Exploring the Industrial Past at Sloss Furnace

Kid Friendly. Pet Friendly. Free Admission.

If you’re looking for an interesting and unique way to explore the history of Birmingham, Alabama, then you should definitely check out Sloss Furnace. 

As soon as we arrived in Birmingham and before we even settled into our new home, we were eager to start exploring and getting to know the city. With so many fascinating things to do and a rich history to discover, it was tough to decide where to go first. Keeping our budget and family in mind, we searched for a place that was free, kid-friendly, and pet-friendly (if possible). Sloss Furnace checked all of these boxes and was highly recommended, so we knew it was the perfect choice for our first outing. We were not disappointed!

Located just a few miles from downtown Birmingham, Sloss Furnace was once a pig iron-producing blast furnace that operated from 1882 to 1970. Sloss was one of the most advanced and productive blast furnaces of its time. Today, it's a museum that offers self-guided tours and hands-on exhibits that give visitors a glimpse into the city's industrial past. 

As you explore the grounds of Sloss Furnace, you'll find informative plaques scattered throughout the site that offer a detailed look at the history of the furnaces and its role in shaping Birmingham. The self-guided tour, which takes about an hour to complete, is suitable for visitors of all ages and allows you to get up close and personal with the blast furnace, generators, boilers, tunnels, and antique equipment. This tour is truly a unique opportunity to learn about the inner workings of a historical furnace and how it helped to shape Birmingham.

 The first thing we saw on our tour was the Sloss Metal Arts studio. There were elaborate metal sculptures and various welded works of art, made right there on site. We could see the artisans, busy working on their projects, sparks flying. we made our way into the main facility and discovered the boilers. When this place was operating, they generated steam that powered most of the machinery in the facility. Nowadays, there are small pools of water with green plants, creating a rich contrast against rusty red orange tanks.

We wandered further down the main path toward the Stock Tunnel. . We made our way underground into a tunnel and saw the base of a massive lift. Going down the stairs it was a little spooky, but we were thrilled to see how the whole process began. There was a scale car inside of the tunnel, beautifully covered in patina and rust. These were filled with raw materials and emptied into the stock cars on the lift. The stock cars go up the lift, empty their contents of raw materials into the top of the furnace and come back down the lift. We went back up the stairs to ground level, where we emerged outside of the furnace shed. There we saw another scale car and a massive ladle car before we entered the No. 1 Cast Shed.

The furnace itself is a massive structure, standing at over 100 feet tall. It was powered by two steam engines, which were used to pump air into the furnace and move the molten iron from the furnace to the foundry. It operated by heating iron ore, coke (a fuel made from coal), and limestone. The furnace was lined with firebrick and heated to extremely high temperatures using hot air, blasted in through pipes at the bottom.

The molten iron flowed from the bottom of the furnace and into a ladle car. The ladle car then poured the molten iron into molds to cool and solidify, forming “pigs”. The slag, which was a waste product of the process, was regularly skimmed off the top of the furnace, granulated and discarded. The pig iron produced at Sloss Furnaces was used in numerous applications, including the manufacture of steel for railroads, bridges, and buildings. 

We then made our way to the Blowing Engines Building. We saw the two green turbo blowers and continued through until we found the original blowing engines. Built in the early 1900’s, the Blowing Engine Building is the oldest on site. The walls are lined with hundreds of pipes connecting to water pumps. The engines stand over 30 feet tall and consist of a huge flywheel, a steam cylinder below and an air cylinder above. The building boasts eight of these original engines which were later replaced by two Ingersoll-Rand turbo blowers located in the adjacent room. With only the natural light available, the building is brilliantly filled with the striations of shadows cast from the towering structures. Out of all of the buildings, this one had the most mysterious energy. The spookiness didn’t deter our family, in fact, this was one of our favorite spots!

The sheer size of the furnace complex is impressive enough to make it exciting for anyone to explore. Not only was the ingenuity of the design remarkable, but learning the history and the stories of those who worked there made our visit even more impactful. It's easy to see why Sloss Furnace is so highly regarded and continues to play a vital role in the Birmingham community today. Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark is a must-see destination that you'll want to visit time and time again.