Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County---February 28-March 6

Last week in the Way Back Wednesday in Calhoun County Blog, we looked at the iron furnaces built during the Civil War. This week we learn the fate of Oxford Iron Company’s furnace. To understand how Oxford Furnace rose from the ashes, we need to first look at southern society at the end of the U.S. Civil War. Northern industrialists and philanthropists saw a huge business opportunity in the devastated and destroyed South. These industry titans had the financial means to invest in South. Railroads and iron ore were the future of the nation and when these two industries crossed paths in a small railroad office in South Carolina, the old Oxford Iron furnace was reborn.

The Nobles were a multigenerational family in the iron ore business in Cornwall, England. James Sr. was the son of a copper mine owner who left England in 1837 with his wife Jenifer and their five children to seek their fortunes in the United States. The family settled first in Berks County, Pennsylvania where James Sr. built a foundry with a machine shop and the Nobles added seven more children to the family. The Pennsylvania property burned down and James and Jenifer Noble moved south in the 1850s. By 1855, James Sr. had established the Noble Brothers Iron Works in Rome, Georgia, James Sr. with his adult sons including Samuel, James, George, John Ward, and William. The Noble Foundry in Rome was a huge iron supplier to the Confederate States. When the iron works was burned during the war, James Sr. looked to expand his empire to Alabama. He had purchased small furnaces in both Cherokee and Talladega Counties. His son, Samuel Noble, was visiting the offices of Alfred Tyler to shop the Noble family wares to the South Carolina Railroad. It happened that Tyler’s father, U.S. General Daniel Tyler, who was a former iron manufacturer, was visiting from Connecticut.

Samuel and Daniel made a scouting trip to inspect the old Oxford Iron Works in Calhoun County, Alabama. The trip was a success and in May 1872 the Nobles and Tylers joined together to form the Woodstock Iron Works. The first 50-ton furnace was built on the site of the old Oxford furnace in 1873. By 1879, Noble and Tyler planned to incorporate their closed-town of Woodstock but when they learned there was already an Alabama city by that name they had to find a new name. They decided to name their town after Alfred Tyler’s wife, Annie so Annie’s Town was born. By the time the city was open to the public in 1883, the corruption of the name to Anniston was solidified as this post-war model city’s new name.

To learn more about the history of Calhoun County pick up a copy of Images of America: Calhoun County (ISBN 978-0738589985), Anniston (ISBN 978-0738506012), or Anniston Revisited (ISBN 978-1467114752) by Kimberly O’Dell.