Existing comment:
Toward an iron Industry:
Although the dream of an industrial city in Jones Valley would not be realized until after the Civil War, iron sparked the imagination of early settlers and visitors to the area in the decades preceding the city's founding.
• One early inhabitant, Baylis Grace, was said to first prove that Red Mountain contains iron ore when he sent local ore to a nearby forge and got back wrought-iron bars.
• Local iron, processed in Civil War foundries in Irondale, Tannehill, and Oxmoor, supported the manufacture of armaments of Selma. |