The age-herald., 1898-07-31

1 10S 000 tons of pig iron. About 10S,000 tons
 of coal and 216,OOO tons of ore are obtained l annually from the mines, which, as stated | above, are in the immediate vicinity of the ] furnace. The company of course burns it's own coke.
 l Idle Furnaces l There have been mentioned above twenty
 one blast furnaces which are in active op-
 eration, almost all the year round, except | when shut down for repairs.
 There are only four furnaces in the dis l trict which are not in operation, as fol- | lows: the Mary Lee furnace beyond the ] Sloss furnace on First avenue: the Will ! liamson furnace, near the Alice furnaces, | in the city; the Vanderbilt furnace, three
 miles north of the city. and a furnace of
 the Birmingham Furnace and Manufactur
 | ing company, at Trussville. The trouble | with most of these furnaces, in fact, all | of them, is that they are too small to com- 1 pete with the bigger furnaces of the dis 1 trict
 The coal properties of the Mary Lee fur mace were bought up last year by the lief | ferson Coal and Railroad company, of Bal l timore, who have put in $40,000 coal wash l CT. Their coke is being sold all over the | south.
 | Bi-Product Coke Ovens
 No account of the iron industries of this | | tion of the emet-Sovoy bi-product coke l ovens at Ensley.-They represent an in- vestment of $40OO00 and will revolution | ize coke making in this district. They are | now being charged for the first time, and | in a few weeks at the outside, their entire | output of coke will go to feed the big fur | naces of the Tennessee company, only
 about hundred yards distant. The coal | tar, ammonia and other products of the | coal, have already drawn and will continue I smaller industries | consume them.
 That the Sloss Iron and Steel company l will also erect large bi-product plant near their First avenue furnaces is now
 an assured fact, though work has not yet l begun.
 1 The experimental age of steel in this dis l trict came to an end just a year ago, l when the small steel mill of the Birming- l ham Rolling mill was completed. It con- l tains two stationary regenerative basic | open hearth steel furnaces, with a capacity l of 10000 pounds per charge, and the two together give about 100 tons of finished in- 1 gots every twenty-four hours These in- 1 gots are rolled into commercial shape in l the rolling mill and are sold entirely in ] the Birmingham market.
 l The fact that the Tennessee Coal, Iron | and Railroad company has already begun l active work at Ensley City on the erec- 1 tion of a $1,100,000 steel mill, is now well | known in all commercial centerS of the
 country, for all realize that the remarkably l small cost at which steel can be made l in Birmingham, will make this city the l iron and steel center of the world. The l excavations are now being made on the | site of the plant, and the first brickwork l on the foundations was laid during the past week. It Is being built on the very 1 latest plans of steel mill construction, and will be, it is thought, the most complete | plant of its kind in the world. l Howard Harrison Pipe Works One of the biggest and most successful | enterprises in the district is the How l rd-Harrison Iron works, near Bessemer. 1 This company has a $750,000 plant, and em- ploys about 700 men. It makes nothing but
 cast ion pipe, but this is in all sizes from l the smallest to the largest in the world, = 72 inches in diameter. This company ships its pipe all over the world Rolling Mills
 l The Birmingham Rolling mills were open- | ed July 1, 1SS0 and have been in operation l steadily since that time. They have ca- pacity for using 140 tons of pig Iron day. l The capacity of the finishing mills is about 1 60, 900 tons per annum This company has | capital of s675,000 and employs about 1,200 men, including the steel mill mentioned above eae
 The Alabama Rolling mill at Gate City is | a very successful plant, with $15OO0O l put is about 100 tons of rolled iron day. The company has recently made some im- portant improvementsan in its plant. | The Bessemer Roling mill at Bessmr
 has been idle for about five years. When | in operation, however it had capacity of about two-thirds that of the Birming- ham Rolling mill.
 l Cotton Mills
 | The cotton manufacturing industries of Birmingham may be said to be still in their l infancy though they are remarkably | healthy and well developed infants. The Birmingham Cotton Manufacturing com | pany at Third avenue and Eighth street 1 has been in operation for year or more | It has a capital of $100, GOO, employs about 1 100 operatives and has 1000 spind!es. It
 makes a speciality of cotton yarns. l But the biggest enterprise in the cotton | line that has been completed in Birming- | ham during the past year is the Avandale | Cotton Mills. This plant cost over S5OOOO0 | and 1t will employ between 300 and 6oO l operatives. It contains 1,OOo looms and 33,- | 692 spindles. A great deal of the machinery | has already been put in operation, and gradually the whole plant is being put into running order. It will, when completed, | turn out many kinds and qualities of cot | ton goods, and besides Its sales all over l the south, will enter into the foreign trade with China and other countries of the Ori- ent It will not for some time begin the l manufacture of the finest grades of cotton l fabrics.
 | Cotton Congresses | There are two big cotton congresses in | Birmingham, they having handled almost l the entire cotton crop that passed through Birmingham this and several preceding seasons
 The railroad compress near Avondale has handled about 75000 bales, more or less, since last September. It employs about for | ty men,
 l The Birmingham Compress company, for maly situated on Morris avenue and Twen- l ty-fourth street, handled about 45,O0O bales | during the season now drawing to a close | The company is just now engaged in nov | ing it's machinery out toward East Bir-
 mingham, where very commodious and