July 2, 1890

In the 1850s and 1860s, industrialist Horace Ware established Shelby Iron Works, which built the first rolling mill in Alabama. During the Civil War, the iron works supplied iron to the Confederate Naval Arsenal at Selma. The mill operated through April 1865, when Union forces destroyed the machinery. Ware was able to entice Northern investors to help rebuild the business after the war, however, focusing on the manufacturing of rail car wheels. He retired in Birmingham, where he died on July 2, 1890.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Horace Ware (1812-1890) was a pioneer of Alabama’s iron industry. He built the first rolling mill and permanent iron works in the state. Ware’s Shelby Iron Works supplied armor plating to the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History)

Shelby Iron Works ceased production in 1923 and its ruins can be seen just south of Columbiana on Highway 42. The iron works was built by Horace Ware in the 1840s and by the 1860s was one of Alabama’s most thriving industrial complexes. Shelby Iron Works shipped iron plating by rail to Selma to help outfit the Confederate Navy during the Civil War. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, courtesy of Birmingham Public Library Archives)

Structural framing of Chemical Plant No. 1, Shelby Iron Works, 1993. (Photograph by Jet Lowe, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Wikipedia)

The brick foundation of the hot blast ovens, Shelby Iron Works Park, 2014. (dofftoubab, Wikipedia)

Ruins of Furnace No. 1 (bottom left) and the hot blast stove (top right), Shelby Iron Works, 1993. (Photograph by Jet Lowe, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

 For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.