Mountain is a long ridge running southwest-northeast and dividing Jones Valley from Shades Valley south of Birmingham, Alabama. It is part of the Ridge-and-Valley region of the Appalachian mountains. The Red Mountain Formation of hard Silurian rock strata lies exposed in several long crests, and was named "Red Mountain" because of the rust-stained rock faces and prominent seams of red hematite iron ore. The mountain was the site of several mines that supplied iron ore to Birmingham's iron furnaces. Most of Birmingham's television and radio stations have transmission towers located on Red Mountain.
Sloss Furnaces is a National Historic Landmark in Birmingham, Alabama in the United States. It operated as a pig iron-producing blast furnace from 1882 to 1971. After closing, it became one of the first industrial sites in the U.S. to be preserved and restored for public use. In 1981, the furnaces were designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior.
The Birmingham District is a geological area in the vicinity of Birmingham, Alabama, where the raw materials for making steel, limestone, iron ore, and coal are found together in abundance. The district includes Red Mountain, Jones Valley, and the Warrior and Cahaba coal fields in Central Alabama.
Greenwood Furnace State Park is a 423-acre (171 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Jackson Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania in the United States. The park is near the historic iron making center of Greenwood Furnace. The park includes the ghost town of Greenwood that grew up around the ironworks, old roads and charcoal hearths. Greenwood Furnace State Park is adjacent to Rothrock State Forest and on the western edge of an area of Central Pennsylvania known as the Seven Mountains. The park is on Pennsylvania Route 305, 20 miles (32 km) south of State College.
The Katahdin Iron Works is a Maine state historic site located in the unorganized township of the same name. It is the site of an ironworks which operated from 1845 to 1890. In addition to the kilns of the ironworks, the community was served by a railroad and had a 100-room hotel. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.
McCalla is a census-designated place in Jefferson and Tuscaloosa counties, Alabama, United States, southwest of Bessemer and the geographic terminus of the Appalachian Mountains.
Cornwall Furnace is located near Cedar Bluff, Alabama in Cherokee County. It was built by the Noble Brothers to supply iron products to the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.
The Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama, also known as the Tannehill Museum, is an industrial museum that demonstrates iron production in the nineteenth-century Alabama located at Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park in McCalla, Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. Opened in 1981, it covers 13,000 square feet (1,200 m2).
Principio Furnace and village is in Cecil County, Maryland, 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Havre de Grace, MD.
The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (1852–1952), also known as TCI and the Tennessee Company, was a major American steel manufacturer with interests in coal and iron ore mining and railroad operations. Originally based entirely within Tennessee, it relocated most of its business to Alabama in the late nineteenth century, following protests over its use of free convict labor. With a sizable real estate portfolio, the company owned several Birmingham satellite towns, including Ensley, Fairfield, Docena, Edgewater and Bayview. It also established a coal mining camp it sold to U.S. Steel which developed it into the Westfield, Alabama planned community.
Woodstock is a town in Bibb and Tuscaloosa counties in the U.S. state of Alabama. Formerly known as North Bibb, by referendum in August 2000, the town adopted the name of a long-established local unincorporated community and, as of October 1, 2000, is now known officially as "Woodstock". As of the 2010 census, the population of the town was 1,428.
The Woodward Iron Company was founded on December 31, 1881, by brothers William and Joseph Woodward. William was the company president and Joseph was the company secretary. The company operated iron and coal mines, quarries and furnaces; these were connected by a private industrial railroad based in Bessemer, Alabama. The company administrative office was located near Woodward Ore Mine #1, south of Paul's Hill in Bessemer.
The Brierfield Furnace, also known as the Bibb Naval Furnace and Brierfield Ironworks, is a historic district in Brierfield, Alabama, encompassed by Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park. The district covers 486 acres (197 ha) and includes one building and nine sites. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on November 20, 1974.
The Sloss Mines are a group of mines in southwestern Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. They were established by the Sloss Iron and Steel Company and its successor, the Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company, on the southern end of Red Mountain. The Sloss Iron and Steel Company itself was founded by James Sloss in 1881 as the Sloss Furnace Company. The Sloss Mines produced iron ore from 1882 until the 1960s. The ore that these mines produced were essential to the production of iron at the Sloss Furnaces, making them an important element in the formation of adjacent Birmingham and Bessemer as cities.
The Shelby Iron Company was an iron manufacturing company that operated an ironworks in Shelby, Alabama. The iron company produced iron for the Confederate States of America and was destroyed towards the end of the American Civil War. The company continued to produce iron until the early part of the 20th century.
The Cedar Creek Furnace is a former blast furnace site near Russellville in Franklin County, Alabama. It was the first iron ore furnace in Alabama, preceding an industry that would come to dominate the state's economy in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The Civil War Trust's Civil War Discovery Trail is a heritage tourism program that links more than 600 U.S. Civil War sites in more than 30 states. The program is one of the White House Millennium Council's sixteen flagship National Millennium Trails. Sites on the trail include battlefields, museums, historic sites, forts and cemeteries.
The Mount Riga Ironworks was one of the most successful manufacturers of iron in the late colonial and post-Revolutionary period of United States history. Located in the far northwestern Connecticut town of Salisbury, it produced high quality iron for use in military and domestic applications, and supported a community of 1,200 people. It declined in the mid-19th century, and was closed in 1847. Surviving elements include an early 19th-century cold blast furnace and other foundational and archaeological remains. Its site, now part of a large private holding owned by the Mount Riga Corporation, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994.