Eureka Coke Ovens
The Penhale family emigrated to the area of Helena, Alabama, from Cornwall, in Great Britain, in the 1870's. Ken Penhale's grandfather came to Helena and held the job of mine manager for the Eureka coal mines. Recently, Ken Penhale helped with a guided tour of the Eureka coke ovens and shared his knowledge of local history.
Birmingham
Rails first became aware of these "other" coke ovens from friend Bill Lawrence a
professional geologist. Based on his description of the location, the
ovens were "found" on old aerials, and old maps were studied to
determine the nature of early development in the area. One of the earliest
is at right, dated 1868, showing the S&NA RR line stopping just across the
Cahaba River, and showing a rail spur to the southeast serving coal mines. [Red
Mountain Iron and Coal Company]
References from Armes and Woodward help tell the story about the development of this area, as does the HABS HAER record of the nearby "Billy Gould Coal Mines" from the Library of Congress ( www.loc.gov ) at the HABS HAER portion of this web site (search for "alabama").
Armes indicates that after the success of the Eureka Company's experiment to make pig iron with coke rather than charcoal, in late February, 1876, the company was reorganized. Sloss and Thomas obtained options, and organized a new company including interests from Louisville (Sloss) and from Cincinnati (Thomas). Armes tells us that the charter of the Eureka company was changed before the new owners took over. Thomas began to make changes to the plant. He built "two new stacks, the construction at Helena of one hundred coke ovens, and the building at the Oxmoor plant of an expensive battery of patent ovens operated by machinery. The capacity of the new furnaces was about four times as great as that of the old ones, and a better quality of metal was the result. Furnace No. 2 was blown in March, 1876, while No. 1 was not completed until July of 1877."
Woodward's account (Alabama Blast Furnaces, 1940) states that "[the] experiment was a success and the No. 1 furnace was rebuilt to use coke and completed in July 1877. Both the furnaces were now iron shell stacks (No. 1 - 60 x 16 feet, No. 2 - 60 x 14 feet) but still had sandstone hearths. With rebuilding of the furnaces, the mines at Helena were increased in capacity and 100 beehive ovens were constructed there. A small battery of Belgian coke ovens was also erected at the furnace to coke Cahaba coal."
Thus the accounts indicate that the 100 new Eureka coke ovens would have been built soon after February, 1876. Again, these are not the Gould coke ovens, although they are nearby (Note that the HABS HAER record incorrectly states the Gould site is in St. Clair County; it is in Shelby County). It is most likely that the Gould ovens preceded the Eureka ovens. The HABS HAER record implies that the Eureka ovens are not "extant" -- fortunately that is not true.