April 11, 1812

Horace Ware was born in Lyn, Massachusetts on April 11, 1812. The industrialist built Alabama’s first permanent iron works and the first rolling mill, which produced iron ingots in various shapes, including slabs, bars or finished products such as rails, beams or plates. Ware’s Shelby County Iron Manufacturing Company, commonly known as the Shelby Iron Works, evolved from a rudimentary operation in the late 1840s into one of Alabama’s most significant industrial complexes by 1860. During the Civil War, Shelby Iron Works was a major supplier of iron to the Confederate Naval Arsenal at Selma. After the war, Ware attracted the first capitalists from outside the state to invest in Alabama’s iron industry.

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)

Ruins of a house built for iron master Horace Ware in the 1840s. (Photograph by Jet Lowe, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

Workers posing in front of the Shelby Iron Company commissary. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama)

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