Sloss Furnaces facts for kids
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Sloss Blast Furnace Site
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Sloss Furnaces, Birmingham, in July 2016
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 Location in Birmingham, Alabama
Location in Alabama
Location in the United States
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| Location | 1st Ave. at 32nd St. Birmingham, Alabama |
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| Built | 1881 |
| Architect | James W. Sloss; Et al. |
| NRHP reference No. | 72000162 |
Quick facts for kids Significant dates |
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| Added to NRHP | June 22, 1972 |
| Designated NHL | May 29, 1981 |
Sloss Furnaces is a really cool historic place in Birmingham, Alabama, in the United States. It used to be a huge factory that made something called pig iron using a special machine called a blast furnace. It worked from 1882 all the way to 1971.
After it closed, Sloss Furnaces became one of the first factory sites in the U.S. to be saved and fixed up for people to visit. It's the only blast furnace like it in the country that you can explore! In 1981, the U.S. government officially named it a National Historic Landmark.
Today, Sloss Furnaces is like a museum where you can learn about how factories used to work. It also has a special program for metal artists. Plus, it's a popular spot for concerts and festivals. A new visitor center opened in 2016, making it even better for guests. You can visit the museum for free!
Contents
The Story of Sloss Furnaces
How It All Began
Colonel James Withers Sloss was one of the people who helped start the city of Birmingham. He worked to build railroads and was part of early companies that made things. In 1881, he started his own business, the Sloss Furnace Company.
He began building Birmingham's first blast furnace on a large piece of land. This land was given by another company specifically for factories. The engineer in charge was Harry Hargreaves, who learned from a famous English inventor.
The factory had two big furnaces, each 60 feet tall. They started making iron in April 1882. In its first year, the factory made 24,000 tons of high-quality iron. Sloss iron even won a bronze medal at a big exhibition in Kentucky in 1883!
Growing and Changing
In 1886, James Sloss retired and sold his company. A group of investors bought it and changed its name in 1899 to the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company.
Over the years, the factory got many upgrades. New machines were added in 1902, 1906, and 1914. The furnaces were completely rebuilt with modern equipment between 1927 and 1929.
A man named James Pickering Dovel became the construction superintendent in 1909. For the next 21 years, Sloss was his workshop for new ideas. He invented equipment to clean gas and improved the furnace designs. He even made the furnace linings better. Dovel earned 17 patents for his inventions!
Sloss's No. 2 Furnace, rebuilt in 1927, included many of Dovel's new ideas. This made Sloss and Dovel famous for being innovative. Because of these improvements, Sloss-Sheffield became one of the biggest sellers of pig iron in the world.
During this time, the company also built 48 small houses for its Black workers. This community near the factory was known as "Sloss Quarters."
Closing Down and Saving History
In 1952, the U.S. Pipe and Foundry Company bought Sloss Furnaces. Then, in 1969, it was sold to the Jim Walter Corp. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Birmingham area had a big problem with air pollution from its factories. New laws, like the United States Clean Air Act, encouraged older factories to close. Also, by the 1960s, other regions had better iron ore.
The Jim Walter company closed the furnaces two years later, in 1971. They then gave the property to the Alabama State Fair Authority. The idea was to turn it into a museum. However, the authority thought it was too difficult and planned to tear the furnaces down.
But local people who cared about history formed a group called the Sloss Furnace Association. They worked hard to save the site because it was so important to Birmingham's story. In 1976, experts studied the site and wrote about its historical importance.
In 1977, people in Birmingham voted to spend $3.3 million to save Sloss Furnaces. This money helped make the main buildings stable and build a visitor center. It also started a metal arts program. Sloss Furnaces officially became a National Historic Landmark in 1981. It opened to the public as a museum on Labor Day weekend in 1983. It was the first and only 20th-century blast furnace site saved as a museum in the nation!
In February 2009, a historic steam train, the SLSF 4018, was moved to Sloss Furnaces.
What Sloss Furnaces Is Like Today
In June 2012, work began on a new 16,000-square-foot Visitors' and Education Center. This new building was paid for by the City of Birmingham and the Sloss Foundation. It has exhibits about the site's history and offices. It also has extra space for public events.
Sloss Furnaces now hosts many different activities. You can take metal arts classes, enjoy food festivals, or join fun runs. It's also a place for educational programs, weddings, and concerts. They even have special Historic Night Tours! These improvements are part of a city plan to create new "greenway" spaces downtown. These greenways might connect popular city places in the future. A TV show called Sloss: Industry to Art told the story of how Sloss was saved and what it's used for now.
In 2022, Sloss Furnaces was a competition venue for the 2022 World Games. Sports like climbing, breaking, parkour, and beach handball all had their competitions there.
The yearly Hardcore Punk festival “Furnace Fest” was held at Sloss Furnaces from 2000-2003. It started again in 2021 and continues to be hosted there.
In November 2024, a big robotics event called the VEX Robotics Signature Event "Haunted" took place at Sloss Furnaces.
Pictures of Sloss Furnaces
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Water tower
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Cowper stoves
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Learn More
- Birmingham District
- Sloss Mines
- Lawang Sewu
- List of National Historic Landmarks in Alabama
