This year's Cahaba Lily Festival will be held on May 31, 2008 at the Cahaba Lily Building in downtown West Blocton and at the Cahaba River National Wildlife Refuge. The program begins at 9:00, ends with a home-made luncheon feast and moves to the River in the afternoon.
Keep your eyes out for the Friends of the Refuge's new walking trail! We've been working diligently to get it completed in time!
Click here for updated festival information: http://www.cahabalily.com/CahabaLilyFestival.htm
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
Central Alabama community wants park at beehive coke oven site
Front Page of Birmingham News
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
BILL PLOTT
News staff writer
WEST BLOCTON - Back in the 1880s, beehive coke ovens helped fuel a bustling steel industry in this Bibb County town.
Mayor Jabo Reese and volunteers with the Cahaba River Society want to transform the land where the ovens are situated into the West Blocton Beehive Coke Oven Park, which they hope will attract throngs of tourists.
The new park would incorporate the Cahaba Wildlife Refuge along the Cahaba River.
Reese envisions an attraction that would regularly bring motor homes full of visitors for a variety of events. Already the area has a strong draw with the annual Cahaba Lily Festival each May.
"We'd like to have flea markets and bluegrass music in the amphitheater," Reese said.
Complementing the more formal features of the park would be walking trails and picnic areas. The mayor said he envisions a family-oriented outdoor venue.
The park may also include panels displaying the history of the park and the town, how the beehive ovens work and the process of making coke.
West Blocton owns the land and began restoration efforts in 1996, establishing the West Blocton Coke Ovens Advisory Committee.
The site was cleared and restrooms were built. Then the project fizzled because of lack of funding and the deaths of a couple of key advocates in the community.
The current restoration effort is being led by Elizabeth Salter, an Americorps/VISTA volunteer with the Cahaba River Society.
"They placed me in the lower Cahaba River Basin. They wanted to see what the interests and needs of the people downriver were," she said.
Salter was studying acid mine drainage in 2006-07. That led her to the coke ovens site. She became fascinated with the ovens and launched a research effort that brought the project back to life.
With a $4,500 grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts, Salter began contacting former members of the advisory committee to discuss what was wanted and needed to get the park back on track.
Gresham Smith & Partners came up with a master plan for the project, doing most of the work pro bono, Salter said.
Money is a major hurdle for the town. However, with a master plan in hand, supporters of the park want to seek grants to help build it.
Beehive history:
The ovens in West Blocton were built by Truman Aldrich, who organized the Cahaba Coal Mine Co. in 1883 in Blocton. The town of West Blocton eventually grew up nearby. On the site, Aldrich built 467 ovens that produced 600 tons of coke a day.
"The heat was so intense that they only operated every other oven at a time," Salter said.
The beehive coke ovens draw their name from their shape. They operated at full strength only for about 20 years, but they were critical to the development of the iron and steel industry in the Birmingham area.
Coke is one of three ingredients needed to make pig iron, the source of steel. The other ingredients are limestone and iron ore. Coal was poured into the coke ovens and heated to 2,800 degrees to burn off the impurities, leaving coke, which is almost pure carbon.
"The inside of the ovens has a kind of honeycomb glaze to it from the heat. After it was heated, it was dragged out, quenched with water, then loaded back into rail cars," Salter said.
She said there were four such operations in the United States at the time, and only Pennsylvania produced more coke than Alabama.
Council member Myrtle Jones said a lot of the stones from the coke oven site were being hauled away for a construction project at Tannehill about 20 years ago. Local residents got interested in the ovens then and halted the removal.
"About 20 to 30 of them (the ovens) are relatively stable, in good condition," Salter said. "The ovens are about 5 feet deep, 8 feet by 8 feet in height and width. ... It's amazing how the bricks were put in place to build them. They are really intricately banked. You couldn't slide a piece of paper between the bricks. There are huge pines and hardwoods growing on top of them, and they haven't collapsed."
A limited budget:
While Salter is pursuing additional grants, Reese said the town, with its limited budget, is doing what it can to develop the park.
He said the town planned to start installing sewer lines in the area immediately. "Our employees are volunteering their weekends to do it," he said. "They're going to use city equipment and pipes, but they're putting all that in for nothing."
Reese said he is determined to complete the project.
"We gotta crawl before we walk," he said. "The bottom line is dollar bills."
E-mail: bplott@bhamnews.com PARKXX -- PARK:
Town doing what it can
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
BILL PLOTT
News staff writer
WEST BLOCTON - Back in the 1880s, beehive coke ovens helped fuel a bustling steel industry in this Bibb County town.
Mayor Jabo Reese and volunteers with the Cahaba River Society want to transform the land where the ovens are situated into the West Blocton Beehive Coke Oven Park, which they hope will attract throngs of tourists.
The new park would incorporate the Cahaba Wildlife Refuge along the Cahaba River.
Reese envisions an attraction that would regularly bring motor homes full of visitors for a variety of events. Already the area has a strong draw with the annual Cahaba Lily Festival each May.
"We'd like to have flea markets and bluegrass music in the amphitheater," Reese said.
Complementing the more formal features of the park would be walking trails and picnic areas. The mayor said he envisions a family-oriented outdoor venue.
The park may also include panels displaying the history of the park and the town, how the beehive ovens work and the process of making coke.
West Blocton owns the land and began restoration efforts in 1996, establishing the West Blocton Coke Ovens Advisory Committee.
The site was cleared and restrooms were built. Then the project fizzled because of lack of funding and the deaths of a couple of key advocates in the community.
The current restoration effort is being led by Elizabeth Salter, an Americorps/VISTA volunteer with the Cahaba River Society.
"They placed me in the lower Cahaba River Basin. They wanted to see what the interests and needs of the people downriver were," she said.
Salter was studying acid mine drainage in 2006-07. That led her to the coke ovens site. She became fascinated with the ovens and launched a research effort that brought the project back to life.
With a $4,500 grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts, Salter began contacting former members of the advisory committee to discuss what was wanted and needed to get the park back on track.
Gresham Smith & Partners came up with a master plan for the project, doing most of the work pro bono, Salter said.
Money is a major hurdle for the town. However, with a master plan in hand, supporters of the park want to seek grants to help build it.
Beehive history:
The ovens in West Blocton were built by Truman Aldrich, who organized the Cahaba Coal Mine Co. in 1883 in Blocton. The town of West Blocton eventually grew up nearby. On the site, Aldrich built 467 ovens that produced 600 tons of coke a day.
"The heat was so intense that they only operated every other oven at a time," Salter said.
The beehive coke ovens draw their name from their shape. They operated at full strength only for about 20 years, but they were critical to the development of the iron and steel industry in the Birmingham area.
Coke is one of three ingredients needed to make pig iron, the source of steel. The other ingredients are limestone and iron ore. Coal was poured into the coke ovens and heated to 2,800 degrees to burn off the impurities, leaving coke, which is almost pure carbon.
"The inside of the ovens has a kind of honeycomb glaze to it from the heat. After it was heated, it was dragged out, quenched with water, then loaded back into rail cars," Salter said.
She said there were four such operations in the United States at the time, and only Pennsylvania produced more coke than Alabama.
Council member Myrtle Jones said a lot of the stones from the coke oven site were being hauled away for a construction project at Tannehill about 20 years ago. Local residents got interested in the ovens then and halted the removal.
"About 20 to 30 of them (the ovens) are relatively stable, in good condition," Salter said. "The ovens are about 5 feet deep, 8 feet by 8 feet in height and width. ... It's amazing how the bricks were put in place to build them. They are really intricately banked. You couldn't slide a piece of paper between the bricks. There are huge pines and hardwoods growing on top of them, and they haven't collapsed."
A limited budget:
While Salter is pursuing additional grants, Reese said the town, with its limited budget, is doing what it can to develop the park.
He said the town planned to start installing sewer lines in the area immediately. "Our employees are volunteering their weekends to do it," he said. "They're going to use city equipment and pipes, but they're putting all that in for nothing."
Reese said he is determined to complete the project.
"We gotta crawl before we walk," he said. "The bottom line is dollar bills."
E-mail: bplott@bhamnews.com PARKXX -- PARK:
Town doing what it can
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