Urban explorers go underground to document Birmingham’s mining past

Birmingham was created because of a stroke of geologic luck, the fact that all three materials needed to make iron — coal, limestone and iron ore — were located here within a few miles of each other.

It was the presence of these minerals in such rare proximity that brought mining operators to the area beginning in the 19th century — even before the city of Birmingham was incorporated in 1871.

The mineral wealth also allowed a lot of men, with names like McElwain and Debardelaben and Sloss and Woodward, to make their fortunes while laying the groundwork for a major new American city.

However, even though most people in the Birmingham area are probably aware that the city has a mining and industrial legacy, many of them probably lack a full understanding of how the city was created and what the mines were like.

“I would say that most people in the city, especially people born after 1970, have no idea about the iron and coal mines, or the iron and steel industry,” said Jeff E. Newman, a history buff with a nearly lifelong interest in mining.

For one thing, many of the people who worked in the old mines and other industrial facilities in the area are now dead.

“So the younger generations have no understanding that this ever existed or of how hard the work was and how so many people in Birmingham and surrounding communities whole lives depended on these industries to provide for their families,” Newman said.

But Newman has done more than just lament this gap in the city’s historical memory.

An avid photographer, he has personally explored abandoned mines in the area, particularly along Red Mountain, since the 1960s.

In recent years, he has partnered in his trips to mines and other sites with urban explorer Josh Box.

In 2017, Newman and Box started a Facebook page called Underground Birmingham where they share photos and videos of their finds.

They’ve now published a book with hundreds of photos taken in recent years of the mines where the wealth that drove Birmingham’s growth was extracted through the work of thousands of men.

“Underground Birmingham: Images from Birmingham’s Iron Ore Mines” was published last fall by the publishing imprint America Through Time.

“This is the history that built Birmingham and this history is what they are missing,” Newman said. “We are trying to help keep the history alive.”

Through the images in the book, readers see the rooms and passages where miners worked and often left behind relics that bring history very much to life.

The book also begins with a useful short history of mining in the area.

Red Mountain iron ore is in the Clinton Formation, a geologic formation that runs from New York to Alabama, which is the southern tip of the Appalachian Mountains, according to the book.

The Birmingham iron ore mining district stretched 33 miles, extending from Trussville to Bessemer.

The 60-plus mines that operated here ranged from open-cut mines and drift mines to slope and shaft mines. It was from these excavations that the valuable red hematite iron ore was obtained.

Newman, it seems, was destined to do the sort of exploration and research that manifests in the “Underground Birmingham” book.

A Birmingham native, Newman began exploring mines in the area in 1965 when he was a teenager.

He grew up on Green Springs Avenue, and his family’s house was at the foot of the north side of Red Mountain. The house was only about 300 feet from the old Red Gap Branch of the L&N Birmingham Mineral Railroad grade, and there were four other open iron ore mines along the railroad.

“So at the age of 13 I took my first steps down into a mine,” Newman said. “It was awesome. We started going every weekend to explore these openings. My mom said not to go and would spank me, but she stopped when she saw that it was not doing any good.”

Newman also had a family connection to the mining industry, with his birth father and one grandfather having worked as coal miners in Kentucky, and his other grandfather having worked as a coal prospector and mine operator in Jasper.

But it was his own exploration of the mines that really ignited a lifelong passion.

His “main motivation” for doing the years of research on mining “goes back to those early trips underground, in the dark, up on Red Mountain,” he said.

“You would imagine what the workers were doing, and how they were doing it,” he said. “It was especially exciting to find something they left behind.”

For decades, Newman has read history, studied maps, done fieldwork and located the ore mines in the area.

Newman, who attended Ramsay High School and Jefferson State Community College, worked for the telephone company, eventually retiring as an electronic technician.

He also worked for 10 years at Red Mountain Park, which has numerous mining sites. leading history hikes and doing park maintenance.

Now fully retired, Newman — an avid photographer — devotes himself to exploration.

Box, like Newman, is also a Birmingham native, and also had an opportunity to explore large swaths of the city as a kid.

“We were pretty nomadic growing up, so I spent my childhood in just about every area of Birmingham,” he said.

Box, a Chelsea High School graduate, manages an e-commerce company selling educational products and engineering and architectural supplies.

The exploration of mines comes naturally for Box, as it did for Newman.

“As a kid, I was always curious about scary, abandoned things,” said Box, who stumbled on to his first mine when he was about seven years old. “After finding my first mine, on accident with my brothers and friends, we played a game of hide and seek inside.”

“Being a latchkey kid, it became my compound to battle invisible vampires, human-eating tornadoes and the other monsters that a horror-loving kid could create,” Box said.

However, as he got older, his interest in the mine deepened.

“I wanted to find out why that mine was there and what it was used for, and eventually came to realize that everything above ground at one time in the Magic City was created from the underground,” Box said.

Newman and Box met in about 2015 via Facebook when Box saw Newman’s mine photos and was fascinated by them.

In 2017, the men created the Underground Birmingham page on Facebook to share Newman’s photos and stories.

Through his years of research, Newman had accumulated a lot of information that other people interested in the topic would want to see, Box said.

“My goal is to showcase the history and share the beauty of an industry that built an entire city from the underground up,” Box said.

The men persist in this work despite the danger of exploring mines that have been abandoned for 60 years or more.

“You have possible rock falls from bad ceilings, slipping, falling and maybe breaking an arm or leg,” Newman said. “If you are not paying attention to where you are going and leaving glow sticks or painting arrows on the wall you could get lost, as the tunnels look mostly all the same in the dark. We have met a few raccoons, bats and once a bobcat in the mines.”

Despite the dangers, Box sometimes brings along his wife, April, and their three children, Hayden, Kian and Evan.

“It is fun doing urban exploring with my wife and kids, but going into an abandoned mine is one of the dumbest things a person can do,” Box said. “There are inherent dangers and elements you can’t control in a mine. I would urge everyone to stay out and stay alive, but since I don’t, I will just say be very careful. While it is fun, it is also deadly. You’re risking your life each time.”

Newman and Box stress that they are not trespassing or engaging in illegal behavior.

“We make every effort possible to determine the owner, develop a relationship with them and get prior permission,” Newman said. “This applies to industrial and urban explorations. Many times the owner wants to go with us or requires that they send someone with us.”

Since Newman partnered with Box,

he has broadened the menu of sites he visits.

“Until I met Josh, 80% of my time was involved in mining and the related industrial iron and steel furnace sites and old coke oven sites, but Josh got me interested in doing some urban abandoned sites,” Newman said.

This has led to a number of interesting assignments for the men.

“We have had several private and municipal entities request that we do photo documentation of their properties prior to them being demolished,” Newman said. “I also do free photo documentation of churches and other places for people who just want to have a photo record of their properties for future reference and history.”

Newman and Box never tire of finding new places.

“Finding some new industrial site or old house, hospital or vacant community to explore is always interesting,” Newman said.

“Just happening to find something unexpected while driving around or hiking in the woods seems to make it extremely exciting,” he said.

“The thrill, rush, adventure, history, danger and unknown keeps me actively finding new holes in the ground,” Box said.