Pyne Red Ore Mine, State Route 150, Bessemer

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BES.V,9-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

This report is based upon written documentation donated by the Birmingham Historical Society, reformatted to HABS/HAER guidelines. Description: The Pyne Mine site covers about five acres and consists of a shaft mine headframe constructed of structural steel, four red brick buildings and a variety of concrete foundation, pier and abutment remnants. Some of the foundation work is probably part of an ore briquetting and heavy media concentration plant. While the function of the individual buildings could not be determined at the time of the field visit, historical records indicate that they include a 500-man bathhouse, a compressor house, an air compressor house, an electrical substation, an ore crushing and screening plant and a hoist house.

It appears that the only original building that is not still standing is the crushing and screening plant. While the mine equipment appears to have been removed, the buildings are still in use. Significance The Pyne mine is one of only two shaft ore mines in the Birmingham District, and was probably the deepest and largest of its kind in the region. The surface plant included one of the first ore briquetting plants installed in the Birmingham District. The heavy media plant represented the culmination of a long series of U.S. Bureau of Mine experiments designed to determine the feasibility of beneficiating red ore from Red Mountains's Clinton formation. The application of PYNE RED ORE MINE (Woodward Iron Company's Pyne Mine) HAER No.

AL-28 (Page 2) coal mining practice at the ore mine is an example of the unique advantages derived from "straight line production" and the close proximity of ore and coal mines. It was this close proximity which enabled the Woodward Company to bring its ore and coal mining engineers together in the kind of close cooperation that would have been necessary to adapt one body of mining practice to another kind of mining conditions. Mine headquarters buildings and head frame remain.

Historical Overview

The Woodward Iron Company began construction of the Pyne mine shaft in at about the same time that it opened a 384 foot shaft at its nearby Songo mine. These were the only vertical ore mine shafts constructed in the Birmingham District. The foot Pyne shaft operated for a few years but was abandoned and allowed to flood. In in response to the demands of war time production, the Pyne mine was reopened. The water was removed and an innovative mining system, adopted from the panel mining system in use at Woodward's coal mines, was begun. In addition to the innovative mining techniques employed. Woodward also designed and constructed its own loading machines and other equipment.

Combined with a very modern and efficient surface plant, the Pyne was capable of producing one million tons of ore per year. According to a contemporary observer this was the largest tonnage deliverable through a single shaft in the United States. The Pyne mine soon replaced Woodward's slope mines as the company's major source of red ore. Originally ore was loaded into railroad cars at the mine for shipment to the furnaces but later large Euclid trucks hauled the ore to the Woodward No. 3 mine where it was transferred to railroad cars. In the early Woodward installed an ore briquetting system in an initial effort to beneficiate its low grade ore. Later the system was upgraded by the addition of a Wemco Drum-type heavy media concentrator.

The mine continued to operate until the when Woodward began to import foreign ore. The site is currently in use. Tailings are being crushed for use as road aggregate. Headquarters facilities serve a variety of light industries. The headframe appears structurally sound. There will be substantial redevelopment of the site once the current removal of tailings has been completed. PYNE RED ORE MINE (Woodward Iron Company's Pyne Mine) HAER No. AL-28 (Page 3) Sources Consulted Stovel, "Sinking and Concreting of Pyne and Songo Mines," Engineering and Mining Journal 3 (May John V. Beall, "Opening the Pyne Mine of the Woodward Iron Co.," Mining Engineering 187 (December, [Footnote 1] Harbaugh, "Iron Ore In Blast Furnace and Steel Plant 33 (January 75; W.E. Lamont, I.L.

Field and Clemmons, "Benificiation of Red Ore Fines from Pyne Mine, Bessemer, Alabama," Report of Investigation United States Dept. of Interior, Bureau of Mines, (Washington, Government Printing Office, 2. [Footnote 2] Bergstresser Inventory, White, Marjorie, The Birmingham District, p. Auburn University Urban Design Studio Survey, Site Visit with Jim Byram, Summer