Elyton Land Company
The Elyton Land Company was organized on January 26, 1871 in order to purchase land for, establish and promote the new city of Birmingham. The shareholders of the company were Birmingham's founders. Joined together under president James R. Powell and majority shareholder Josiah Morris, they platted streets, divided and sold lots, founded utilities and promoted the idea of a new southern industrial city through the national press.
With the establishment of the industrial Railroad Reservation in the center of town and prominent sites dedicated for use as park or donated to churches, the city began to take shape. The company built a hotel, the Relay House adjacent to the railroad and created the Birmingham Water Works to secure a source of water. By 1873 4,000 people in hastily erected cabins called the new city home. Powell led a stacked vote to cause the county seat to be moved from Elyton to Birmingham.
The events of 1873 nearly ended the project, though. A cholera epidemic followed by a national stock-market depression that lasted for 6 years nearly bankrupted the company. A proposal to sell off the company's investments was dutifully pursued and the shareholders were positioning themselves to minimize their losses.
By 1876 experiments with coking coal undertaken by others started to demonstrate the potential that the Elyton Land Company had failed capitalize on. Once the process had been successfully demonstrated the company did agree to donate additional land to the newly-formed Pratt Coal and Coke Company on the condition that the coal company connect its coal fields to the main line through the city and sell to other manufacturers. They also donated the land on which the Alice Furnace was constructed, which re-launched Birmingham as a commercial success in 1880.
In 1885 the Elyton Land Company erected a three-story brick office building on the northeast corner of Morris Avenue and 20th Street North, acorss the street from the Relay House (which would be demolished for the new L & N Station the following year).
The Elyton Land Company building was demolished in 1952 and served as a parking lot for the First National Bank of Birmingham until a new parking deck was built to support the renovation of the building as residences and offices for The Bank of Birmingham in 1997.
Presidents of the Elyton Land Company
- James R. Powell ( - 1875)
- Henry M. Caldwell (1875 - 1895)
- Josiah Morris, 437 shares
- James R. Powell, 360 shares
- Samuel Tate, 360 shares
- William S. Mudd, 180 shares
- William F. Nabers, 180 shares
- Benjamin P. Worthington, 133 shares
- Henry M. Caldwell, 120 shares
- James N. Gilmer, 120 shares
- Bolling Hall, 120 shares
- Campbell Wallace, 120 shares
References
- Caldwell, Henry Martin. (1892) History of the Elyton Land Company and Birmingham, Alabama. Birmingham: Caldwell