- Introduction

The Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama is a southeastern regional interpretive center on 19^th century iron making technology featuring both belt driven machines of the 1800s and tools and products of the times.

It focuses on the Roupes Valley Ironworks at Tannehill which operated nearby, first as a bloomery beginning in 1830 and later as an important battery of charcoal blast furnaces during the Civil War. The ironworks gave birth to the Birmingham Iron & Steel District.

Along with Tannehill artifacts that have survived, museum exhibits graphically demonstrate how iron was made during the Civil War when 14 different iron companies and six rolling mills made Alabama the arsenal of the Confederacy. During the last two years of the war, Alabama furnaces produced 70% of the Confederate iron supply.  

Exhibits include a display of rare CS artillery projectiles manufactured at the Selma Arsenal and Gun Works, a part of the Steve Phillips Collection, along with Civil War weaponry actually used in battle including a 52 Cal. U.S. Spencer Repeater.

The Tannehill museum, which includes 12,000 square feet of floor space, first opened in 1981. It underwent a major make-over of exhibits in 2004-05.

New exhibits include one of the oldest steam engines in America, a power source once used on a rice plantation in South Carolina. The 1835 Dotterer engine was a part of the collection acquired by Henry Ford in the 1920s and was formerly exhibited at the Henry Ford Museum at Greenfield Village. It is similar to the Tannehill blast engine once in place here.

Other displays feature a complete mid-1800s machine shop including a Townsend cannon lathe dating to 1864 and a Putnam planer built in 1860.

The shop’s steam engine dates to 1870. Visitors can also see original parts of the Six Mile Bloomery Forge dating to 1863 including one of the few helve hammers in the United States.

Exhibits also focus on geology, furnace fuels, cookware and Birmingham’s cast iron pipe industry which today accounts for over half of the U. S. output.

Various interactive displays bring the viewer into historical environments. The museum has a 25-seat theatre, gift shop and a timeline which traces growth of the iron trade from ancient Egypt to U.S. Steel’s modern Fairfield Works in Birmingham.

Behind the museum, visit the May Plantation Cotton Gin House which dates to 1858, and the heavy industrial display building which houses artifacts from Birmingham steel mills of the 1930s-1950s.

The Birmingham Historical Society presented the museum its award for exemplary collections and exhibits in 2005.

Gaar-Scott Portable Steam Engine, 1869-1870.

This 1835 Dotterer Steam Engine, once used on a rice plantation near Charleston, S. C., is similar to the engine which supplied the air blast at the Tannehill Ironworks.

 On loan from the collections of The Henry Ford, www.thehenryford.org 

Bloomery exhibit at Tannehill used original parts of the Six Mile Forge (Bibb County, 1863) to demonstrate early iron making process. Catalan forges such as this first began appearing in Alabama in the 1820s.

Rear view of Six Mile Bloomery cam, 1863, Iron & Steel Museum of Alabama.

Rare Alabama Catalan forge cams, Thomas Jones & Co., Bibb County, 1870 and Tannehill, 1830.

One of the best collections of Confederate ordnance manufactured at the Selma Arsenal and Gun Works can be found at the Tannehill museum including shells actually in the inventory of Maj. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The Tannehill timeline traces the growth of the iron industry from ancient Egypt and China to the modern steel mills and cast iron pipe plants in Birmingham.

Tram cars like this one were used to bring iron ore from Hillman’s digs to the Tannehill Furnaces.

Smut mill, 1850, Smith patent, used in Tannehill Plantation wheat processing operations.

Ceremonies marking the opening of new exhibits at the Iron & Steel Museum attracted a large turnout November 15, 2005.

Main speaker for the event was Dr. Ed Bridges, director of the Alabama Dept. of Archives & History.

Jim Bennett, a member of the Alabama Historic Ironworks Commission, drew up display concepts.

Marty Everse, Alabama Historic Ironworks Commission Board Member, and Tom Land, Manager, Brierfield Ironworks State Park, at furnace exhibit.

Jimmy Dean, former actor/singer and now sausage maker visits with former Iron & Steel Museum Director Vicki Kes at museum.

Exhibit builders, Ted Burnett and Rusty Crouthers.

Museum Gift Shop

Also visit the May Plantation Cotton Gin House, 1858, located behind the museum. Site includes an 1881 Gullett gin head with feeder and condenser.

See the heavy industrial shed for more recent artifacts.