Iron City Foundry & Machine Works: Difference between revisions
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[[File:Iron City Foundry 1885.jpg|right|thumb|375px|Aikin & Lighton's Iron City Foundry & Machine Works as | [[File:Iron City Foundry 1885.jpg|right|thumb|375px|Aikin & Lighton's Iron City Foundry & Machine Works as depicted in ''The Mineral Wealth of Alabama and Birmingham Illustrated'']] | ||
The '''Iron City Foundry & Machine Works''' was an iron foundry and moulding machine manufacturer located on the southwest corner of [[2nd Avenue North]] at [[16th Street North|16th Street]], next to [[Jacob Schmidt]]'s blacksmith shop. The 50 by 85-foot foundry was built of brick with a long gabled roof. The 2-story machine works, 30 by 50 feet, was also brick, while the blacksmith shop and engine and boiler room were framed. The machine shop was powered by a 25-horsepower Lane & Bodley engine with 110 feet of shafting. | The '''Iron City Foundry & Machine Works''' was an iron foundry and moulding machine manufacturer located on the southwest corner of [[2nd Avenue North]] at [[16th Street North|16th Street]], next to [[Jacob Schmidt]]'s blacksmith shop. The 50 by 85-foot foundry was built of brick with a long gabled roof. The 2-story machine works, 30 by 50 feet, was also brick, while the blacksmith shop and engine and boiler room were framed. The machine shop was powered by a 25-horsepower Lane & Bodley engine with 110 feet of shafting. | ||
Revision as of 10:17, 20 March 2016
The Iron City Foundry & Machine Works was an iron foundry and moulding machine manufacturer located on the southwest corner of 2nd Avenue North at 16th Street, next to Jacob Schmidt's blacksmith shop. The 50 by 85-foot foundry was built of brick with a long gabled roof. The 2-story machine works, 30 by 50 feet, was also brick, while the blacksmith shop and engine and boiler room were framed. The machine shop was powered by a 25-horsepower Lane & Bodley engine with 110 feet of shafting.
The business. also known as Aikin & Lighton's. was founded around 1884 by William Aikin and Samuel Lighton, formerly with the firm of Aikin & Drummond in Louisville, Kentucky. The foundry advertised railroad castings, sash weights, air grates, ventilators, wagon boxes, pipe boxes, bolster plates, kiln doors, planters, urns, wheels, fenders, rub irons, couplings, and reach plates for wagons among its offer of "castings of every description."
Moulders and pattern makers employed at the Iron City Foundry included John Aikin, Homer Aikin and George Haines.
The site of the former foundry was later used for construction of the Thomas Jefferson Hotel.
References
- City Directory of Birmingham and Gazetteer of Surrounding Section for 1884-5 (1884) Volume II. Atlanta, Georgia: Interstate Directory Company
- "Business and personal" (December 1884) Mechanics
- DuBose, John Witherspoon (1886) The Mineral Wealth of Alabama and Birmingham Illustrated. Birmingham: N. T. Green & Co.