Ishkooda Community, Spaulding & Ishkooda Roads, Birmingham

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BIRM.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

Remaining today are the commissary, adapted for reuse as a health- care facility, and housing in the black miners' camp to the west of Powderly Road and white miners' camp to the east of this road. A home for the resident physician also remains. At the site of the Eureka No. 1 and No. 2 mines, just to the west of Graces Gap, U.S. Steel began development of Oxraoor Industrial Park in Ishkooda-TCI White Camp East of Powderly-Ishkooda Road (JC 66) Ishkooda-TCI Black Camp West of Powderly-Ishkooda Road (JC 66) Ishkooda-TCI Doctor's House Pine Avenue at Powderly-Ishkooda Road (JC 66) Ishkooda-TCI Commissary Formerly MacDel Health Care Facility, now vacant Way just off Spaulding-Ishkooda Road Ishkooda-TCI Red Ore Mines Nos. 13 and 14 (Eureka Mines No. 1 & No.

2) Now U.S.X-Oxmoor Industrial Park USGS Quad: Birmingham South UTM: 0, to south of Wenonah-Ishkooda Road (JC 66) on Red Mountain

Historical Overview

In John T. Milner and Frank Gilmer, then building the South and North (later L. & N.) Railroad into the Birmingham District, bought the land just to the west of Graces Gap where the Ishkooda mines are located. Baylis Earle Grace, whose large farm was ISHKOODA COMMUNITY HAER No. AL-119 (Page 2) located at the gap, made the sale, the first of Red Mountain lands for industrial purposes. Throughout the Civil War, the mines known as the Eureka Mines supplied ore for furnace operations at Oxmoor, just two miles to the south in Shades Valley. In the early when Daniel Pratt and Henry DeBardeleben reopened the Oxmoor works, the slopes then known as Eureka No. l and No. 2 continued to supply the ore. Joseph Squire built a tramway from the mines to Oxmoor.

By the mines consisted of seven openings between Graces Gap and Redding and were known as the Ishkooda group. J. W. Worthington & Company worked the mines under contract with TCI (Tennessee Coal & Iron Co.) until the turn of the century. By TCI had built at the mine site a large merchandise store, office and pumping station, blacksmith and carpenter shops, powder magazines and other buildings, including housing for several hundred employees. Historian Ethel Armes provides a vivid description of mining operations at Ishkooda circa "The mines at Ishkooda hold a commanding site. Red Mountain, shorn of timber, stands in long, clear-cut, deep red lines, sharp against the as one looks out to Birmingham.

The railroad track, ascending by a series of switchbacks, runs along the slope near to the summit, then curves down in and out of the gaps. It is an interesting sight to watch an ore train heavily laden with its rich cargo wind its way slowly down the hillside and go on its journey to the blast furnaces." TCI built housing, schools, churches, a commissary and other community facilities for the hundreds of employees and their families at Ishkooda. When a tornado wiped out No. 10 and No. 11 Villages and other portions of the community in the TCI staff replaced the dwellings in the same year. By the an estimated persons lived at Ishkooda. The mines closed in Sources Consulted Photograph, view of Wenonah Camp, Birmingham Public Library Archives White, Marjorie, The Birmingham District, pp.

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