Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0367Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a large skyscraper, in the foreground a child lines on the guardrail of a building. Above the image "31" is print, below the image "V23230 - The Biggest Skyscraper in Birmingham, Industrial Center of Alabama." is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Portland, Oregon, London, Eng., Sydeny, Aus." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V23239
THE BIGGEST SKYSCRAPER OF BIRMINGHAM
Lat. 34 (Degrees) N.; Long. 87 (Degrees) W.
There are many taller buildings in this country, but this tower above all other buildings of Birmingham as did the Masonic temple, Chicago's firt skyscraper, over all its neighbors. The growth of Birmingham has been rapid but substantial. It was laid out in June 1871, and in December of that year had a population of one thousand. It is now more than one-third as larege as Pittsburgh, and is a formidable rival in the iron and steel industry.
It owes its unusual growth to the natural industries which surround it. Pittsburgh is near great coal beds, but her ore is shipped from the Lake Superior mines down the Great Lakes. Birmingham is surrounded by iron ore, together with the coal and limesonte necessary to reduce it to iron and steel. With these excptional advantages, even the low grade ores may be profitably worked. The limestone is meixed with the ore in order to make it flow easier after it is melted. In this use it is called a flux. Some ores smelt and slow so easily that no flux is required.
Thus where fifty years ago was a cotton plantation, we now find a thriving city with many pig iron furnaces, foundries, engine and boiler works, and machine shops. It is called the Pittsburgh of the South, and in the first ten years of the present century it showed a large percentage of growth than any other city of the United States. It also has large cotton factories and cotton-seed oil mills, as well as important lumbering interests.
Copyrigh by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection