The Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) is a long- range program that documents and interprets historically significant engineering sites and structures throughout the United States. HAER is part of Heritage Documentation Programs, a division of the National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior. The Ross Creek Culvert Recording Project was completed to HAER Level 1 standards and guidelines by Richard K. Anderson Principal Investigator, Cultural Resources Documentation Services, Sumter, South Carolina, under contract to Birmingham Historical Society, Birmingham, Alabama. Anderson ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No.
AL-214 (Page 2) took the measurements and prepared the data in anticipation of completing the measured and interpretive drawings, which were field checked and completed by landscape architect Birgit Kibelka, Kibelka Landscape Architecture, Birmingham, Alabama, following Anderson s death in June Marjorie White, Birmingham Historical Society, wrote the historical report with research and editorial assistance from Birgit Kibelka, Katherine Tipton, and Gerry Waters. Jet Lowe, Baltimore, Maryland, completed the large-format photography. Related Documentation: Louisville & Nashville Railroad, Ross Creek Concrete Culvert HAER AL-214-A (latitude: longitude: Ross Creek Stone Slab Culvert HAER AL-214-B (latitude: longitude:
The Ross Creek Culvert is oriented roughly east to west and is built of Pennsylvania-era Shades sandstone, laid as coursed, dressed ashlar with margin draft. The culvert s 62-foot-long vault is of smooth, dressed sandstone above the spring line with coursed ashlar masonry below. The round arches at the vault ends are between spring stones and feature a projecting keystone and dressed voussoirs. The top of the vault lies approximately above the water surface of Ross Creek and about 16 feet below the top of the roadbed above. The ends of the vault are flanked by curved retaining walls of coursed, dressed sandstone ashlar, stepped to follow the angle of repose in the railroad embankment. The retaining walls have a radius of about (in plan view) on their exposed faces.
Behind the ashlar walls and above the vault lies rubble of undetermined depth, surmounted by embankment soil, typical of this kind of construction. The rubble backing can be observed in places where original stones have fallen out of place. The condition of the culvert is fair. The vault is intact, but numerous stones in the southeast arch opening have fallen out, and the arch and attached wing wall have settled noticeably. This highly finished structure speaks of a railroad project backed by considerable funding with expectations of a long and profitable future.
The Ross Creek Culvert, also called the Ross Bridge, lies 26 feet below the right of way of the old South & North Alabama Railroad, which runs along a 100-foot-wide earthen causeway. Three branches of Ross Creek flow across the hilly lands of western Shades Valley, uniting before they flow through the culvert headed to a confluence with Shades Creek (see map, Appendix A). The culvert is a stone structure with a central keystone arch. The Ross Creek Culvert was built circa of Pennsylvania-era Shades sandstone by the company that built Jefferson County s first blast furnace and also first accessed Red Mountain ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 3) red iron ore for making iron.
The culvert was built to, and did, facilitate the transport of iron over the South & North Alabama Railroad through Brock s Gap in Shades Mountain to the Confederate arsenals at Selma, Alabama, and Rome, Georgia. The first train ran on this line in November opening the future city of Birmingham to become the center of the North Alabama mineral region. In the 180-mile line extending from Montgomery to Decatur, Alabama, became a branch of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (L. & From to the mainline of the L. & N. ran across the Ross Creek Culvert, transporting minerals, iron, pipe, and foundry products as well as passengers. In the L. & N. double-tracked this section of its original route and eliminated the Brock s Gap passage through Shades Mountain by building the Parkwood Tunnel.
After the line across the culvert remained in use as a spur track to the Oxmoor furnaces until their closing in The Shannon Red Ore Mine operated nearby from to the late Oxmoor s red ore mines (later called both the Eureka Mines and the Ishkooda group) operated until 1 The South & North, John T. Milner, and the Development of Alabama s Mineral Region The South & North Alabama Railroad was chartered on February 17, by the Alabama legislature. The railroad was intended to link Alabama s capital city of Montgomery with the Tennessee River in the northern part of the state. The legislative charter for the company stated that the company could raise $3 million in stock, but that it must complete 30 miles of grading within two years and the entire 180-mile line within 15 years.
A principal in the organization of the company was Tennessee-born Frank Gilmer Jr. of Gilmer & Company, cotton merchants in Montgomery. 2 Alabama was a cotton state at this time, and few legislators were interested in the development of North Alabama s mineral resources, especially its coal and iron, which an geological survey had identified. Furthermore, there were other competing railroads attempting to capture Alabama s mineral resources and direct them to manufactories in other states. Another railroad sought to link Selma and Montgomery. These interests had sufficient legislative influence to delay the start of Gilmer s enterprise, Alabama s Great Central Railroad often referred to as the Alabama Central Railroad or the Central Railroad.
3 On February 15, the South & North s incorporation documents were amended to give the railroad five years to get started (i.e., until February 17, 4 Four years after initial incorporation of the South & North, on March 27, Alabama Governor Andrew Barry Moore selected the 32-year-old Georgia-born and -trained railroad engineer John Turner Milner to survey routes to develop the state s mineral resources. Milner s 1 Marjorie White, The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide (Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Historical Society, 212 218 (dates of mine closures). 2 An Act to Incorporate the South and North Alabama Rail Road Company (February 17, Alabama Session Laws, Act No.
318 3 Ethel Armes, The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, facsimile edition of the original book (Birmingham, AL: Book-Keepers Press, 105 J. Lawrence Lee, Alabama Railroads, Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July 4 An Act to Amend an Act Entitled an Act to Incorporate the South and North Alabama Railroad Company (February 15, Alabama Session Laws, Act No. 322 ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 4) education included study at the University of Georgia (which did not have a formal program in civil engineering at this time) and extensive field experience working on railroads in Georgia with his father, who was a railroad contractor. The state appropriated for the Alabama Central Railroad survey. 5 Milner reported back to Governor Moore that same year.
His Report to the Governor of Alabama on the Alabama Central Railroad originally included a report (in Milner s handwriting) with maps, profiles, plans and books of the survey numbers and plainly designated. Only the report was published as a 144-page document in 6 In the report, Milner plans a railroad to run through the center of the state, with spur lines running through the valleys to access the North Alabama mineral regions while connecting the navigable waters of the Gulf of Mexico with the Tennessee River to the north.
The line will do so by creating the very hilly missing link from Montgomery via Wetumpka, Montevallo (this waypoint later changes to Lime Kiln Calera), and Blount Springs to Decatur on the Tennessee River, a terminus decided by Milner and favorable interests in that city led by James Withers Sloss. Before construction of the Alabama Central Railroad is finally started, other railroads will run from the Gulf to Montgomery and from Decatur to Nashville and Louisville. Another will link Selma to Montgomery.
Indeed, by Alabama had 800 miles of shortline railroads built by many competing interests during the 7 Milner s report included prescient forecasts about the future value of coal and showcased the success of Georgia railroads with which he had firsthand experience in developing entire regions by extending railroads to them. Milner s preferred route for his railroad traversed the wilds of western Shades Valley before arriving in the farming region of Jones Valley near Elyton, then the county seat of Jefferson County. 8 In his preferred route continued across Jones Valley, across Sand Mountain and the Warriors (branches of the Warrior River), to Blount Springs, and on to Decatur.
Milner stated from Montevallo to 30 miles South of Decatur is on a succession of ridges, mountains, and valleys, running northeast and southwest. Railroads of the era found grades of 1 percent to be steep; mountains that rose 400 and 500 feet above their valleys presented significant challenges, as did the many intervening ridges and the rivers and creeks that flowed from them. In addition to engineering talent, manpower, and money, blasting powder was an essential ingredient in the construction of such a railroad. Milner estimated the cost for a 121-mile Montevallo to Elyton to Decatur segment at or per mile. He also noted that the railroad would receive 5 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 6 John T.
Milner, Report to the Governor of Alabama on the Alabama Central Railroad (Montgomery, AL: Advertiser Book and Job Steam Press Print, 7 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 8 Jones Valley, in which the future city of Birmingham would be located when Milner s railroad finally arrived, was a wide, relatively flat valley traversed by the region s major roads. The Huntsville Road from Tuscaloosa to Huntsville passed through Elyton and Jonesboro, communities that are now neighborhoods of Birmingham and Bessemer. The Montevallo Road ran from Elyton across Grace s Gap on Red Mountain, through the future Ross Bridge area and Brock s Gap on Shades Mountain, to Montevallo, then a thriving city surrounded by farms, coal mines, and forges in Shelby County. The route was a former Indian trace.
In the the Montevallo Road was extended eastward through Shades Valley to Red Gap on Red Mountain, just north of today s Eastwood Village Shopping Center. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 5) acres of public land, which at $2 per acre will be or 28 percent of the amount necessary to build and equip the road, saying nothing of the immense value of the coal, acres of which the Company will get. 9 Of the million cost, million the largest category of expense was for grading, masonry, and bridges. Other expense categories included superstructure (iron, cross ties, spikes, frogs, castings, and track laying); depots and water stations; equipment, including locomotives and passenger, freight, baggage, and mail cars; and engineering.
Milner s cost estimates were to build the railway, depots, machine shops, and engine houses and to acquire rolling stock and tools to repair everything. He argued that the state legislators would receive returns of at least 7 percent of any appropriation made to build and equip the railroad, based on the most conservative projections of cost and revenue from the enterprise. With three rivers and many creeks to cross, Milner developed cost scenarios for culverts and bridges. Arch culvert masonry was estimated at per cubic yard. Box culvert masonry was less expensive, at per cubic yard. Bridge culvert masonry was the most expensive and was estimated to cost per cubic yard, with bridge abutments at per cubic yard.
Milner also stated his preference for negro workers: I have long since learned that negro slave labor is more reliable and cheaper for any business connected with the construction of a railroad than white. Milner closed his report by saying that this railroad would build up our state more than any other. With that statement, the enthusiastic young engineer became the railroad s chief advocate, a role in which he would work harder, longer, and more successfully than he could have imagined. Principal and assistant engineers for the survey and report were his cousin John A. Milner, N. W. Long, John T. Elmore, and R. B. Harris.
Milner had wanted to cross Shades Mountain where Shades Creek cuts through it at a water gap southwest of Ross Creek and then to head directly to the center of the Warrior coal field, but he abandoned this route as too costly. The least expensive of the six routes he explored crossed Shades Mountain at today s Brock s Gap and crossed Red Mountain at Grace s Gap, both natural mountain gaps. This route hugged the topography and paralleled the Montevallo Road, the only north/south road crossing this portion of the then largely undeveloped wilderness with its scattered farms.
Elyton resident Baylis Grace had a farm at Grace s Gap on Red Mountain and had observed as horse and oxen hooves and wagon wheels crushed the red rock there into a fine 9 Authorization for this land was given by the state legislature on December 9, when the South & North was approved to locate, select and designate public lands for railroad use (An Act in Relation to Certain Public Lands in This State [December 9, Alabama Session Laws, Act No. 46, The land was conveyed to the South & North on March 3, (Jefferson County Tract Book, Township 19 South, Range 3 West, 197 In just Township 19 South, Range 3 West, where the Ross Creek Culvert and today s Ross Bridge neighborhood is located, the railroad received acres of land from the federal government (U.S.
land patent records for Township 19 South, Range 3 West, granted by Act of Congress, April 24, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 6) red dust. In the Grace had a wagonload of this red rock tested in a Bibb County, Alabama, forge, and it did indeed produce iron. 10 James Taylor Ross, Pinckney Brock, and George Coward Get Key Patent Lands in Shades Valley On June 1, James T. Ross purchased 120 acres along the Montevallo Road as it crossed Ross Creek; Pinckney L. Brock purchased 160 acres at what became known as Brock s Gap; and nearby George W. Coward purchased 80 acres of very rocky Shades Mountain land. The Rosses, Brocks, and Cowards were Jefferson County residents who had migrated from South Carolina. They farmed, raised livestock, and did not own slaves.
The lands they acquired in in this then very sparsely settled and remote area of Shades Valley (Township 19 South, Range 3 West) were U.S. Government patent lands made available at a reduced cost. Ross and Brock had acquired other lands in the same township in the early By Ross owned 240 acres of land, having entered 120 acres in December parcels in the vicinity of Ross Creek. Ross was among three large landholders in this area; however, he did not live here. 11 In James Taylor Ross was 55 years old. He was born in in Yorkville (today s York) in the South Carolina uplands near today s Charlotte, North Carolina. With his wife, Mary Louisa Coward, Ross had migrated to Alabama by In the Rosses lived in Cherokee County with their two young sons.
The couple ultimately had four sons: William Elias Andrew Campbell John M. and Albert Alexander By the family lived on a farm in Jonesboro near the future town of Bessemer, Alabama. Ross was of Scotch-Irish heritage, his forbearers having immigrated to Frederick County, Virginia, in 12 By Ross was heading a successful agricultural enterprise. He had acquired 400 acres of real estate valued at and farming implements and machinery valued at With his wife and four sons (then ages 21, 20, 15, and the entrepreneur had made 70 acres of his lands productive, as he reported to the agricultural census taker in that year.
Ross s report further indicated that he raised 50 bushels of Indian corn and 3 bales of cotton, spun 30 pounds of wool from his 16 sheep, and churned 200 pounds of butter with cream from his 4 milk cows. He also 10 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 46. 11 Bureau of Land Management, Land Patent Search, digital images, General Land Office Records accessed July James T. Ross (Jefferson County, AL), homestead patent no. Pinckney L. Brock (Jefferson County, AL), homestead patent no. George W. Coward (Jefferson County, AL), homestead patent no. Gregory A.
Boyd s Family Maps of Jefferson County, Alabama, Deluxe Edition: With Homesteads, Roads, Waterways, Towns, Cemeteries, Railroads, and More (Norman, OK: Arphax Publishing Co., includes maps showing Ross s additional acreage acquired in and These sales are also recorded in the Jefferson County Tract Book (March 3, pp. 197 12 Ancestry.com, United States Federal Census for and for James Taylor Ross, Andrew Campbell Ross, William Elias Ross, John M. Ross, and Albert Alexander Ross [database on- line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. Ancestry.com, Alabama State Census, [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., (Original data: Alabama State Census, Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Department of Archives and History). ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No.
AL-214 (Page 7) owned a horse, 2 mules, 2 oxen, and 40 pigs. In addition to his land in the Ross Creek area, Ross held acreage in Jonesboro, his place of residence at this time. 13 Contractor and Labor Are Acquired Physical work on the South & North Alabama Railroad appears to have been set in motion by January when Chief Engineer John T. Milner placed a Notice to Contractors for grading and culvert masonry for the first 30 miles of the railroad. Bids were to be presented to the South & North office above F. M. Gilmer Jr. s cotton warehouse in Montgomery. 14 On September 16, the Daily Confederation reported glorious news : work on the railroad had begun. The paper noted that Dr. William H.
Rives had gone east to purchase slaves and had returned the day before with 85 negroes whom he had delivered to Mr. Boyle, the contractor, who will put them to work staking the railroad between Montgomery and Wetumpka. 15 Bartholomew ( Bartley ) Boyle was an Irish-born railroad contractor active in building railroads across Alabama. In the census, the 35-year old Boyle was living in Wetumpka, Alabama, with numerous other men whose occupations were principal surveyor, assistant surveyor, laborer, and overseer. 16 By the time of his death in Boyle had acquired acres of mineral lands in the North Birmingham area that were later developed as the Lewisburg and New Castle coal mines. These lands probably included the gap still known as Boyles Gap, as well as the future location of the L. & N.
(now shops and yards at Boyles, Alabama, established 17 Fall The South & North Acquires a Construction Loan In the Alabama legislature officially adopted John Milner s recommendations as to the best route for a railroad that would run through the center of the state, granting a loan of on condition that the entire line be graded and prepared for iron by the end of five years. By this time, cotton planter Frank Gilmer controlled three-quarters of the railroad s stock, other investors having withdrawn their support. 18 Alabama s major industrialist, Daniel Pratt of 13 Ancestry.com, U.S., Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, [database on-line].
Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Census Year: Census Place: Carlowville [Carrollsville], Jefferson, Alabama; Archive Collection Number: Roll: 27; Page: 11; Line: 8; Schedule Type: Agriculture. 14 Daily Confederation (Montgomery, AL), January 7, http://www.newspapers.com, accessed July 15 Daily Confederation (Montgomery, AL), September 16, http://www.newspapers.com, accessed July 16 and United States Federal Census. 17 White, Birmingham District, Bartholomew Boyle, accessed July Upon Boyle s sudden death in from a railroad accident, the Birmingham Iron Age reported, He was a public spirited, enterprising citizen and as noble and high-minded and generous a man as Alabama could boast ( Boyle, Col.
B, Birmingham Iron Age, July 1, obituary transcribed at Find a Grave, COL Bartholomew Boyle, accessed July 18 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 121 Armes notes that Gilmer changed the southern terminus of the railroad from Montevallo to Calera at this time. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 8) the Continental Gin Company in Prattville, Alabama (HAER AL-5), the nation s largest maker of cotton gins, also became a major investor. Milner finally had funds to begin work on the railroad, albeit half of his estimate.
January Alabama Secedes from the Union After Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, Montgomery became the first capital of the Confederate states (replaced by Richmond, Virginia, in May Shortly thereafter, the state of Alabama set up the Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company to mine ore and manufacture iron for Confederate ordnance. Frank Gilmer Jr. and John T. Milner were involved in this company. 19 That the South & North had hired workers and had started on its line is attested by an April 18, notice in the Southern Confederacy of Atlanta, Georgia, that the company had sent down fifty hands to assist in completing the Montgomery and Pensacola Railroad.
20 By early the South & North had extended the track to the northern border of the Cahaba coal field in Shelby County, just south of Shades Valley where today s Ross Creek Culvert lies, and was approaching the mineral regions of Jefferson County. 21 The South & North Acquires Key Lands in Shades Valley From May to October railroad contractor Bartholomew Boyle and chief engineer John T. Milner acquired the strategic land to enable the future South & North Railroad to cross Shades Mountain and a major creek, reach the Red Mountain ores, and enter the mineral regions beyond. On May 22, Pinckney Brock sold five tracts (approximately 300 acres) of his land at Brock s Gap to Boyle.
Brock subsequently moved to Winston County, Alabama, where residents were known for their opposition to the Civil War. He swore an oath of allegiance to the United States there on July 31, 22 In July James Ross s eldest son, William Elias Ross, enlisted in the Alabama Regiment. He would serve until May 12, 23 On December 9, the Alabama legislature passed an act giving the South & North company nine months to locate, select and designate the portions of the public lands in this State granted to said company by the government of the United States, these lands having been withdrawn 19 Joseph H. Woodward II, Alabama Blast Furnaces (Woodward, AL: Woodward Iron Company, 20 Untitled article, Southern Confederacy (Atlanta, GA), April 18, transcribed by David L.
Bright ASCY Confederate Railroads, NP,_ASCY_4-18-61.htm, accessed July 21 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 22 Pinckney Brock to B. Boil [Boyle], May 22, Jefferson County Deed Book 13, Oath of Allegiance, Pinckney L. Brock of Winston County, July 31, 23 Alabama Civil War Service Database, Alabama Department of Archives and History, accessed July ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 9) from the market for the benefit of said railroad. The South & North did not exercise this option for additional land until 24 On May 10, John Taylor Ross s second son, Andrew Campbell, volunteered (to avoid conscription) for three years in the Alabama Regiment, organized in May he served as a teamster before deserting at Petersburg on September 16, Andrew s younger brother, John M.
Ross, enlisted with him but died in a Confederate hospital in Montgomery on August 3, Fourth son Albert Alexander (Alec) would remain on the Jonesboro farm with his parents until March 4, he served in the 8th Alabama Regiment from March until May 25 In September Baylis Grace granted a right-of-way for the South & North Alabama Railroad to cross his farm at Grace s Gap on Red Mountain near today s Red Mountain Park. With three of his four sons gone to fight in the Civil War, including one who would not come home, Ross reasoned it was time to sell most of the lands he had been accumulating in Shades Valley. On October 10, James Taylor Ross and his wife Mary Coward Ross sold four tracts of land (approximately 490 acres) in the area of Ross Creek to John T.
Milner for 26 James Taylor Ross moved to Shades Valley sometime in the as he is listed as living in Township 19 South, Range 3 West in the census. His youngest son, Alec, then age 24, had returned from the war and lived with his parents. The census notes that Alec and his wife Mary Antoinette ( Nettie ) Nabors continued to live with the senior Rosses. 27 After living on a ridge overlooking Shades Mountain, the Rosses are said to have moved to a site on Little Shades Creek near the Woodward Iron Company s ore mines at Redding on Red Mountain. 28 James Ross became a respected member of the Shades Valley community. At age 85, he was elected Justice of the Peace for Jefferson County. He died in and is buried with other members of the Ross family in Union Baptist Cemetery, Lipscomb, Alabama.
By then, Alec Ross had migrated with his family to the new town of Bessemer, just west of the cemetery; several of his sons became lawyers. 29 The James T. Ross and Wife Land Deed to John T. Milner of October 10, was witnessed by R. H. Kelly. This act indicates that Richard Hamlin Kelly, an Irish-born railroad engineer, is in Alabama at the time, where he would be associated with the South & North Alabama Railroad and could logically be consulted on the location of a culvert to be built across a major creek in this portion of Shades Valley, through which the future railroad would soon be graded. Initial 24 Alabama Session Laws, Act No. 46, 48.
25 Martha Ella Ross Dunham, typescript, in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society (John Ross s death; death confirmed by Civil War service record); U.S. Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed and Barred Claims, Andrew C. Ross [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., National Archives Microfilm Publication fiche, National Archives, Washington, DC; Civil War Service Records, Confederate Records, digital images, Fold3, http://www.fold3.com, accessed July 26 James T. Ross and Wife Land Deed to John T. Milner, October 10, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, 27 United States Federal Census for and for Alec Ross [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.
28 Robert Curren, interview by Marjorie White, March 7, 29 Robert Curren, interview by Marjorie White, March 5, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 10) procedure for the construction of 19th-century railroads, as noted in the advertisements for workers, included clearing the land, grading, and building bridges and culverts. Richard Hamlin Kelly was born in northern Ireland in According to an unsourced profile, Kelly was a civil engineer of great talent, who first located in Iowa, where he married. He went south shortly before the Civil War to work on the South & North Alabama Railroad and was stranded in Alabama when the war broke out. Kelly is said to have designed the Rock Island Railroad Bridge at Davenport, Iowa, the first bridge to span the Mississippi River.
30 The census lists Kelly as a 30-year old engineer living in Iowa City, Iowa; the census lists him as an engineer living in Union Springs, Alabama. 31 Kelly is on the job with the South & North by October 10, and is party to the acquisition of the gap and culvert properties in and The Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company Is Established On April 11, the Confederate government established the Nitre and Mining Bureau to encourage the production of war materials for its arsenals. Iron for shot, shell, and warships was needed, and the government quickly backed the construction of 13 furnaces in Alabama with funds of up to per furnace to produce iron. It also provided funds to railroads to haul the produced iron to its arsenal at Selma.
Iron was also shipped to the Confederate arsenal at Rome, Georgia. 32 In late as related by John T. Milner s biographer Dorothea Warren, Colonel Frank Gilmer and Mr. Milner went up to Richmond, and from Secretary of War [James] Seddon succeeded in getting a contract drawn up with the Confederate Government to erect a furnace and rolling mills and to build a railroad to them. 33 On November 5, a group of 25 Alabama planters and business men including cotton planter Frank Gilmer his brother William Gilmer of Montgomery, industrialist Daniel Pratt, and railroad engineer John T. Milner incorporated the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company.
The successor firm to the Alabama Arms Manufacturing Company, it was capitalized with an 30 Find a Grave, Richard Hamlin Kelly, accessed July 31 and United States Federal Census. 32 Woodward, Alabama Blast Furnaces, 21. 33 Dorothea Orr Warren in The Practical Dreamer: A Story of John T. Milner, His Family and Forebears (Birmingham, AL: Southern Family Press, Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 62. Ethel Armes, writing in her history of the development of coal and iron in Alabama, footnoted the deal between Gilmer, Milner, and Seddon in one of the few footnotes in her history, crediting Milner s Address to Georgia Society.
(A copy of the address has not been located.) Gilmer s deal with Secretary Seddon was not substantiated by Carol Slaughter s March review of the Official Records of the Confederacy; however, local historians agree that it must have happened for such a large investment to have been made in the Oxmoor Valley at this time. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 11) astonishing million in stock options. Thus, demand for Confederate armament prompted formation of Jefferson County s first iron manufactory and iron ore mines. 34 Chief engineer John Milner began newspaper advertising for more railroad workers to build the road to access the industrial sites.
On December 12, editors of the Montgomery Mail endorsed the campaign to build the South & North: The Central Rail Road Company The advertisement calling for six hundred negroes to work on the South & North Alabama (or Central) Rail Road shows that the efforts of the company to connect Montgomery with the Tennessee river at Decatur are not flagging. We need hardly say that we are rejoiced at this new evidence that the company is determined to push the good work forward to a speedy completion. Knowing the character of the President [Frank Gilmer Engineers, contractors, &c. for energy and perseverance, we have never doubted that the road would be built, the croakings of those who did not choose to join the company to the contrary notwithstanding.
The public may rely upon the assertion that North and South Alabama will be within a reasonable time united by a first class rail road, and thousands of acres of land now uncultivated [will] be in demand. And the coal and iron that will be thus developed! Words cannot convey an idea of their extent and value along the line of the road which is to be to Alabama what the Western & Atlantic road is and has long been to Georgia. Speed the day! 35 On December 20, another Montgomery Mail editorial noted that the laboring force of the company will be increased to one thousand negroes within a very short period, several hundred being now and for nearly two years past engaged upon the work. The Chief Engineer is yet advertising for six hundred more negroes, to work on the road.
36 In January Milner s advertisements appeared in the Mobile Register, the Selma Morning Reporter, and the Vicksburg Whig. Milner sought 600 Negroes and 800 Negroes to work in getting ties, track laying, bridging, near Elyton and Montevallo. Workers would live in camps of ten with housing and sustenance, supplied by the railroad and prepared for each group of 10 by their woman (cook) and boy. Parties sending 50 or more workers could send an overseer to assist with proper management. 37 34 An Act to Incorporate the Red Mountain Iron and Coal Company (November 5, Alabama Session Laws, No. 118 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 35 The Central Rail Road Company, Montgomery Mail, December 12, transcribed by David L.
Bright MM Confederate Railroads, accessed July 36 The South & North Alabama (or Central) Rail Road, Montgomery Mail, December 20, transcribed by David L. Bright MM Confederate Railroads, accessed July 37 Wanted to Hire, 600 Negroes! (Mobile Register, January 7, and January 10, Wanted to Hire, 600 Negroes! (January 10, https://www.newspapers.com, accessed July Wanted to Hire Six Hundred ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 12) On January 31 and March 21 of the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company acquired the land to build the railroad into Shades Valley and access both the future Oxmoor Furnace land and the future city of Birmingham. The company purchased acres that included James T.
Ross s 490 acres in the Ross Creek area and 300 acres of Pinckney Brock s land at Brock s Gap, properties that South & North officials Milner and Boyle had acquired from Ross and Brock in and respectively. R. H. Kelly witnessed the sale of the Ross land. 38 Confidently expecting that the railroad would soon reach the ore lands, as Milner s biographer Dorothea Warren records, work forged ahead on the South & North railroad and a new furnace in Shades Valley. The Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company acquired a total of acres and selected a site for the furnace. The construction of a 32-foot-high circular stone furnace, blown in in October or November (the first of two at the site), began a new community along Shades Creek that became known as Ox Moor.
39 Ox Moor (eventually spelled Oxmoor ) was named for company lawyer Daniel Shipman Troy s North Carolina plantation, which was named after the family homestead in Ireland. 40 Tramways were extended to the soft ore on Red Mountain s crest near Grace s Gap. (Baylis Grace had made the first sale of Red Mountain s ore lands to the Oxmoor enterprise in 41) The near 70-year-old ironmaster Moses Stroup was hired away from the Tannehill furnaces (HAER AL-122) to supervise the enterprise. Forests surrounding Oxmoor were timbered for railroad construction and burned for charcoal to fire the furnace.
With 60 furnace men and 200 to 300 slaves (hired for an estimated to each annually) to cut the timber and haul wood, the furnaces at Oxmoor were a continuously successful operation, pouring out at least five to six tons of iron per day. 42 As historian Ethel Armes reported, the Oxmoor furnaces kept up to the mark, steady and true, and everyone knew it was because Old Man Stroup was on the job. 43 Teamsters drove ox carts, heavily laden with three to four tons of charcoal iron, over the Montevallo Road through Brock s Gap to the South & North s railhead on the other side of the gap. Here, the iron was loaded onto railcars and transported to the Selma arsenal, where 900 men turned it into shot and shell. Negroes, Selma Morning Reporter, January 16, transcribed by David L.
Bright, Confederate Railroads, accessed July Wanted to Hire Eight Hundred Negroes, Vicksburg Whig, January 13, transcribed by David L. Bright, Confederate Railroads, accessed July 38 John T. Milner and Wife [Florence] to Red Mountain Iron and Coal Company, January 31, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, B. Boyle and Wife [Helen] to The Red Mountain Iron and Coal Co., March 21, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, 39 Woodward, Alabama Blast Furnaces, 40 White, Birmingham District, 212 41 These ore lands later became the Eureka Mines and the Ishkooda group of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel that operated them until They are now part of Birmingham s Red Mountain Park.
42 Woodward, Alabama Blast Furnaces, 21, White, Birmingham District, 43 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 13) The Long Haul to the Railhead Furnaces were located near ore supplies, not expedient transportation routes. The haul of iron over the deeply rutted and often muddy and impassable Montevallo Road to the railhead was arduous travel. The road was made more passable through the spreading of slag from the furnaces. 44 By the time the furnaces began production in thanks to infusions of Confederate funds, Milner had built up the South & North Railroad from Calera through the Cahaba coal field to Billy Gould s Coal Mine and Coke Ovens (HAER No. AL-16) just south of Brock s Gap. 45 In December Gould s partner, Fred Woodson, wrote to J. S.
White at the Selma Arsenal requesting 75 pounds of blasting powder to put his coal mines in a condition to throw out fifty tons coal per day. White directed the military store keeper to please sell the Blasting Powder at customary rates, as . . . requested; --provided the same be on hand to spare. 46 The Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company also opened coal mines at Helena, Alabama, and the railroad was busy transporting this coal for use by Confederate industries. 47 By Milner had also laid six miles of railroad, with toiling curves and extreme grades, across the southern flank of the steep, rocky Shades Mountain, to establish a railhead at the southern foot of Brock s Gap.
He maintained this railroad during the years from to when substantial quantities of iron and coal were hauled to Selma and to Rome. 48 Although the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company had acquired the land at Brock s Gap in the spring of the mountain remained, and there was no gunpowder to blast through it. Men were put to work with hand tools to attempt to chisel through the hard sandstone rock, but the mountain won the contest. The railhead remained on the south side. 49 Milner Gets 600 More Railroad Workers In December chief engineer John T. Milner again advertised for 600 negroes to work on the South & North Railroad between Montgomery and Elyton. Tasks listed for the year included Bridging, Track-laying, Grading, getting ties, timbers, &C. Applications were to be directed to Geo. O.
Baker, Selma; R. H. Kelly, Lime Station [Calera], Shelby County; or John T. Milner in Montgomery. 50 In Milner was engaged in maintaining the railroad as it existed from Calera to Brock s Gap and completing the grading on to Grace s Gap, the farthest point north to which grading was 44 Sam Curren, The Stage Road to Montevallo, typescript in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society. 45 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 46 J. S. White to Military Store Keeper, Selma Arsenal, December 12, National Archives, transcribed by David L.
Bright (NA, S&NA NA,_S_and_NA_12-12-63.htm, accessed July 47 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 48 Warren, Practical Dreamer, 49 Warren, Practical Dreamer, Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 50 Wanted to Hire 600 Negroes, Daily Mississippian, January 24, digital image in the collection of the Alabama Department of Archives and History, file voices/id/2826, accessed July ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 14) extended during the war years. The Willis J. Milner, a wood-burning locomotive named for Milner s father, hauled the majority of the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company s iron and coal over a patchwork line, made, according to Milner, of every sort and kind of rail from 60 pounds T to 30 pounds T and strap rail and stringer! 51 In February F. M. Gilmer Jr.
wrote to Major F. W. Sims in Richmond to request the transfer of engines his company had purchased to assist in transporting coal from the company s Helena mines. This correspondence indicates that the South & North had received aid of the Govmt [in Richmond] to complete the lines to the coal fields just south of Brock s Gap. 52 The railroad was graded north of Brock s Gap to Grace s Gap on Red Mountain. Whatever rails were laid did not remain after the Civil War. Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company Builds the Culvert at Ross Creek The Oxmoor furnace had been blown in in October or November of The company had also opened its coal mine at Helena at this time.
With ownership of the Ross Creek site by January and workers assigned to the railroad near Elyton and Montevallo for the years and it seems highly probable that the well-capitalized Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company built the Ross Creek Culvert under John Milner s and Richard Kelly s supervision. The labor force advertised for in each of these years was hired to get ties, lay tracks, and build bridges and culverts. Although no sources have been located that document the construction of the Ross Creek Culvert during or the physical evidence of the stone culvert itself reflects a well-engineered structure built for the ages by significant manpower and financial resources.
Stories in the Coward-Curren family passed down through many generations state that the culvert was built during the war and iron hauled over it to Selma. 53 Robert Curren states that stone for the Oxmoor Furnace and the Ross Creek Culvert came from the Coward quarry on the north slope of Shades Mountain about two miles from the culvert site. Curren s sources include his great-grandfather, Peter Curren, who operated the Coward quarry after the Civil War; his grandfather, John C. Curren; many uncles; and Green Avery, a slave and later freeman who drove ox carts to haul the sandstone blocks across a ford at Shades Creek to the nearby construction sites. The quarry remains today along Shades Crest Road.
(George Coward, a relative of the Rosses, acquired the quarry site in and did not sell it to the railroad engineers when his fellow South Carolinians sold their lands.) The Curren and Urie 51 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 52 F. M. Gilmer South & North Alabama Railroad Company, to Major F. W. Sims, Richmond, VA, February 4, National Archives, transcribed by David L.
Bright (NA, S&NA http://www.csa-railroads.com/ accessed July 53 Robert Curren, interview by Madge Barefield, in Marilyn Davis Barefield, A History of Hoover, Alabama and Its People (Hoover, AL: Hoover Historical Society, 38 41; Robert Curren, interviews by Marjorie White, Sherri Mabry, Civil War Structure Found in Parkwood, Birmingham News, circa from the collection of Robert Curren, copy in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 15) families operated the quarry through the providing construction materials for the railroad and early buildings in Birmingham. 54 If the culvert was not built during it surely could have been built in with new laborers reporting directly to engineer R. H. Kelly in Calera.
James Gage, who, with his mother Mary Gage, has researched and written extensively about stone structures in the Northeastern United States, 55 assessed a similar stone arched railroad culvert built in and still remaining in a remote area of McKean County, Pennsylvania. In assessing the Pennsylvania culvert, James Gage described how it would have been built: The stones were cut, shaped, and finished by skilled artisans. The assembly of the culvert would have been overseen by a master stonemason. Carpenters would have been needed to construct the support framework to hold the arch in place during placement of the stones. Laborers would have been needed for transporting, hoisting, and positioning the stones.
The standard practice of century railroads was to reserve the best quality construction work for bridges and culverts in the most remote areas. The logic being that the most remote and difficult-to-access structures needed to be built to minimize maintenance and repairs. 56 Interestingly, tales abound that Confederate prisoners of war contributed to the building of this Pennsylvania railroad structure. 57 The description provided by James Gage appears also to apply to the well-designed, superbly built, and once remote Ross Creek Culvert.
March April Wilson s Raiders Destroy Furnaces and Railways, But Not the Culvert In the spring of the 28-day, 525-mile cavalry campaign of Union General James Harrison Wilson across Alabama and Georgia concentrated on destroying the Confederate government s ability to make weapons of war. It was, according to historian Jim Bennett, the largest cavalry raid and last major engagement of the war and a major success.
On March 28, Wilson s troops torched wooden structures and destroyed machinery at the Oxmoor and 54 Robert Curren, interviews by Marjorie White, March 5, visit to quarry site by Birgit Kibelka, Carol Slaughter, Katherine Tipton, and Marjorie White with Evangeline and Robert Curren, March 5, 55 Mary Gage and James Gage, Stone Structures of Northeastern United States, accessed July The Gages website presents detailed analyses and photographs of stone bridge and culvert construction.
56 James Gage, June 6, quoted in Dave Rathfon, The Story and History of the Stone Arch Culvert Railroad Bridge (located in Big Shanty, Lafayette Township, McKean County, Pennsylvania), 21, accessed July mckean1.htm, accessed July This document includes a description and photographs depicting the process by which railroad grades and culverts of the period were constructed, as well as photographs of and location details for the Pennsylvania stone arch culvert. 57 Story and History of the Stone Arch Culvert Railroad Bridge. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 16) Irondale furnace operations in Shades Valley. The munitions-making facilities at Selma were destroyed April 2 9, Wilson s troops dismantled rails and railroads wherever they found them.
However, according to Robert Curren they did not damage the culvert at Ross Creek; the local militia of old men and boys fired one shot and then surrendered the culvert. 58 Work Resumes on the South & North Railroad After the close of the war, efforts to build the South & North Alabama Railroad resumed. In April the Montgomery City Council granted the railroad a bond to build and equip the road from Montgomery to Calera. The state legislature approved Montgomery s aid on December 7, The City Council records mention a contracting company that was formed by partnership of Bartholomew Boyle, Richard H. Kelly, John T. Milner, and several others as having control of the labor of the penitentiary convicts. 59 The state of Alabama may have put up a $2 million bond to finance the railroad.
60 On April 12, the South & North contracted with Sam Tate & Associates to complete the line from Calera to Elyton by April and to Decatur by December The cost was now per mile, significantly less than Milner s estimate. 61 Tennessean Sam Tate had been a major railroad promoter, manager, and contractor for the Decatur & Tuscumbia line, a very high- volume railway, and had also built the Memphis & Charleston Railroad. 62 By August George Coward s son, John Coward, a 29-year old carpenter living in Jonesboro in the census, had gone into the family business quarrying rock.
On August 26, he and his wife, Jane Coward, granted a generous right of way to the South & North Railroad over their Shades Mountain property for $1, presumably to transport quarry rock to build structures needed to complete the rail line. 63 58 Jim Bennett, Wilson s Raid in The Yankees Came: Wilson s Raid Across Alabama and Georgia, March and April Birmingham Historical Society Newsletter, March/April BHS_Newsletter_e0315.pdf, accessed July White, Birmingham District, 223 Robert Curren, interview by Marjorie White, March 7, The Irondale furnace, the ruins of which lie in today s city of Mountain Brook, Alabama, was built in by ironmaster Wallace McElwain. Like Oxmoor, it was financed by the Confederate government to produce iron for its arsenals.
Wilson s cavalry set fire to its wooden structures and destroyed its machinery. 59 J. Whiting, president, South & North Alabama Railroad Company, to the Mayor and City Council of Montgomery, council minutes, April 9, The Code of Ordinances of the City Council of Montgomery, with the Charter, 147 Montgomery, AL: Barrett & Brown, rnlPAAAAYAAJ, accessed July 60 Greg Burden, Blount Springs: Alabama s Fountain of Youth (Blountsville, AL: Fifth Estate, 66 75. This source has lots of excellent, but un-footnoted, information. 61 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 62 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 63 John and Jane Coward, Indenture [for Right-of-Way], August 26, Right of way transaction to S & N Ala Jefferson County Deed Book 22, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No.
AL-214 (Page 17) Frank Gilmer Jr. was still a major stockholder and the driving force in making the South & North Alabama Railroad happen. Milner had produced a new routing survey in November of which Ethel Armes was shown a copy. This became the plan to rebuild the railroad. However, according to Armes, those building the railroad were instructed to build it as cheaply as could be, and more cheaply if possible, substituting long grades and curves for costly tunneling and bridgework. Milner s son reported to Armes that his father reluctantly consented because he knew South & North funds were in short supply. 64 There was another reason Milner acted with expediency.
A well-financed and politically powerful competing railroad company, the Alabama & Chattanooga, headed by a pair of Northern businessmen, was attempting to undermine Milner s plans to build a city on well- chosen acres in the center of the Alabama mineral region. Stockholders of the competing company, backed by predatory bankers of the East, wanted to divert Alabama s mineral resources and iron-making potential to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where they held major interests. The Alabama & Chattanooga owners had bought the vote of every Alabama legislator. They also tried to gain control of Gilmer and Milner s railroad, and briefly did so, as well as control of the point at which their railroad and the South & North would cross, creating the new city of Birmingham.
65 Bridging Brock s Gap The final remaining obstacle to completing the railway across Shades Valley was the lengthy cut through Shades Mountain at Brock s Gap. During this feat was engineered and completed by Colonel J. F. B. Jackson using State of Alabama convicts. According to monthly reports by the state inspectors of convict workers, 111 convicts worked under Jackson s supervision in February and appear[ed] to be well cared for. 66 Mary Ellen Curtin, writing about the Alabama convict-lease system for the Encyclopedia of Alabama, states that since antebellum times, prisoners had been put to work under the authority of a state warden. Curtin states that in the state prisoners convicted of felonies worked on railroads, where they suffered extremely high rates of death.
During this period, railroad companies housed and fed the labor force but did not pay the state for the labor received. 67 The July report of the state inspectors notes that convicts working on the South & North Railroad were well cared for, but that 15 convicts died at Brock s Gap and Tate s mills 64 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, 65 Armes, Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama, A. B. Moore, Railroad Building in Alabama During the Reconstruction Period, Journal of Southern History 1, no. 4 (November 422 Mary Gordon Duffee, eds. Virginia Pounds Brown and Jane Porter Nabers, Sketches of Alabama (Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 88 (predatory bankers). 66 I. W. Suttle and William H. Odiorne, Alabama Penitentiary, Wetumpka, AL, to Alabama Governor R. B.
Lindsay, February 28, Legislative Documents, Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Alabama Penitentiary: From October 1, to October 1, 1 2. Montgomery, AL: W. W. Screws, accessed July 67 Mary Ellen Curtin, Convict-Lease System, Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 18) (including two killed accidently, by a falling rock and a blast). 68 Jackson s workers used nitroglycerin to blast the 75-foot-deep channel through the hard sandstone rock of Shades Mountain and achieve the desired railway bed.
69 November A Train Rolls Over the Ross Creek Culvert Coming from Montgomery, the first train to run over the tracks of the South & North Alabama Railroad north of Brock s Gap into Shades Valley and across the Ross Creek Culvert did so in November It arrived in the cornfields that filled the future city of Birmingham on November 11, 70 The city was chartered a month later on December 19, Streets were laid out parallel to the tracks of the South & North Alabama Railroad and lots sold. During Milner advanced the South & North over arduous terrain in the hilly coal fields north of Birmingham to within 66 miles of the railroad s destination at Decatur on the Tennessee River.
(Today, Decatur is 80 miles north of Birmingham via I-65.) But it was not until late that North Alabama merchant and railroad promoter James Withers Sloss helped negotiate a deal with officers of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad to finish the line to Decatur and subsequently link it within the L. & N. (now system north to Nashville, Louisville, and beyond. Due to the hilly topography, the link was very difficult to construct and quite expensive. Sam Tate sold his construction contract, and neither Milner nor Gilmer, the visionaries who worked for more than a decade to complete the railroad, were involved in the L. & N. While Frank Gilmer died in poverty, John Milner made a fortune investing in coal mining in the Birmingham area. As Milner had envisioned in his report, the L. & N.
extended spurs, beginning in that encircled Birmingham s mines, mills, and foundries. The loop became known as the Birmingham Mineral Railroad. An Alabama Mineral Railroad followed by linking industrial sites across the state. Thus, the L. & N. quickly became the principal conveyor of Alabama s mineral resources, iron and steel, pipe, and foundry products and a major Southern railroad. In the L. & N. re-laid the cheaply built and very costly to operate original South & North Alabama line built in the This project included constructing a concrete culvert over Ross Creek, about 400 feet upstream from the original stone culvert, which still stands beneath the active CSX line.
(See HAER AL-214-A.) The South & North Alabama Railroad, the original line of the Louisville & Nashville in Alabama, retained its name for many years and ran over the Ross Creek Culvert until when the Oxmoor Furnaces closed. 68 Suttle and Odiorne to Governor Lindsay, July 1, Legislative Documents, Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Alabama Penitentiary: From October 1, to October 1, 2 3. Montgomery, AL: W. W.
Screws, D_&dq="south %26 north alabama railroad" convicts&pg=RA1-PA120, accessed July 69 Historical marker, Brock s Gap/Historic Gateway to Birmingham, erected by the Birmingham-Jefferson Historical Society and the Linn-Henley Trust, (The Historical Marker Database, http://hmdb.org/ marker.asp?marker=26773, accessed July The type of rock and the contractor listed on the marker are not correct. 70 Historical Society Honors Birmingham s First Hotel [The Relay House], L. & N. Magazine, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 19) Oxmoor Rebuilds The Oxmoor furnaces were rebuilt after the war with Daniel Pratt as the major investor and his son-in-law, Henry DeBardeleben, as manager. It was here in that Birmingham coke, made from coal, was first used to make iron from Birmingham ores.
The successful experiment led to the great expansion of the Birmingham District mines and mills. Only coke iron could compete with Northern iron makers, as it yielded superior output to charcoal iron. The vast Oxmoor site that included ore and coal mines was acquired by several interests and was later merged into the local Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company. U.S. Steel acquired this successful enterprise in 71 This acquisition included the Ross Creek Culvert, the centerpiece of today s Ross Bridge community. Rebirth of Ross Creek Culvert While small communities remain to this day near the furnace and mine sites, the abandoned railroad culvert originally stood in a section of Shades Valley that was undeveloped but for the red ore mines that extended in underground rooms beneath it.
The culvert s wing walls enticed area children to see how high they would jump from the ascending stones of their Arched Culvert into the four-foot waters of Ross Creek below. 72 Oxmoor and Shannon Valley residents recalled accounts of the days when ox carts rolled over the bridge, heavily laden with iron destined to be made into Confederate shot and shell. In the these individuals shared their understanding with Samford University historian Dr. James Brown. In Brown led fellow Friends of Shades Creek members Michelle Blackwood, Randy Haddock, and Henry Hughes a few miles from the Shannon-Oxmoor Road along the abandoned railroad right of way to the then remote and overgrown culvert site.
Amazed with the structure they found, the group advocated successfully with the Hoover City Council to save the bridge within a park-like setting. They asked for a 50-acre park. 73 At the same time, Birmingham s Daniel Corporation, the developer of a proposed new master-planned community in the Ross Creek area, was searching for a name for its new venture as well as its annexation into the City of Hoover. Given that the active mainline of the L. & N. ran close by the culvert, the developer had not viewed the culvert as a positive. However, that view changed, and the culvert became a bridge and the new community Ross Bridge.
74 Daniel Corporation (the developer), USS Real Estate (owner of the culvert and the land around it), and the Retirement Systems of Alabama (developer of a series of golf courses across the state) named their new 1,600-acre community Ross Bridge for the culvert, adopting its central arch as the community s logo and designing its resort hotel, residences, and community 71 White, Birmingham District, 213 72 Steve Winfield, The Arched Culvert, Facebook post, February 3, in response to a January 26, Facebook request for information by the Hoover Historical Society, https://www.facebook.com/ hooverhistoricalsociety, accessed July 73 James Brown to Marjorie White, Re: Questions about Ross Bridge, email correspondence, November 11, Eric Velasco, Hidden History, Birmingham News, June 26, James Brown, perspective drawing, Ross Creek Culvert, August 22, 74 John Gunderson, telephone interview by Marjorie White, November 11, Gunderson was the lead player in Daniel Corporation s development of Ross Bridge.
ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 20) buildings in the style of a late to early 20th-century railroad town. By the name Ross Bridge appears in local community, business, and church names. In the City of Hoover annexed the land upon which the Ross Bridge community would be built. In the physical culvert, causeway, and historic railway bed became part of a two-acre park, the Historic Park at Ross Bridge, now heavily frequented and enjoyed by residents of Ross Bridge. In the Ross Bridge community of homes and 490 apartments was nearing the final stages of development. 75 SOURCES OF INFORMATION A. Primary Sources Alabama Civil War Service Database, Alabama Department of Archives and History, accessed July Alabama Session Laws.
Acts of the Called Session, and of the Second Regular Annual Session of the General Assembly of Alabama, Montgomery, AL: State of Alabama, accessed July . Acts of the Fifth Biennial Session of the General Assembly of Alabama, Montgomery, AL: State of Alabama, 1p43AAAAIAAJ, accessed July . Acts of the Fourth Biennial Session of the General Assembly of the State of Alabama, Montgomery, AL: State of Alabama, 6eFJAQAAMAAJ, accessed July . Acts of the Second Called Session, and of the First Regular Annual Session of the General Assembly of Alabama, Montgomery, AL: State of Alabama, accessed July Alabama State Census, [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., (Original data: Alabama State Census, Montgomery, Alabama: Alabama Department of Archives and History).
Boyle, B., and Wife [Helen] to The Red Mountain Iron and Coal Co., March 21, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, Boyle, Col. B. Birmingham Iron Age, July 1, obituary transcribed at Find a Grave, COL Bartholomew Boyle, accessed July 75 Historical marker, Historic Park at Ross Bridge, erected by Hoover Historical Society, (Waymarking.com, accessed July The History of Ross Bridge, Ross Bridge: A Classic American Resort Town, accessed July Jeff Boyd to Margi Ingram in reply to Marjorie White inquiry, Fw: Ross Bridge Rewuest [sic], email correspondence, May 17, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 21) Brock, Pinckney, to B. Boil [Boyle], May 22, Jefferson County Deed Book 13, The Central Rail Road Company. Montgomery Mail, December 12, transcribed by David L.
Bright MM Confederate Railroads, http://www.csa- accessed July Coward, John and Jane, Indenture [for Right-of-Way], August 26, Jefferson County Deed Book 22, Gilmer, F. M. South & North Alabama Railroad Company, to Major F. W. Sims, Richmond, VA, February 4, National Archives, transcribed by David L. Bright (NA, S&NA accessed July Historical Society Honors Birmingham s First Hotel. L & N. Magazine, December Jefferson County Tract Book, Township 19 South, Range 3 West, 197 Milner, John T. Report to the Governor of Alabama on the Alabama Central Railroad. Montgomery, AL: Advertiser Book and Job Steam Press Print, Milner, John T., and Wife [Florence] to Red Mountain Iron and Coal Company, January 31, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, Ross, James T., and Wife Land Deed to John T.
Milner, October 10, Jefferson County Deed Book 14, The South & North Alabama (or Central) Rail Road. Montgomery Mail, December 20, transcribed by David L. Bright MM Confederate Railroads, accessed July Suttle, I. W., and William H. Odiorne to Governor Lindsay, July 1, Legislative Documents, Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Alabama Penitentiary: From October 1, to October 1, Montgomery, AL: W. W. Screws, https://books.google.com/ %26 north alabama railroad" convicts&pg=RA1-PA120, accessed July Suttle, I. W., and William H. Odiorne, Alabama Penitentiary, Wetumpka, AL, to Alabama Governor R. B. Lindsay, February 28, Legislative Documents, Annual Report of the Inspectors of the Alabama Penitentiary: From October 1, to October 1, Montgomery, AL: W. W.
Screws, _rAPAQAAIAAJ&lpg=RA1-PA122, accessed July United States Bureau of Land Management, Land Patent Search, digital images, General Land Office Records accessed July James T. Ross (Jefferson County, AL), homestead patent no. Pinckney L. Brock (Jefferson ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 22) County, AL), homestead patent no. George W. Coward (Jefferson County, AL), homestead patent no. United States Federal Census for and for James Taylor Ross, Andrew Campbell Ross, William Elias Ross, John M. Ross, and Albert Alexander Ross [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.
United States land patent records for Township 19 South, Range 3 West, granted by Act of Congress, April 24, United States Federal Census for and for Alec Ross [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. United States Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, [database on- line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., Census Year: Census Place: Carlowville [Carrollsville], Jefferson, Alabama; Archive Collection Number: Roll: 27; Page: 11; Line: 8; Schedule Type: Agriculture. United States Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed and Barred Claims, Andrew C.
Ross [database on-line], Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., National Archives Microfilm Publication fiche, National Archives, Washington, DC; Civil War Service Records, Confederate Records, digital images, Fold3, http://www.fold3.com, accessed July Untitled article, Southern Confederacy (Atlanta, GA), April 18, transcribed by David L. Bright ASCY Confederate Railroads, http://www.csa-railroads.com/ accessed July Untitled articles, Daily Confederation (Montgomery, AL), January 7, and September 16, http://www.newspapers.com, accessed July Wanted to Hire 600 Negroes. Daily Mississippian, January 24, digital image in the collection of the Alabama Department of Archives and History (file accessed July Wanted to Hire Eight Hundred Negroes.
Vicksburg Whig, January 13, transcribed by David L. Bright, Confederate Railroads, accessed July Wanted to Hire Six Hundred Negroes. Selma Morning Reporter, January 16, transcribed by David L. Bright, Confederate Railroads, accessed July Wanted to Hire, 600 Negroes! Unknown newspaper, January 10, https://www.newspapers.com, accessed July Wanted to Hire, 600 Negroes! Mobile Register, January 7, and January 10, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 23) White, J. S., to Military Store Keeper. Selma Arsenal, December 12, National Archives, transcribed by David L.
Bright (NA, S&NA http://www.csa-railroads.com/ accessed July Whiting, J., president, South & North Alabama Railroad Company, to the Mayor and City Council of Montgomery, council minutes, April 9, The Code of Ordinances of the City Council of Montgomery, with the Charter. Montgomery, AL: Barrett & Brown, accessed July B. Secondary Sources Armes, Ethel. The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Birmingham, AL: Commercial Club, Facsimile edition, Birmingham, AL: Book-Keepers Press, Barefield, Marilyn Davis. A History of Hoover, Alabama and Its People. Hoover, AL: Hoover Historical Society, Bennett, James R. Tannehill and the Growth of the Alabama Iron Industry: Including the Civil War in West Alabama. McCalla, AL: Alabama Historic Ironworks Commission, Bennett, Jim.
Wilson s Raid in The Yankees Came: Wilson s Raid Across Alabama and Georgia, March and April Birmingham Historical Society Newsletter, March/April accessed July Black III, Robert C. The Railroads of the Confederacy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, Boyd, Gregory A. Family Maps of Jefferson County, Alabama, Deluxe Edition: With Homesteads, Roads, Waterways, Towns, Cemeteries, Railroads, and More. Norman, OK: Arphax Publishing Co., Boyd, Jeff, to Margi Ingram in reply to Marjorie White inquiry. Fw: Ross Bridge Rewuest [sic]. Email correspondence, May 17, Brown, James. Perspective drawing, Ross Creek Culvert, August 22, Brown, James, to Marjorie White. Re: Questions about Ross Bridge. Email correspondence, November 11, Burden, Greg.
Blount Springs: Alabama s Fountain of Youth. Blountsville, AL: Fifth Estate, Curren, Robert. Interviews by Marjorie White, Curren, Sam. The Stage Road to Montevallo, typescript in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society. Duffee, Mary Gordon. Eds. Virginia Pounds Brown and Jane Porter Nabers. Sketches of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 24) Dunham, Martha Ella Ross. Typescript, in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society. Gunderson, John. Telephone interview by Marjorie White, November 11, Mabry, Sherri. Civil War Structure Found in Parkwood, Birmingham News, circa from the collection of Robert Curren, copy in the collection of Birmingham Historical Society. Moore, A. B.
Railroad Building in Alabama During the Reconstruction Period, Journal of Southern History 1, no. 4 (November 422 Velasco, Eric. Hidden History. Birmingham News, June 26, Warren, Dorothea Orr. The Practical Dreamer: A Story of John T. Milner, His Family and Forebears. Birmingham, AL: Southern Family Press, White, Marjorie L. The Birmingham District: An Industrial History and Guide. Birmingham, AL: Birmingham Historical Society, Woodward II, Joseph H. Alabama Blast Furnaces. Woodward, AL: Woodward Iron Company, C. Internet Sources Bartholomew Boyle. accessed July Bright, David L. Confederate Railroads. http://www.csa-railroads.com, accessed July Bright, David L. South & North Alabama. Alabama.htm, accessed July Civil War Service Records, Confederate Records. Fold3. Digital images.
http://www.fold3.com, accessed July Curtin, Mary Ellen. Convict-Lease System, Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July Gage, Mary and James. Stone Structures of Northeastern United States, accessed July Historical marker, Brock s Gap/Historic Gateway to Birmingham. Erected by the Birmingham-Jefferson Historical Society and the Linn-Henley Trust, The Historical Marker Database, accessed July Historical marker, Historic Park at Ross Bridge. Erected by Hoover Historical Society, Waymarking.com, Hoover_AL, accessed July The History of Ross Bridge, Ross Bridge: A Classic American Resort Town. accessed July ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 25) Lee, J. Lawrence. Alabama Railroads. Encyclopedia of Alabama, accessed July Rathfon, Dave.
The Story and History of the Stone Arch Culvert Railroad Bridge. accessed July accessed July Richard Hamlin Kelly, Find a Grave, accessed July Stewart, John. Birmingham Rails, http://www.bhamrails.info, accessed July Winfield, Steve. The Arched Culvert, Facebook post, February 3, accessed July D. Likely Sources Not Yet Investigated The Alabama Department of Archives and History in Montgomery (http://archives.state.al.us) retains in its collections the State of Alabama Treasurer s Records of railroad valuation and bonds, The state loaned credit to the South & North Alabama Railroad to expedite the construction. The series of records at the state archives consists of financial statements and contracts between the railroads and the state, as well as transcriptions of issued bonds.
These records were not reviewed because the Confederate government, and not state bonds, is considered to be the source of funds for the construction of the Ross Creek Culvert (funds granted to the Red Mountain Iron & Coal Company, owner of the 7,340-acre property that includes the culvert) during the Civil War. Cities also put up funds to support railroad construction during these years. The Alabama Department of Archives and History retains annual reports for the South & North Alabama Railroad, but they do not begin until The Farnam Family Papers at the Yale University Archives may have information about the design and construction of the Mississippi River bridge at Davenport, Iowa.
Henry Farnam was involved in the Mississippi River Bridge Company from to A William Howe patented the truss design used by the engineers. The report of Richard Hamlin Kelly s involvement in the bridge design has been passed along through his family s oral history. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In addition to field checking and completing the measured and interpretive drawings, landscape architect Birgit Kibelka provided historic and current maps to study the Ross Bridge site and its evolution over time. Kibelka also coordinated cleanup of the park site with McKay Management, property managers for the Ross Bridge community, especially Kris Toffel.
Margi Ingram of Daniel Homes John Gunderson of Daniel Corporation, and Jeff Boyd of Signature Homes provided documentation concerning the development of the Ross Bridge community, ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 26) James Brown, retired European historian from Samford University in Birmingham, led us to the culvert s location and provided documentation about the site and the efforts of the Friends of Shades Creek to get it dedicated as a park in Brown also provided his canoes and gaiters to facilitate and assist with field research at the site in Carol Slaughter, geologist, helped analyze the stone structure of the quarry and reviewed the Official Records of the Confederacy for mention of the culvert and the railroad.
Robert ( Sam ) and Evangeline Curren provided written and oral information documenting the stories told in their family since the Civil War. The Currens led us to the Brock s Gap site (through which three railroads currently run) and to the Coward-Curren Quarry on Shades Mountain. Carolyn Kolar of the Hoover Historical Society contacted members for information about the culvert via Facebook. Jim Hahn, son of the Hoover, Alabama, historian Madge Hahn Barefield, emailed tales of exploring Brock s Gap in his childhood and contacted the Brock family for information. Janice Crumpton responded to the Hoover Historical Society s Facebook post and led us to Robert Curren, the Curren family historian. Steve Winfield also responded with information.
Katie Reinhardt of the Richardson-Sloane Special Collections Center of the Davenport Public Library, Davenport, Iowa, assisted with research on the bridge over the Mississippi. The library helped the attempt to track down links between the engineer who designed the culvert over Ross Creek and the first bridge over the Mississippi River for the Rock Island Railroad in Hoover Mayor Frank V. Brocato offered his assistance with the culvert documentation project. Betty Anderson provided moral and other support and encouragement to the field research team that documented the culvert. ROSS CREEK CULVERT HAER No. AL-214 (Page 27) APPENDIX A
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