- Birmingham District
The Birmingham District refers to a geological area in the vicinity of
Birmingham, Alabama where the raw materials for makingsteel ,limestone ,iron ore , andcoal are found together in abundance. The district includes Red Mountain, Jones Valley, and the Warrior and Cahaba coal fields inCentral Alabama .The industrial development of these resources began, in limited fashion, before the
American Civil War (attracting the attention of Wilson's Raiders in the course of that conflict).Beginning in
1871 with the founding of the City of Birmingham and the construction of the firstblast furnace s, the development of the district enjoyed explosive growth, slowed only by a deficit of skilled labor and investment capital. This boom earned for Birmingham the nickname "The Magic City" and also spurred the growth of several independent industrial cities and dozens ofcompany town s.As the steel-making industry has diminished in its economic importance to the district, many of the sites have been abandoned or dismantled. Preservationists are attempting to document and preserve the physical evidence of Birmingham's industrial history. In the spring of
1993 a large-scale survey was undertaken for theBirmingham Historical Society and theHistoric American Buildings Survey /Historic American Engineering Record . The results of that survey were published in the book "Birmingham Bound".References
*cite book | author=Armes, Ethel | title=The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama | location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama | publisher=Birmingham Chamber of Commerce | year=1910 | id=ISBN 0-912221-03-8
*cite book | author=Lewis, W. David | title=Sloss Furnaces and the Rise of the Birmingham District: An Industrial Epic | location=Tuscaloosa, Alabama | publisher=Univ. of Alabama Press | year=1994 | id=ISBN 0-8173-0708-7
*cite book | author=Morris, Philip & Marjorie Longenecker White | title=Birmingham Bound, An Atlas of the South's Premier Industrial Region | location=Birmingham, Alabama | publisher=Birmingham Historical Society | year=1997 | id=ISBN 0-943994-22-5
*cite book | author=White, Marjorie Longenecker | title=The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide | location=Birmingham, Alabama | publisher=Birmingham Historical Society | year=1981 | id=ISBN 0-943994-00-4
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