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CHAPTER XXII
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CHAPTER XXII MORE BIG BUSINESS 1886. RECORDS OF SLOSS IRON AND STEEL COMPANY AND PIONEER MINING AND MANUFACTURING COMPANY Option on property of Sloss Furnace Company secured by John W. Johnston and Joseph Forney Johnston. John C. Maben raises three millions on Wall Street in one day. Option taken up. Colonel Sloss retires. Brief r~sum~ of his achievements. Organization of Sloss Iron and Steel Company. J. F. Johnston elected first president. Sketch of the senator. He resigns from coal and iron business to go into politics. Thomas Seddon elected president of Sloss Company. Biographical sketch of Mr. Seddon. "The company spent five hundred thousand dollars educating me I" How young James W. McQueen stepped into the ranks of the Sloss Company. Export trade to foreign countries inaugurated. Sol Haas succeeds to presidency. Acquisition of Sheffield properties. Affairs of Pioneer Mining and Manufacturing Company. Interest of Samuel Thomas. Old Hawkins plantation. Building of first furnace. Entrance of F. B. Keiser. Founding of Thomas. Odd geological construction on pioneer propertr. John H. Adams appointed superintendent of mmes. BlOgraphlcal sketch of Mr. Adams. Purchase of company's properties by Republic Iron and Steel Company in 1899. RollIng mills acquired. W. H. Hassinger elected vice-president and district manager. J. H. Adams resigns to captain Sayre Mining and Manufacturing Company. W. H. Hassinger enters Southern Steel Company . Report of President Thompson, 1901. Present Day Management. Entrance of W. A. Green. T wo important contemporary events of the days of the Great Boom of Birmingham were the formation of the Sloss Iron and Steel Company, now the SlossSheffield Steel and Iron Company, and the inauguration of construction work by the Pioneer Mining and Manufacturing Company , now a division of the great Republic Iron and Steel Company. The organization of the Sloss Iron and Steel Company came about in this way. Colonel Sloss was nearing his seventieth year and the strain of incessant toil began to tell. on him. He gave an option on the Sloss Furnace Company late in the fall of 1886 to John W. Johnston, president of the Georgia Pacific Railroad Company, and to Joseph Forney Johnston, then president of the 348 THE STORY OF COAL AND IRON IN ALABAMA Alabama National Bank. Owing to the fact that J. C. Maben was connected with the building of the Georgia Pacific Railroad as a director, and in much of its financiering, the Messrs. J ohnston started for New York City to see Mr. Maben and try to raise the purchase money to take up the option. Their meeting led to immediate results. Although Mr. Maben had not then made a personal inspection of the Birmingham District, he was fairly at home on the ground; he was informed as to the general conditions and possibilities of the region, and foresaw the vast proportions to which coal, iron, and railroad enterprises in Alabama would reach in time, if properly financed and directed. Thus, sighting an opportunity, he at once mustered his forces of credit and influence on Wall Street, and, single-handed, went about raising the capital required. In one day he raised funds to the amount of three millions of dollars. The option on the Sloss Furnace Company was straightway taken up; Colonel Sloss retired from active business life. He bought a home on Highland Avenue, which is the one now owned by J. H. Woodward, president of the Woodward Iron Company. During the few remaining years of his life, Colonel Sloss became actively interested in the educational progress of the South, and at the time of his death, in May of 1890, he was president of the Lake DeFuniak Chatauqua Association. James W. Sloss left upon the Birmingham District his mark. Every work to which he turned his hand has become permanent, examples being the South and North Railroad, now part of the Louisville and Nashville system; the Oxmoor furnaces and the Pratt Coal mines, now Tennessee Company holdings; and the Sloss Ore mines and the Sloss Furnace Company, foundations of Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. Colonel Sloss' career has been followed in these chronicles straight from the time he trudged the rough pikes of Limestone County without a penny in his pocket (but carrying" Harry Lorrequer," his pet book), through a long upward struggle to a place of influence and regard in the community. His name, retained in that of the SlossSheffield Steel and Iron Company, carries with it historic suggestion and sense of the pioneer days of Alabama. In February...