Muscoda Red Ore Mining Community, Bessemer

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BES.V,7-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

On the northern and southern slopes of Red Mountain at Readers Gap, to the east and west of AL Located in the Bessemer vicinity, Jefferson County Alabama. To reach Muscoda from Bessemer, take Street south up Red Mountain to Holbrook Avenue and turn right on Holbrook Avenue to Minnesota Avenue. The mining community is on both sides of AL The community is also accessible from Club House Road, just south of Fairfax Avenue. Date of Construction: Builder/Engineer/ Architect: TCI Land Department

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BES.V,7-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The Muscoda Red Ore Mining Community includes the finest concentration of worker housing and company-built community facilities in the District. Two schools, a church, medical dispensary, doctor's house and teachers' cottages document company-operated social welfare programs of the and The community also reveals a diversity of building types which reflects the hierarchy of the labor force and a clearly delineated, geographically separated racial organization.

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,37-BES.V,7-. 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. MUSCODA RED ORE MINING HAER No, AL-90 (Page 2)

Description

The Muscoda community is situated along the crest and slopes of Red Mountain just south of Bessemer and just north of TCI's former red ore mines, the largest in the Birmingham District. The community is composed of several distinctive sections including a row of seven two-story frame superintendent residences along Minnesota Avenue at the crest of the mountain. Along and to the south of Minnesota Avenue and nearest the mine headquarters is a section of 16 mining foremen's residences. To the west across Readers Gap is a section of 115 four-room square top and bungalow style worker houses, originally divided into black and white sections.

As mining operations expanded during World War I this area housed white miners and additional company housing for blacks was built on the southern slopes of Red Mountain in geographically separated sections known as "New Camp" and "New (or Borah) Village." New Village includes 69 four-room and six-room frame duplexes, known locally as "double two room" and "double three room" houses. The Muscoda community still includes numerous company-built community facilities, including two schools (one for blacks and one for whites), a teachers' cottage, a Social Science Building now a residence, a church, a doctor's house and a medical dispensary (now a church).

Five brick mine headquarters buildings also remain as well as substantial foundation materials at Muscoda mine sites on the southern slope of Red Mountain. A power house and head frame for the mine hoist also remain. Significant Structures and Groups of Structures Remaining at Muscoda include the following: Superintendents' Houses HAER No. AL-9 Architect: Wheelock and Wheelock Contractor: C. D. Ratliffe Minnesota Avenue Foremen Houses Minnesota Avenue Avenue I Worker Houses Architect: Wheelock and Wheelock TCI Associate John A. Baird Avenues I, J, H and G Worker Houses Avenues G, H and I MUSCODA RED ORE MINING HAER NO. AL-90 (Page 3) New Camp New Avenue, west of AL 150 New (Borah) Village Borah and Gary Avenues, east of AL 150 TCI White Schoolhouse-Bessemer Baptist Association (c.

Fairfax Avenue (JC 18) at AL 150 TCI Black Schoolhouse-Addison Elementary School HAER No. AL-95 413 Morgan Road Until quite recently, the last remaining TCI school still operating as a school. Starlite Baptist Church HAER No. AL-89 A TCI-built church AL 150 at Morgan Road Muscoda Mine Headquarters Just south of Minnesota Avenue, to east of AL 150 The five brick structures at this site served as headquarters for the Muscoda mines, TCI's largest red ore mining operations in the District. The best concentration of ore mining headquarters facilities in the District, they include a brick supply house, a brick shop building, a safety hall, an electrical shop and a one-story brick privy and bathhouse with separate entrances for white and black miners.

Several industrial enterprises occupy the site. Muscoda Red Ore Mines Nos. 5 & No. 6 Southern slope of Red Mountain at Muscoda The sites contain foundation materials scattered over more than 20 acres. Included are hoist foundations, a boiler stack, large foundation remnants, smaller piers, wall and other features which reveal the progressions of mining practice in the Red Mountain mining district from surface, out crop trenches to steam and electrically powered hoist assisted operations. Pvne Mine HAER No. AL-28 To east of AL four miles south of Bessemer At this five acre site, originally part of the Muscoda mines, the 40' steel headframe and brick powerhouse are still standing. Inside the power house, foundations for equipment remain.

One of only two shaft mines in the District, Pyne, one of the largest red ore mines in the nation, operated until MUSCODA RED ORE MINING HAER No. AL-90 (Page 4)

Historical Overview

In TCI purchased existing mining operations at Muscoda. In Don Bacon, former president of a major Minnesota red ore mining firm, became president of TCI. Bacon and many of his Minnesota associates and their families moved to Birmingham. These men expanded and improved the Muscoda Mines, which became and remained through the the largest in the Birmingham District. To house the new mine management, Birmingham's leading architectural firm, Wheelock and Wheelock, designed two-story Queen Anne-style frame houses which were built by Birmingham contractor C. D. Ratliffe. In and TCI also built 115 square-top worker houses across Readers Gap for miners and their families. Wheelock, Joy and Wheelock provided the plans and Ratliffe served as contractor. TCI's John A. Baird supervised construction.

The pyramidal roof cottage design, best known locally as the four- room square top, was well adapted to the southern climate and needs of an industrial work force. With two front doors, it could be rented to one or two families. The design proved so popular, it became the most common housing form in TCI and other industrial company camps throughout the Birmingham District rather than the two-room cottage, the standard for other southern mining communities. In and under Baird's supervision as head of the land department, TCI constructed additional square-top houses at Muscoda in built a second group of foremen's houses.

In the company relocated black miners originally housed along Avenue I to "New Camp," a two-street village of 115 two and three-room frame houses on the southern slope of Red Mountain. In and duplex housing was built in the older sections and in another settlement called "New" or "Borah Village." Baird designed and supervised these building efforts, as well as maintenance of the structures. By the an estimated persons lived at Muscoda. Throughout the TCI erected numerous community facilities. The two-story brick Georgian Revival white miners' clubhouse featured a dance hall and pool.

By TCI had built two substantial schoolhouses (a brick one for whites and a frame structure for blacks), a cottage for nine resident teachers, a social science building for cooking and sewing classes, a medical dispensary and doctor's house. Until the Depression, they were generously staffed by TCI Division of Social Science employees under the direction of Dr. Winifred Collins, a nationally- recognized educator trained in the Chicago schools of social work. MUSCODA RED ORE MINING HAER No. AL-90 (Page 5) Sources Consulted White, Marjorie, The Birmingham District, pp. Birmingham Historical Society, Industrial Community Files, Muscoda Auburn University School of Architecture Urban Design Studio Inventory Project, Notebook and Files, Fall 1991-Winter