Birmingham Industrial District, Birmingham, Jefferson County, AL

STORED OFF SITE AND ON SITE. mchr
Significance: Republic Steel Corporation's Thomas Works was one of four major iron and steel companies in the Birmingham District. The District's prominence as a major producer of foundry iron, cast-iron pipes and steel was due to the presence of all the raw materials needed to make pig-iron within remarkably close proximity. An unprecedented surge of demand for pig-iron in American in the 1870s and 1880s lured iron makers and entrepreneurs who hoped to exploit this fortunate combination of iron ore, coal and fluxing stone. During the next two decades they built more blast furnaces here than in any other region in the United States except Pittsburgh. To feed their new furnaces, they opened record numbers of coal mines, ore mines and fluxing stone quarries. Major railroad trunk lines and mineral short lines sprang up to tie together the growing industrial complex. Cheap pig iron attracted the nation's largest concentration of cast-iron pipe mills and two major steel mills. It soon became clear that the raw material reserves of the district could not support all the furnaces built during the building boom. Only companies controlling optimally located furnaces and mines could survive. Led by Woodward Iron, the first company to achieve full vertical integration, four companies pushed the remaining competitors out of business. The Thomas Works was one of the survivors.
Survey number: HAER AL-105