Coalburg is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

Jefferson County, Alabama Jefferson County is the List of counties in Alabama, most populous county in the U.S. state of Alabama, located in the central portion of the state. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 674,721. Its county seat i ...

, United States.

History

Coalburg was home to coal mines first developed by John T. Milner, who sold them in May 1883 to the

Georgia Pacific Railway The Georgia Pacific Railway was a railway company chartered on December 31, 1881, consolidating the Georgia Western Railroad and the Georgia Pacific Railroad Company of Alabama. The Georgia Western Railroad was chartered by the Georgia Legislatu ...

Edward Magruder Tutwiler Edward Magruder Tutwiler (October 13, 1846 – April 19, 1925) was an American industrialist and civil engineer who was a leading businessman in Birmingham, Alabama. Early life Tutwiler was born on October 13, 1846 in Palmyra, Virginia to T ...

became the superintendent of the mines. Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company operated coke ovens at Coalburg during this time. At its peak, the Coalburg mines produced four thousand tons of coal per day. Overall, the Coalburg mines produced over 186,000 tons of coal. Sloss used convict labor to work in the Coalburg mines, with 320 men working in 1889. As the mines grew, the number of convicts used to work in the mines increased. The coal mined at and coke produced in Coalburg was sent to Sloss Furnaces in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

to be turned into

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silic ...

. In 1890, eleven miners were killed in a mine explosion. A post office was operated in Coalburg from 1883 until the 1980s.

Demographics

Coalburg was listed on the 1890 U.S. Census with a population of 842.

Notable people

* Ed Sherling,

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

pinch hitter In baseball, a pinch hitter is a substitute Batting (baseball), batter. Batters can be substituted at any time while the dead ball (baseball), ball is dead (not in active play); the manager (baseball), manager may use any player who has not yet ...

and

pinch runner In baseball, a pinch runner is a player substituted for the specific purpose of replacing another player on base. The pinch runner may be faster or otherwise more skilled at base-running than the player for whom the pinch runner has been sub ...

who played in with the

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, the team became the Oaklan ...

* Guy Tutwiler,

first baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

who played two seasons with the

Detroit Tigers The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...

(1911, 1913)

References

Unincorporated communities in Jefferson County, Alabama Unincorporated communities in Alabama {{Short description, Unincorporated community in Alabama, United States