Mineral City Foundry

The Mineral City Foundry was an iron foundry and machine shop located on the corner of 1st Avenue North and 16th Street in downtown Birmingham in the 1870s.

The business was operated by English-born founder Hamilton Beggs and advertised cast-iron stoves, custom machining work, and Abram, Amerine & Co. metallic burial vaults. They also offered cash for scrap iron. In 1875 Beggs was commissioned to cast an iron storefront for the Marre building, which housed the Ruby Saloon on the corner of 1st Avenue and 19th Street.

In 1878 ironsmith J. H. Dunnavant was operating his own farm implement manufacturing business from the foundry. By the 1880s, the name of the business had changed to H.T. Beggs & Sons Foundry, with George Beggs and Hamilton Beggs Jr working alongside their father. George Beggs cast the iron front for the Blount County Courthouse in Blountsville in 1888.

Beggs later operated the Beggs Pipe & Foundry Company on the corner of 3rd Avenue and 13th Street North. In 1905 that company produced a replacement for the right arm of the Vulcan statue, which had been damaged in transit from the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition in St Louis, Missouri.

By 1912 Beggs had moved the foundry to 2620–2630 24th Street North in North Birmingham. ACIPCO acquired the foundry in 1919, using it primarily as a testing site for new products and methods of manufacture.