This year's fall tour will take place in the heart of industrial Dixie--Birmingham, Alabama. Capitalists founded this deep south city shortly after the Civil War and financed heavy industries to extract and process the region's vast fields of iron ore, coal, and limestone. Birmingham grew so quickly during the 1880s it adopted the nickname "Magic City" and became one of the largest iron-making districts in the country and the largest manufacturing center for cast iron pipe in the world. Although the economy has changed dramatically over the past century the region still has a very active industrial community.
This year's tour, sponsored by Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Tannehill State Historical Park and the Southern Chapter of the Society for Industrial Archeology, will begin with a pre-tour hands-on foundry workshop offered by Sloss. This nationally recognized iron melting program is a combination of historic processes, hand labor, and modern materials run primarily by metal artists. Participants will learn pattern making on Tuesday November 2, and then create molds during the day on Wednesday November 3. The crew will then fire up the cupola during the opening night reception on Thursday and pour the molds they made Wednesday. This program is open to everyone whether you come with your own patterns or use one of the ones provided.
The opening night reception, Thursday, November 4, 1999 will be held at Sloss Furnaces.
In addition to savoring local
cuisine, all tour participants will be able to etch a design into
a small scratch mold that will be filled during an actual iron
pour Thursday evening.
Over the three days of tours, we will visit the American Cast Iron Pipe Company (ACIPCO) to watch deLavaud centrifugal cast iron pipe production. We are also visit ca. 1905 Empire Coke Works, the oldest operating by-product coke plant in the country. Other tour stops include a visit to the new Mercedes SUV assembly plant and USX's Number 8 blast furnace, seamless pipe mill, and rolling mill.
Stops at the nearly new Boral Brickworks, historic Steward Machine, the Civil War era Tannehill Blast Furnace, and the Alabama Theater and its Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ will be on the tour. Additional visits, schedule permitting, include the West Blockton bee-hive coke ovens, the Barber Motorcycle museum, 19th Century Brierfield Blast Furnace, and the ca. 1890 Cahaba Pumping Station.
Rickwood Field, the oldest professional baseball park in the country, will be the setting for the Saturday evening banquet, and, if field conditions allow, a softball game or two. Rickwood, named after Woodward Iron heir Rick Woodward, played host to the segregated Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons. This field also hosted championship games of the city's industrial leagues, with teams from such plants as Stockham, Sloss, ACIPCO, Republic, and Woodward.
Post tour activities will include a guided walking tour of Downtown Birmingham, considered by many to be a museum of the Chicago Style of Architecture. An alternative but more rugged "X" tour will also be offered to abandoned mine sites along Red Mountain. Sunday afternoon will include a catalan forge demonstration at the historic Shelby Iron Works. Shelby manufactured armor plate for the Confederate iron clad Tennessee and following the war, its modernized charcoal blast furnaces, which operated into the 1920s, were nationally recognized for their innovative practice.
The historic Pickwick Hotel in Birmingham's Five Points will be the tour headquarters (205) 933-9555. Five Points is home to many of Birmingham's best restaurants and night spots.
Y'all come down now, ya-hear.
For more information contact:
Bode Morin at (205) 324-1911 or bode88@compuserve.com
Jack Bergstresser at (205) 934-4690 or drblast@msn.com
Tour Limits:
90 people, due to restrictions at Mercedes, Empire Coke, and Boral Brickworks
Primary Hotel:
Pickwick Inn, (205) 933-9555 1023 Twentieth Street South Birmingham, Alabama 35205 Rates: $82/night, single or double, by October 11, 1999
Secondary Hotel:
Radisson Hotel Birmingham, (205) 933-9000 808 South 20th Street Birmingham, Alabama 35205 Rates: $73/night, single or double, by October 3, 1999
Registration:
Mailed out in August to SIA members.
Fall tour brochure in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format: FTour99.PDF
Fall tour registration form in Adobe Acrobat PDF Format: ft99form.PDF
Mostly Definite Schedule:
Tues, Nov. 2, 1999
Wed, Nov. 3, 1999
Thurs, Nov. 4, 1999
Fri, Nov. 5, 1999
Sat, Nov. 6, 1999
Sun, Nov. 7, 1999