William Hassinger
William Henry Hassinger (born May 1863 in New Orleans, Louisiana, died March 1935) was vice-president of the Republic Steel & Iron Company and president, for a year, of the Southern Iron & Steel Company.
Hassinger was the son of New Orleanser Deutsche Zeltung editor and bank executive Jacob Hassinger. He graduated from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 1885 and worked as a chemist for the Spang Steel and Iron Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From there he worked for the Youngstown Steel Company of Youngstown, Ohio before coming to Birmingham in 1887 with D. M. Forker to construct the Alabama Rolling Mill at Gate City.
The rolling mill prospered under Hassinger's management, and was bought by the Republic Iron & Steel Company in 1898. He became a director and district manager for the company, overseeing, in addition to the Gate City mill, the works of the Pioneer Mining & Manufacturing Company's Thomas Furnace and Republic's extensive mining operations. He resigned from the company in 1906 to pursue his own interests.
Hassinger was one of the investors in the Henderson Steel Company. In 1909 he was named president of the Southern Iron & Steel Company and resigned a year later "having completed all of the work of construction, extension, betterment, and improvement contemplated under the reorganization of the company."1
He and his wife Virginia Hassinger lived for many years at the William Hassinger residence on Highland Avenue. They moved in 1929 to the massive Hassinger Castle on Carlisle Road in Redmont Park.
Notes
- NY Times - 1910
References
- Armes, Ethel (1910) The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Birmingham: Birmingham Chamber of Commerce
- "Directors regret to lose Hassinger" (August 10, 1910) The New York Times
- Adams, Cathy Criss (2002) Worthy of Remembrance: A History of Redmont. Birmingham: Redmont Park Historic District Foundation/EBSCO Media ISBN 0971784000