over. We turned around and left the way we had come anyway. Back on 10 we continued our lazy and
meandering ride through the Alabama countryside and though a tiny town with the grand name of Marvel. Something must have happened there, but other than the town’s founder, Benjamin Franklin Roden financing the first street car system in Bir- mingham in the 1870s, things have been pretty quiet since the post office closed in 1973. To give us a bit of the rich history of the
area, Vance led us down County Road 62 and to the Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park. According to park documents, the Bibb County Iron Company began pro- ducing “the toughest and most suitable iron for making guns” in 1862 in an effort to make a fortune from the South’s desperate need for war materials. The notoriety for making superior iron
so impressed Richmond that a year later the Confederate government purchased the ironworks and soon added a second fur- nace and rolling mill. It didn’t take long for the mill’s reputation to grow beyond state lines and become known to Union authori- ties as well. In the early morning hours of March 31, 1865, the Federal Tenth Missouri Cavalry set fire to the works. During the post-Civil War Reconstruc-
tion period, the first coke was used in 1876 to smelt iron at the Oxmoor furnace. Thus, the foundation was set for the steel industry that would eventually establish the city of Birmingham as an industrial and railroad transportation center with a focus on min- ing and the iron and steel industry. Following our morning history lesson,
we got back on the road, with Vance leading us to another of his favorite places – Rolling Mill Road. We came upon an old cemetery and felt like trespassers on what seemed more like a private driveway than a public road. Markers dating from the turn of the 20th century dotted the landscape, as did the more recent addition of a headstone cut in the shape of a Harley-Davidson. While we couldn’t tell what brought the resident lying there to this final resting place, we all agreed he loved his Harley.
Denny Tower on the south end of the Quad at the University of Alabama.
May 2016 BMW OWNERS NEWS
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