Lewisburg

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Lewisburg is a former coal mining community located between North Birmingham and Fultondale near Five Mile Creek and the present route of I-65.

The area was developed for mining on a 2,000 acre farmstead bought by South & North Railroad construction engineer and Helena founder Bartholomew Boyle in the 1870s. Once a major coal seam was discovered on the property, he named it the Mary Lee seam, after his daughter and commenced construction of a Mary Lee Railroad to transport its coal to the District's coking plants.

Boyle's heirs sold the mining camps at Lewisburg and Newcastle in the 1890s. The Alabama Consolidated Coal Company took over ownership around 1899 and extended the railroad connection as far as Birmingham. The Lewisburg School was constructed on Ellard Road by the Jefferson County School System. It has since been demolished.

By 1910 the Lewisburg mine employed 275 workers and supported a town of 600 served by three small grocers. A. C. Watts was the town doctor and W. W. Ellard operated a livery stable. The southern part of the community was annexed into Birmingham in 1910.

When Stouts Road was paved in 1918, the "End of the Road" was at nearby Walker's Chapel Road, spawning a new business district which served the Lewisburg community. The rough-hewn district of saloons and whisky houses in the precinct became known as "Bloody Beat 22" until Prohibition. As mining activities slowed, residents of the unincorporated parts of Lewisburg joined with those of Glendale and Fulton Springs to form Fultondale, which was incorporated in 1947.

The mines at Lewisburg were acquired, along with the Mary Lee Railroad, by the Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company in 1924. The company continued to mine coal into the 1950s, supplying its North Birmingham coke plant. Most of the former miners houses were demolished for construction of I-65.

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