Birmingham, the most populous city in Alabama and the county headquarters of Jefferson, is situated in the state’s north central region. Birmingham, the state’s youngest major city, was established in 1871 at the junction of two rail lines next to one of the greatest mineral reserves in the world. Birmingham, England, the epicenter of that nation’s iron industry, inspired the naming of the city. The new community in Alabama saw such rapid growth that it earned the moniker “Magic City.” Later, it adopted the nickname “Pittsburgh of the South” in honor of the Pennsylvania city famous for producing iron and steel.
Birmingham is now home to one of the largest banking hubs in the country as well as top-notch medical facilities after surviving booms and busts, labor turmoil, and civil rights tragedies and triumphs. The mayor and nine council members of Birmingham are chosen every four years in a mayor-council system.
Early History
Birmingham is situated in Jones Valley, one of the Appalachian mountain range’s most southern valleys. The first settlers in the region arrived in 1815; they were members of General Andrew Jackson’s army who had defeated the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend. The region expanded slowly in the first half of the nineteenth century due to insufficient transportation to link early settlements like Jonesboro and Elyton to the rest of the state and a lack of fertile soil to support the state’s cotton economy. However, the construction of railroads within Jones Valley and the proximity of abundant mineral resources opened the way for the establishment of a new metropolis after the Civil War.
James Powell
On December 18, 1870, a group of financiers and supporters of the North and South Railroad (later known as the Louisville and Nashville Railroad) convened in Montgomery with banker Josiah Morris to establish the Elyton Land Company with the aim of establishing a new city in Jefferson County.
At a subsequent meeting in January 1871, the corporation elected James R. Powell as its president. Powell had just returned from Birmingham, England’s iron and steel hub, and he proposed that the new industrial hub in Alabama be given the same name. Powell, a flamboyant and colorful advocate for the planned city, earned the title “Duke of Birmingham.” On June 1, 1871, he published advertisements across the state and country announcing lots for sale in the new city. Six months later, on December 19, 1871, the state assembly incorporated the city.
Robert Henley was chosen by Gov. Robert Lindsay to serve as Birmingham’s first mayor for a period of two years. After being elected mayor in 1873, Powell immediately ordered the legislature to hold a referendum so that Jefferson County citizens could select between Elyton and Birmingham as the county seat. Powell engaged in a fierce campaign to win over the newly enfranchised black inhabitants, who overwhelmingly supported Birmingham.
Birmingham’s very survival was endangered by two occasions not long after it was named the county seat. Birmingham suffered heavily from the cholera pandemic that ravaged several southern cities in July because it lacked access to appropriate sewage systems and clean water. Many people left the city. The Birmingham real estate boom was curtailed by the 1873 economic Panic, which came just as cooler fall weather started to put an end to the pandemic. People were once again compelled to depart because there weren’t any large industries present to generate a sufficient quantity of jobs. Due to the neighboring rich mineral reserves, Birmingham was able to survive these early setbacks and quickly became the industrial hub of the New South.
By launching the neighboring Pratt mines in 1878, Pratt Coal and Coke Company founders Truman H. Aldrich, James W. Sloss, and Henry F. DeBardeleben significantly accelerated Birmingham’s recovery from the 1873 slump and future economic expansion.
The Alice Furnaces were subsequently built by Henry Debardeleben and Thomas T. Hillman, enabling the industrial manufacture of pig iron. Sloss started building the second set of blast furnaces in the region, referred to at the time as the City Furnaces, in eastern Birmingham in June 1881. Soon after, the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) established operations in Birmingham and acquired many of the assets owned by DeBardeleben and Aldrich. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad supported these thriving businesses by contributing capital and offering discounted freight rates. These occurrences caused Birmingham’s pig iron production to increase more than tenfold between 1880 and 1890.
After transforming from a rough and tumble “boom town” with muddy streets, saloons, fistfights, and shootouts to a civilized city with paved streets, gaslights, telephone service, and a public school system, Birmingham had become the region’s premier industrial center. The 1890s saw a continued industrial boom, which also fueled the explosive growth of unions, especially among railroad employees, miners, and workers in the building trades.
Birmingham Coal Miners, 1937
The acquisition of TCI by U.S. Steel in 1907, which brought financial resources to the city, and the completion of the lock-and-dam system on the Tombigbee and Warrior Rivers in 1915, which gave Birmingham manufacturers access to low-cost water transportation for their goods all the way to Mobile, were the two most significant economic developments in Birmingham between 1900 and the Great Depression. The mid-main South’s transportation hub quickly emerged in Birmingham. When the stock market crashed in October 1929, just as the city’s economy was starting to rebound, thousands of people lost their jobs, leading the Hoover administration to label Birmingham “the most struck city in the nation.” U.S.
Birmingham’s mills were closed by Steel, and the city remained depressed for eight years. With the start of World War II, Birmingham emerged from the Depression as its steel mills played a significant role in the development of the country’s military. 140 new industries that produced farm equipment, chemicals, byproducts for building roads, nails, wire, cement, cottonseed oil, and many other products were added to Birmingham’s economy after the war. With the emergence of these new industries, Hayes International Aircraft, and a cutting-edge medical facility in the 1950s, Birmingham had the ability to soar into the 1960s. Instead, they had to deal with a massive civil rights battle that severely harmed the city’s ability to maintain its good name across the country.
Civil Rights Movement
Sixteenth Street Church Bombing
African Americans started relocating to Birmingham in order to get away from the farms run by white people, where they had previously worked as sharecroppers and then as slaves. By 1880, more than half of Birmingham’s industrial workers were African Americans. Although the working and living conditions were already appalling, Birmingham’s entrenched segregation policy made black inhabitants’ lives even worse. After the horrific treatment of the Freedom Riders in 1961, the city—nicknamed “Bombingham” for the numerous racially motivated bombings of black homes—became a focal point for the national civil rights campaign. Later, Fred Shuttlesworth and other Birmingham movement leaders encouraged Martin Luther King Jr. to take part in the “Birmingham Campaign,” a 1963 demonstration against segregated downtown shops. King, who was detained during these protests, responded in his renowned “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to a white ministers’ opinion piece calling for a stop to the demonstrations.
Fred Lee Shuttlesworth
Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor’s deployment of fire hoses and police dogs to push back thousands of young protesters in the early days of May 1963 resulted in the city being publicly embarrassed in the media. After several weeks of protests, civil rights and business leaders came to a compromise that eliminated some of the segregationist restrictions.
The explosion of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which resulted in the deaths of four young girls, swiftly broke this atmosphere of goodwill. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited racial segregation in public places in America, was largely spurred by that horrifying incident. Additionally, once the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed, African Americans were given more opportunities to participate in civic and governmental activities in the city, which culminated in the 1979 election of Richard Arrington Jr. as the first black mayor.
Modern Birmingham
UAB’s Heritage Hall
At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham is a contemporary New South metropolis with one of the best medical and scientific facilities in the nation (UAB). Birmingham is now a hub for the advancement of bioscience and technology and the location of some of the best engineering and construction companies in the country, in addition to the continuous presence of some of the country’s major steelmakers, such as U.S. Steel, McWane, and Nucor. The Birmingham metropolitan area is the largest business hub in Alabama and has grown to be one of the biggest financial hubs in the country. Commercial building in the downtown area started in the middle of the 1970s, giving the city an impressively contemporary skyline.