Banner Mine
Banner Mine was the collective name for three coal mines established by the Pratt Consolidated Coal Company near Littleton in western Jefferson County. The two shaft mines and slope mine were accessed by a branch of the Birmingham Mineral Railroad line. The Pratt Company employed mainly convict labor, leased from the State of Alabama.
On April 8, 1911 the Banner Mine was the site of a disastrous explosion that killed 123 convict laborers and five employees of the company.
In 1925 Pratt sold the Banner Mine site along with the rest of its assets to the Alabama Byproducts Corporation. They continued to operate the mine into the 1930s.
Some of the mine structures remained standing until 2006 when the site was cleared for strip mining of coal.
References
- Ward, Robert David & William Warren Rogers (2002) Convicts, Coal, and the Banner Mine Tragedy. University of Alabama Press ISBN 9780817312138