Tecumseh Furnace, Alabama

Tecumseh Furnace
Unincorporated community
Tecumseh Furnace Location in Alabama.
Coordinates: 33°58′51″N 85°25′29″W / 33.98083°N 85.42472°WCoordinates: 33°58′51″N 85°25′29″W / 33.98083°N 85.42472°W
Country	United States
State	Alabama
County	Cherokee
Elevation	925 ft (282 m)
Time zone	Central (CST) (UTC-6)
• Summer (DST)	CDT (UTC-5)
Area code(s)	256 & 938
GNIS feature ID	160728[1]

Tecumseh Furnace is an unincorporated community in Cherokee County, Alabama, United States.

History

The community was centered on a blast furnace that was named for William Tecumseh Sherman.^[2]

The Tecumseh Iron Company was organized in 1873 by Willard Warner, who was a brevet brigadier general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Warner served on General Sherman's staff, so he named the furnace in his honor. It was located on the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad and first began operations on February 19, 1874. At the time, it was considered one of the architecturally finest iron furnaces in the South.^[3] The furnace had a maximum output of 25 tons of iron produced per day at its peak. The company received mail at the nearby community of Tecumseh, which had a post office from 1873 to 1935.^[4][5] It operated constantly until 1886, and then sporadically from 1886 to October 1890. In 1909, the Birmingham Coal & Iron Company purchased the entire property. The Woodward Iron Company bought the Birmingham Coal & Iron Company on August 4, 1912 and had the furnace dismantled for scrap.^[6]

References

1. "Tecumseh Furnace". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.
2. "Cherokee County, Ala.". Calhoun Times. September 1, 2004. p. 46. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
3. Armes, Ethel (2011). The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. University of Alabama Press. p. 317.
4. Saffold Berney (1878). Handbook of Alabama: A Complete Index to the State. Mobile register print. p. 265.
5. "Cherokee County". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved 28 April 2015.
6. Joseph H. Woodward; James R. Bennett (15 October 2006). Alabama Blast Furnaces. University of Alabama Press. pp. 140–41. ISBN 978-0-8173-5432-9.