Downtown Bessemer Historic District

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

From the record

“The Downtown Bessemer Historic District, in Bessemer, Alabama, is a historic district which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. The listing included 70 contributing buildings on 26 acres (11 ha).”
Wikipedia article Downtown Bessemer Historic District, CC BY-SA 4.0.

One of 189 National Register listings published here for Jefferson County · listed in 1992 · category: District.

Sources: the Wikipedia article · the case file at the National Archives · the National Register database, National Park Service

The listing

Address. Roughly bounded by 21st St. N., Carolina Ave., 19th St. N., 5th Ave. N. and the Southern RR tracks, Bessemer, 35020
When was it listed? July 1992
Category. district
Census division. Birmingham
National Register reference number. 92000852 - the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.

Fires near this property

138 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 138 fires within 5 miles of Downtown Bessemer Historic District between 1994 and 2019, burning about 966 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 63 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Arson/incendiarism	63
Debris and open burning	43
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	15
Equipment and vehicle use	5
Recreation and ceremony	5
Railroad operations and maintenance	4
Smoking	1
Natural	1
Misuse of fire by a minor	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
7 September 2010	Debris and open burning	5.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 2010	Debris and open burning	2.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 1995	Smoking	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
7 September 1995	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
6 September 1995	Arson/incendiarism	72 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
5 September 1995	Debris and open burning	14 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
4 September 1995	Debris and open burning	1.0 acres	Alabama Forestry Commission	not named
3 September 2011	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Alabama Forestry Commission	1025 MANOR CIRCLE, AL

Every fire recorded in Jefferson County

Mines and quarries near this property

10 of 43 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 43 workings within 5 miles of Downtown Bessemer Historic District: 24 past producers, 9 occurrences, 5 producers, 4 unknowns. 6 still produce. What was taken out: Iron, Clay, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Fire Clay (Refractory). Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status
Alpha Portland Cement Company Plant	Stone	Plant
Dolonah Quarry	Stone, Crushed/Broken	Producer
Mine No. 53	Fire Clay (Refractory)	Producer
Bessemer Mine	Clay	Producer
Bessemer Pit	Clay	Producer
Shannon Pit	Clay	Producer
Ironaton	Iron	Unknown
Ironaton	Iron	Unknown
Potter Mine	Iron	Past Producer
Potter No. 1 Mine	Iron	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Jefferson County

Storms near this property

26 since 1994

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Bessemer, the town this property stands in, in 26 storm reports between 1994 and 2020: 15 hail, 9 thunderstorm wind, 1 flash flood, 1 funnel cloud. The reports record 1 injury. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
March 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	1 hurt, $20,000	Several trees were blown down and one home was damaged in Bessemer. One injury resulted from a tree that fell onto a house on Dicky Springs Road.
March 2002	Hail	Bessemer	$100,000	no account filed
April 1998	Hail	Bessemer	$95,000	A large hail storm moved over Jefferson County, dropping hail ranging from dime size to golf ball size. Leaves were knocked off some trees. In the Birmingham area, hail was reported at McAdory, Lipscomb, Bessemer, Midfield, Pratt City, and throughout the city of Birminghami including the civic center, university hospital, the Birmingham airport, and Roebuck Plaza.
May 1994	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$50,000	Nickel size hail was reported at Tannehill State Park in extreme southern Jefferson County. A 13-inch diameter tree was downed in the northwest section of Bessemer.
May 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$50,000	no account filed
May 1996	Flash Flood	Bessemer	$15,000	no account filed
May 1996	Hail	Bessemer	$10,000	no account filed
July 1996	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$10,000	no account filed
March 2000	Hail	Bessemer	$5,000	Quarter to golfball size hail was reported in Bessemer.
January 1997	Hail	Bessemer	$5,000	no account filed
May 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$3,000	Trees and power lines were blown down around Bessemer.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$3,000	Trees and power lines were blown down along Camp Oliver Road.
June 2003	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$3,000	Trees were knocked down in the city of Bessemer.
April 2005	Hail	Bessemer	$1,000	Nickel size hail was observed at Visionland Theme Park.
November 2000	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	$1,000	Several trees were blown down in and around Bessemer.
March 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	Bessemer	-	Several trees uprooted and power lines downed in the city of Bessemer.
March 2007	Hail	Bessemer	-	Reported on the northwest side of Bessemer.
April 2006	Hail	Bessemer	-	Nickel to quarter sized hail fell for several minutes around Bessemer. The hail completely covered the road along Interstate 59 near Brighton.
April 2006	Hail	Bessemer	-	Reported in Midfield.
April 2006	Funnel Cloud	Bessemer	-	Observed near I-50 and 18th Street.
June 2003	Hail	Bessemer	-	Half dollar size hail was reported by a motorist in Bessemer.
June 1998	Hail	Bessemer	-	Nickel size hail was reported on 1-459 at mile marker 4.
April 1998	Hail	Bessemer	-	Penny size hail was reported in Midfield.
February 2007	Hail	Bessemer	-	no account filed
April 2006	Hail	Bessemer	-	no account filed
April 2000	Hail	Bessemer	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Jefferson County

Map coverage status

No historic map-sheet match is published for this property yet. That does not mean no map exists. This record needs a coordinate-quality review before it can be joined to a sheet boundary. Browse the county's mapped places while that work is pending.

Listed places nearby

6 within 8 miles

Other National Register properties close enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties to their map sheets.

Property	Distance	Listed
Southern Railway Terminal Station	under 500 feet	1973
Dr. Thomas McAdory Owen House	0.3 miles	1982
Canaan Baptist Church	0.7 miles	2005
Dunbar High School	0.8 miles	2011
Thomas McAdory House	2.4 miles	1972
Owen Plantation House	4.2 miles	1976

Sources for this property

National Archives record	The nomination case file for reference 92000852 in Record Group 79.
Wikipedia article	Community-written account of this property, licensed CC BY-SA.
Jefferson County	All 189 listed properties in this county.

Provenance

Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.