New Birmingham, Texas is an abandoned city site in the center of Cherokee County, Texas, now a ghost town. New Birmingham never seemed destined to be the main industrial mecca in the heart of eastern Texas. Lying just off Highway 69, the site is about two miles southeast of the Rusk county seat of Texas.
Video New Birmingham, Texas
Starter
Created in 1887, New Birmingham is the brainchild of Anderson Blevins, a sewing machine seller from Alabama. Traveling though eastern Texas, he became aware of excessive iron ore deposits in the Rusk area of ​​Texas, and had a familiarity with Birmingham in his home country, struck by the possibility of a similar industry orientation in eastern Texas. Finding that some small-scale iron processing had taken place in the Rusk Penitentiary, he approached his brother-in-law, W. H. Hamman, who enthusiastically supported the effort. Hamman is a lawyer, former Confederate General and a rich and established oil man. Together, they bring in a number of local investors, form a company to develop ideas and start taking options in ore laden areas. The business capital was also raised from H. H. Wibirt from New York and Richard Coleman from St. Louis, and by 1888 the company, under the name Cherokee Land & amp; Iron Company, is buying a suitable land for mining. Finally, about 20,000 acres have been acquired and the construction of a smelter to develop ore starts.
Two 50-ton stoves - one called "Tassie Belle" after Blevins' wife, the other called "Star and Crescent" - were built and quickly went into production. Additional capital from St. Louis and New York enabled the company to reorganize as the New Iron and Land Birmingham Company. Anderson Blevins is on the Board of Directors; H.H. Wibirt from New York and Richard Coleman served as president and vice president, respectively. (The company will undergo a reorganization and name change in 1890, becoming New Birmingham Iron and Development Co.)
Meanwhile, pipe and brick kiln works are built and coal-fired power plants promise modern comfort for the new residents.
Maps New Birmingham, Texas
"Iron Queen of the Southwest"
In September 1889, the city of New Birmingham was founded. Banks, train depots, school buildings, weekly newspapers, ice and power plants from coal-fired power stations - all of these create an impression not only of great potential, but of an established community. And then, there's the Southern Hotel, a magnificent structure described as follows by Hattie Joplin Roach in his book History of Cherokee County :
The Southern Hotel, an established developer company costing over $ 60,000 is the center of gay New Birmingham life. The first registration, beginning March 28, 1889, and closed on 9 February 1890, records guests from twenty-eight states, including Jay Gould of rail fame and Grover Cleveland, recently coming from the presidency, Robert A. Van Wyck, the financier , which risked their millions in the development effort of the Cherokee County iron ore often listed. Along with the millionaires, residents from nearby cities came to excite as well as business, and newspaper representatives were sent to be imitated. One day there were guests from eight states.
In a prospectus issued in October 1891, the company stated:
On November 12, 1888, New Birmingham had not completed a single home. It's completely in the woods. Today, with nearly 400 buildings finished and occupied, he claims and rightly so, the population of 1,500. The streets are assessed, and houses and streets are illuminated with electricity; business houses are the best class of brick buildings; it offers railroads and magnificent hotels, South, with all modern improvements. The industries represented today are two blast furnaces, casting pipes, milling plants, sling and door factory, laundry steam and steam buns and other negotiable industries.
For all appearances, "Iron Queen", as he has been nicknamed by his promoter, seems ready to rule.
Demise
As if to declare that successful cities are cities that come naturally as needed, rather than from the vision of speculators and promoters, New Birmingham is destined to fold back into the pine forest from which it appears and be a distant memory as it is today. In the 1890s, two convergent states to destroy the aspirations of New Birmingham planners.
Capital
Lack of capital led to the management of companies seeking investment from British sources; the promotion there was greeted with great interest and, indeed, members of the British investment syndicate, Baring Brothers, traveled to Texas to evaluate potential in New Birmingham. Very impressed with developments in New Birmingham, they are all more driven by the abundance of resources available so close to the operation. In a short time, they have committed to investing more than $ 1,000,000.
Legality and politics disrupt this solution. "Alien Land Law of Texas" strictly dissuades these potential investors to have an interest in the company whose assets are in the land of Texas. Recently imposed, as it were, to protect ranchers in West Texas from land speculation by wealthy foreign investors, the law has been promoted by Governor James Hogg. Hogg, himself, is from Rusk and Cherokee County. NBI & amp; D lobbied the governor to support an amendment to the law, but if he ever considered helping people in his home region, there is little evidence of that. Apart from being won, eaten and vice versa along New Birmingham and the Southern Hotel, Hogg firmly opposes any moderation of the Land of Alien Law.
Calamity
Then Panic of 1893 overtook the country, tearing down markets across the board. The lack of demand for pig iron leads to plant closures and without the work that has brought them there, people are starting to drift away from New Birmingham. The explosion greatly damaged Tassie Belle's furnace and further complicated the problem, but better economic conditions, which may suffer temporary setbacks.
Curse
The fall of New Birmingham is not without blame the apocryphals. For years, some faded monkeys attached their problems to a curse placed in the city by a grieving widow. On July 14, 1890, General W. H. Hamman was shot dead in the city streets by an angry husband seeking revenge for his wife, both by Hamman and his wife. S. T. Cooney, a shooter, arrested, tried, found guilty and sent to jail for murder. If in his view it is not enough punishment for losing her husband, Mrs. sadness Hamman became very hot when in 1892, Mr. Cooney is forgiven. In sadness and sadness, Mrs. Hamman (with sister-in-law Tassie Belle Blevins) goes down the street begging the Almighty to destroy the city and swallow it in the forest from which he comes.
Apocryphal, almost certainly. The greater damage to the future of New Birmingham is the death of W. H. Hamman, whose money, influence and business acumen have played a role from the beginning. But in any case, by the end of the year the city was almost abandoned.
Scroll to forgotten
Birmingham is just languishing. Nearly 400 houses there, up and empty, began to break down or dismantled, as did shop windows in the business district. But before everything disappears, some efforts are made to revive the city and its industry. In 1899, the Brothers Recount contemplated the construction of a new smelter, but no one came from there. Wanting to let go of his dream, Anderson Blevins tried to reopen the foundry in 1907, but nothing happened. Like that fate, there was the Panic of 1907. In 1910, the last real inhabitants had moved from the city and during World War I iron and many of the remaining buildings were destroyed. The Southern Hotel remained, only occupied by maintenance workers, but in 1926, if it was not empty for 33 years, it was consumed by fire. In 1932, the New Birmingham school was destroyed for the road for the 69th US highway that rode south of Rusk.
A historical marker was erected at the New Birmingham site in 1966. Tassie Belle Historical Park contains the remains of the furnace's remains.
Notes and references
External links
- Baker, Lindsey T. (1986). "Texas Ghost City". Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. < span>
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King, Dick (1953). "Texas Ghost City". San Antonio, TX: The Naylor Company. Ã, - Long, Christopher (2009). "New Birmingham, Texas". Handbook of Texas Online.
- Kombos, Thanasis (2010). "When Time Is Young and Satan's Devine Life: New Birmingham, Texas". Progress Jacksonville . Retrieved December 7, 2012 .
- Roach, Hattie Joplin (1934). "A History of Cherokee County". Dallas, TX: Southwest Press. < range>
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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