General Info

The museum focuses on 19th century iron making in the Roupes Valley Ironworks, now in the Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park. The site is unique because it encompasses several important historical periods. The ironworks operated beginning in 1830, and was later an important battery of charcoal blast furnaces during the Civil War until it was destroyed in Wilson’s Raid. The ironworks in this area eventually gave birth to the Birmingham Iron & Steel District, and Birmingham’s rapid growth based on that industry gave it the nickname The Magic City. The museum incorporates artifacts from the Tannehill site itself, as well as representative artifacts from other locations on the general topics of ironmaking, iron and other minerals, the Civil War, lifestyles of the past, steam-powered machinery, slave labor in the South, the modern steel and pipe industries, the archaeology of the site, and other exhibits on a rotating basis. (For instance, the museum has housed displays of modern artistic blacksmith creations, and is currently showing an exhibit on early mining towns in Alabama).