American Cast Iron Pipe Company, 1501 Thirty-first Avenue, North, Birmingham

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BIRM,27-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Entrance Gate: Avenue North, North Birmingham, plant and storage yard extends westward from I 65 to US 78 to north of Finley Avenue. Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama acres). To reach the ACIPCO plant entrance from the Birmingham City Center, take 2 6th Street North to Avenue North; turn left on 3 0th and proceed to the ACIPCO plants. Date of Construction Builder/Architect/ Engineer: Multiple

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BIRM,27-. 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. Significance From its inception in the company established a tradition for innovative pipemaking practices. During World War I, ACIPCO experimented with the direct delivery of molten pig iron from the blast furnaces of Republic Steel Corporation's Thomas plant to its pipemaking foundry. In the early when the Birmingham District led the industry in the adoption of centrifugal casting techniques, ACIPCO developed the Moore method of centrifugal casting in sand-lined molds. Company President John J. Eagan's Plan of Business Administration, which became permanent company policy in featured employee profit sharing.

Eagan's profit sharing idea became a model widely emulated in American industry. In southern investors organized and wholly financed ACIPCO in Atlanta. They selected Birmingham as the site for a new pipe plant and in constructed a pipe foundry, powerhouse and machine shop and "Quarters for about 40 black families. Guided by John J. Eagan, principal stockholder and first president, the company succeeded from the start. Under Eagan's AMERICAN CAST IRON PIPE COMPANY PLANT (HAER No. AL-35) (Page 2) leadership, it also inaugurated a now-celebrated program of corporate welfare benefits. The first of these benefits was a bathhouse constructed in at the plant site. In Eagan brought workers into corporate management and, in 192 2, created a profit-sharing arrangement.

At his death, he created a permanent trust of all the company's common stock. ACIPCO's operation has continued as a beneficial trust ever since. Sources Consulted Dyer, Y.A., "Cast-Iron Pipe Manufacture in the South," Iron Age 98 (November Moldenke, Richard, "Cast Iron Pipe Manufacture in the South," Iron Age 114 (September Moore, William Davis, Development of the Cast Iron Pressure Pipe Industry in the Southern States. Birmingham Publishing Company, Birmingham, Alabama, Noble, Henry Jeffers, History of the Cast Iron Pressure Pipe Industry in the United States of America. Newcomen, Birmingham, Alabama, (Noble was works manager for ACIPCO at the time.) White, Marjorie, The Birmingham District, pp.