Cahaba Coal Mining Company

Background

The Cahaba coal field extends through St. Clair, Jefferson, Shelby, and Bibb counties in central Alabama. In the decades after the Civil War, state geologists and coal operators mapped, tested, and promoted the field as Birmingham-area ironmaking increased demand for fuel and coke.^[1][2] The field remained smaller than the Warrior coal field, but its seams, independent operators, and location near iron furnaces made it part of the same late-19th-century industrial expansion.^[3]

Founding

Truman H. Aldrich, a mining engineer who had previously managed the Pratt Coal and Coke Company mines, resigned from Pratt in 1881 and began acquiring coal lands in northern Bibb County.^[4] In 1883, Aldrich and Cornelius Cadle incorporated the Cahaba Coal Mining Company with an initial capitalization of $1 million, divided into 10,000 shares at $100 each. The board of directors included Aldrich, Cadle, W. S. Gurnee of New York, and Samuel Noble and A. L. Tyler of Anniston.^[5] Aldrich was president and treasurer; Cadle was vice president and general manager.^[5]

Cadle, born May 22, 1836, in New York City, had been raised in Muscatine, Iowa. He served with the 11th Iowa Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and was wounded during the Vicksburg campaign. After the war he worked with the Freedmen's Bureau before entering banking in Selma.^[5]

Development and operations

The company built an eight-mile railroad spur from Woodstock into Bibb County to reach underground coal seams.^[6] The company town of Blocton grew around the mine site; the town was named for a large block of coal removed from a nearby mine.^[7] Coal shipments began in the spring of 1884. By summer the company employed 800 men working seven mines on the Woodstock and Underwood seams.^[5]

Peter B. Thomas was mine superintendent. Lewis Minor of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, oversaw coke production.^[4][5] Construction of the first 140 beehive coke ovens began in 1887; they supplied the Woodstock Iron Company at Anniston.^[8] The number of ovens was later expanded to 467, with reported daily output of about 600 tons of coke.^[4][5][8] Total land holdings were reported by historian Ethel Armes as 1,238,031 acres across Jefferson, Shelby, and Bibb counties.^[5] Armes described the holdings as "the best and largest area of good coal land ever gotten together in the State."^[5] By 1900, Blocton had approximately 3,600 residents and had become the largest company town in the Cahaba coal field.^[8] West Blocton, a nearby settlement, was incorporated in 1901.^[9]

In 1888, Aldrich formed the Export Coal Company, which shipped the first Alabama coal to the West Indies, Mexico, and South and Central America, running two ocean-going tugs, six barges, two schooners, and two steamships. By 1890 annual coal exports reached approximately 50,000 tons.^[5] In 1890, Aldrich also incorporated the Excelsior Coal Mine Company, which was later consolidated with the Cahaba operation before the combined entity was sold to TCI.^[5]

The mines and coke ovens drew workers from Alabama and from immigrant communities in southern and eastern Europe.^[1] Around the mine openings and railroad, Blocton developed as a company town with housing, churches, schools, and businesses serving the coal camps.^[6]

Sale to TCI

In 1892, Aldrich sold the combined Cahaba and Excelsior operations to TCI, which doubled its capital stock and land holdings through the acquisition.^[1] Cadle remained as vice president and general manager under TCI until the operations were fully consolidated.^[5] TCI itself was acquired by U.S. Steel in 1907.^[6]