Eureka Company

The Cooperative Experimental Company

Much has been written about the Panic of 1873 and its effect upon the Birmingham District.  Oxmoor was no exception.  So much excitement had occurred upon the completion of the South & North Alabama Railroad through Birmingham in  September of 1872.

Armes picks up this story on page 251, in the chapter on the Reconstruction of Oxmoor.  The cost of construction of the railroad had been very great, and upon its completion "there was no traffic; agriculture was dead, and there was no travel.  The rate of provisions was double that of the present day [1910].  The few coal mines, designated by Mr. [Albert] Fink as 'rat holes' that had been opened at Warrior and Helena, did not produce in a year what became, in 1889, one day's output from Pratt.  Thousands of tons of ore had been carried to Indiana and Pennsylvania and declared to be utterly worthless.  There was hardly a sawmill going."

"Pig iron that had been selling at forty dollars a ton fell to eight dollars per ton.  The two twenty-five ton furnaces at Oxmoor could not be made to exceed ten tons as daily output, and that, with young DeBardeleben's ignorance of the business, cost more, as he said, to get out than it ever brought back.  Labor could not be got and what they had could not be paid for.  The very foundations of the Eureka Mining Company were crumbling, as it were.  'I failed to make good,' said DeBardeleben, 'we called a directors' meeting, and I resigned my position, giving my reasons that I considered myself incompetent as I was at that time...  Furthermore, I advised the directors to shut down the plant...  I did not see that our furnaces could be run with profit to anybody."

Armes continues that the furnaces remained shut down until the fall of 1873, and that a new organization, the Eureka Mining and Transportation Company of Alabama was formed.  This company took over the rights of both the former Eureka organization as well as the remains of the Red Mountain Iron and Coal Company by purchase.  Armes account notes that although the charter by the Legislature provided for extraordinary powers for the incorporators, that none of these could be exercised in the present economic downturn.  Armes lists the directors including Levin Goodrich, Daniel Hillman's [Tannehill] grandson, "the only really practical iron man in the company" was engaged  as manager and superintendent to replace DeBardeleben who had returned to Prattville.

We are told that Goodrich improved the operation of the furnace by using scientific methods, and employing a chemist from Pittsburg to analyze samples of iron ore, with the Company President's permission, in 1874.  Based on the information obtained, Goodrich wanted to attempt "the reduction of these ores with coke, but the Company had neither the resources nor the relish for experiments.  It struggled on, barely self-sustaining."  Goodrich it seems had very good ideas, but the Company didn't see fit to support him.  He was experienced in the iron business, and was wise enough to employ a methodical and scientific approach, and not afraid to seek outside help.

But there was leadership in the situation, even though by this time, the furnace operation was taken over by others, Judge Mudd and sons, to satisfy a debt for timber.  The officers of the Eureka Company were "goaded by ridicule at home and abroad".  It is noted that in the Pittsburgh iron industry it was said "The fools down in Alabama, are shipping us ferruginous sandstone and calling it iron ore!"  Thus is was that the leadership of the Company "made a public offer to turn over their furnaces to any man or any company of men desirous of proving that iron could be successfully manufactured in the Birmingham District."

The leadership came in the person of John T. Milner, the successful engineer of the development of the South and North Alabama Railroad and the man that opened the Newcastle coal mines in response to rebuke by Albert Fink of the L&N for the lack of business and potential ruin of the railroad company.  Milner called a meeting at the Elyton Land Company offices (that company in very bad straits as well) for "all those who are interested in the success of Birmingham".   He stated that the meeting would address the "formulation of a plan to organize a Cooperative Experimental Company, which would take advantage of the offer of the Eureka Mining and Transportation Company" noted above.  Milner subscribed not only cash, but coal from the New Castle mines to test its coking qualities.  

Woodward's account notes that there were but three mines operating at the time, at Helena, Warrior and New Castle -- Armes adds reference to Worthington as a fourth.  In any event, it seems that samples from each of the local mines were included in the experiment.  The prior work of Goodrich in having a scientific analysis done on the iron ore supported the idea of coke for fuel.  Woodward notes that a "small battery of Belgian coke ovens was also erected at the furnace to coke Cahaba coal."

Armes account tells us that a Belgian named Shantle had patented a special type of coke oven -- the Shantle Reversible Bottom Oven.  He submitted a proposition, which was accepted by the company, to use this oven for the coking experiment, "and five ovens were built by Frank P. O'Brien under the supervision of the patentee."

Armes goes on to note "Levin Goodrich, with his furnace man John Veitch as his right hand man, began at once changing the furnaces from charcoal to coke furnaces, also cold blast to hot blast by the introduction of Goodrich's Blast Furnace Feeder.  Many other improvements were made."

It is also noted that experiments were being run on the provided coal samples, including one more from the Browne Seam, out in the Warrior field provided by "Uncle" Billy Goold.  Goold had been instrumental in exploring the Cahaba fields, and had moved west of Birmingham to explore the Warrior field.  "Several loads were sent down to the furnaces by ox team and the coal was found to be the precise quality Goold claimed it was.  It beat every other coal then known in the district for coking purposes."  But that is another story, about the development of what became known as the Pratt Seam.

It is important to note that the L&N Railroad also provided money for this experiment.  Thus, every business leader and interest seemed to understand that this was a potential turning point for the Birmingham District.  If this didn't work, the railroad and other fledging businesses which had shared Gilmer and Milner's dreams of a booming industrial district would be forced to give up.

So, the place in history of the Oxmoor furnaces is not that they were ever a prime production facility -- they were not.  But the place in history is due to the pivotal role that the complex -- the only active furnace at the time with necessary transportation access -- played in determining whether the Birmingham District would continue to develop or to exist at all.  Armes sums it up in her typical melodramatic way.

"On February 28, 1876, the thing was done!   Coke pig iron was made!  Every statement of Levin S. Goodrich was proved true.  For the first time in Jefferson County and in the history of iron making in Alabama coke pig iron was made, and of good quality.   The Birmingham District, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and the town of Birmingham with all its citizens saw daylight.  It was yet to be demonstrated, however, whether coke iron could be made at a profit."

Continue to next page

Return to Birmingham Rails Index Page