Alabama Public Television Presents
Building Birmingham: The Sloss Story
Special | 56m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
Discover how one family changed the face of Birmingham over more than 150 years.
The film traces the Sloss family and Birmingham, starting with Colonel James Withers Sloss and his vision to move the railroad to Birmingham with the eventual building of Sloss Furnaces. Sisters Cathy Sloss Jones, Leigh Sloss-Corra, and Carolyn Sloss Ratliff proudly share their love for their hometown and how succeeding generations have added to the city.
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Alabama Public Television Presents is a local public television program presented by APT
Alabama Public Television Presents
Building Birmingham: The Sloss Story
Special | 56m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
The film traces the Sloss family and Birmingham, starting with Colonel James Withers Sloss and his vision to move the railroad to Birmingham with the eventual building of Sloss Furnaces. Sisters Cathy Sloss Jones, Leigh Sloss-Corra, and Carolyn Sloss Ratliff proudly share their love for their hometown and how succeeding generations have added to the city.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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- Birmingham was built in 1871.
So, it was after the Civil War.
And, I think there was a real movement to envision a new kind of a South, which was more industrial.
And, all of the founding members of this city who came together to say, "Let's envision a new modern industrial city."
It took some bad turns in terms of segregation and race, but overall their vision was to build a new South around industry.
And, at that time, that's what they did.
- Like, they made a city out of nothing.
There was nothing here.
It's just like some, some stuff in the ground, some dirt and some ore and just these weird raw materials.
And, they just put 'em together, and all of a sudden there's a city, Magic City, you know, kaboom.
(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Today, Birmingham is Alabama's third largest city.
In the heart of the city lies Sloss Furnaces, which sits along the original rail line into Birmingham.
Sloss furnaces, the rail line, and the city of Birmingham would not be here today without Colonel James Withers Sloss.
- I would say first that I am a native, a daughter of Birmingham.
Birmingham is my home.
I was born here, bred here, loved this city with everything I got.
And, my maiden name is Sloss.
And so, I'm part of that family that's been here since the city started in 1871.
- Colonel Sloss was my great great grandfather.
He came from North Carolina, and before that came from Ireland.
Our family's name was Arkinsloss, and when they came to the United States, they shortened it to Sloss.
- Colonel James Withers Sloss was from Mooresville, Alabama in North Alabama, grew up there.
I think his father was a tailor.
He apprenticed as an accountant and became a merchant and a railroad man.
Eventually he sort of became part of the railroad industry that was growing across the United States in the late 1800s.
- Frankly, there would be no Birmingham, if not for James Withers Sloss.
He was an investor, an early industrialist in the state.
- I think when you think about a big industrialist, you think about somebody who's like somebody we can relate to in the 21st century who's a, you know, young and up and comer.
And, I think that the industrial world was just unfolding at that time.
People's lives and their trappings were a lot simpler.
He was responsible for bringing the railroad from Nashville to Decatur, Alabama.
So, that was kind of his claim to fame among other things in North Alabama.
He came to Birmingham when Birmingham was a valley with all the ingredients to make iron and steel, but no city and no transportation system.
We didn't have a river that ran through the city.
So Colonel Sloss was interested in helping bring the railroad to Jones Valley.
- He had become acquainted with a group of people, mostly out of Montgomery, who were looking to exploit the mineral resources in Jefferson County.
That was delayed, sidetracked by a little conflagration we call the Civil War.
(somber music) One of the things they were doing was building a railroad to connect Montgomery and Birmingham.
Meanwhile, Sloss was looking to expand his railroad that stopped at the Tennessee River in Decatur, down to the southern part of the state.
- And he started off-shooting properties along the base of the valley.
There was another man actually that I learned that was trying to push the railroad further north, closer to Chattanooga, and they were really competing for where that main East West line would be laid.
- However, in getting the railroad into Jefferson County, this group had used some state issued bonds and essentially was running outta money as they were making their way toward Birmingham.
The other group, mostly a man named John Stanton, he bought out the state backed bonds and called them due.
And, therefore he would gain control of what happened.
This was where Sloss stepped in.
Through his own railroad that went from Decatur to Nashville.
It had become affiliated with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the L and N, which had become the dominant railroad company in the South.
And so, unknown to anyone, he didn't tell anybody he was gonna do this, Sloss went to Nashville to talk to the board of directors of the L and N and suggested to them that they acquire these bonds, And that in the return for them on that would be that he would also lease his own rail line to the L and N and further that partnership.
- Colonel Sloss in the end persevered and was able to convince the railroad, and they brought the railroad here.
So, he's really credited for birthing the city in that regard.
- So, when I say that there would be no Birmingham without James Sloss, that's a very true statement.
- [Cathy Sloss Jones] What he's more known for is that he built Sloss furnaces, which is an iron making factory on the crossroads between East, West, North, South Rail Line right in the middle of our downtown in Birmingham.
- Many southern entrepreneurs after the Civil War wanted to build a city based on industry, kind of like Pittsburgh and what you would see around Massachusetts.
And, they knew this would be the perfect area, because all the ingredients needed to make iron and steel could be found within a 30 mile radius.
And, that included of course, iron ore, coal that we converted into coke and limestone.
- Henry DeBardeleben, an industrialist who had started a blast furnace or built a blast furnace in the Oxmoor area of Birmingham had some success, but figured that more could happen in this fairly new city known as Birmingham, Alabama.
He, when thinking about building a place and building an industrial powerhouse, he looked not far, but to James Withers Sloss.
- Then he said, "Look, you know, let's get together and let's do another furnace."
And James Sloss said, "Great, I'll, you know, I'll manage the finances for this one."
So in 1882, Sloss was open for business, and it became the largest producer of pig iron in the world around the time of World War I.
So, Sloss became, again, very productive.
And, they changed the name in 1898 to Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron, because they wanted to make steel.
But, they figured out once these other steel companies were moving in, they decided, why don't we just keep making what we know how to make?
And, that's pig iron.
And, that was the reason why they were able to last for almost 90 years.
- What I've been told about him was that he was a great visionary, that he really thought creatively.
He loved poetry and Irish poetry and music.
And, you know, I think he was an interesting creative man, but he did not like to manage things, which I can certainly relate to.
And so, he sold it to a group of local investors who then sold it to a group of owners out of Pittsburgh.
So, he really only owned the furnaces for a short period of time.
- Sloss Furnaces has played an out-sized role in the building of Birmingham.
Even how the city of Birmingham got the name Magic City, you can't separate Sloss Furnace from that as it relates to the rush of opportunity and the creation of jobs here.
And, in return with those jobs provided for American culture, and where steel and iron and all those things came together.
There is no Birmingham without Sloss Furnace.
- My great-grandfather was James Withers Sloss Jr.
He was one of Colonels Sloss's children.
He actually ended up moving his family to Los Angeles, and he died very young about when he was about 41 years old.
But, the other children, a lot of them, my great aunts and that world, one of the ones I'm most proud of is Maybelle Sloss.
She founded the YWCA, because I see Birmingham as a city of extraordinary women.
And, our YWCA is one of the finest in the United States.
It's a fabulous YWCA, and Maybelle Sloss founded that.
- Maybelle Sloss is our in the YW history is considered our founding mother.
She and a group of her friends prayed us into being at First Methodist Church.
And, in March of 1903, we were incorporated.
Maybelle's Sunday School class at that time pledged $100 a year to help us keep our doors open that first year.
Maybelle also was, as I understand it, quite an artist.
And, when we fell on hard times, she would sell her watercolors to help keep us running and going in those very, very early years.
There are hundreds of thousands of women and their families that owe a great debt to Maybelle Sloss and the Sloss family for providing what we called back then was a great starting off place.
Now we're considered in today's socio climate.
We are a great starting over place.
Maybelle is still present in the work of the YW today.
Our earliest foundation that we had here to set money aside for the future and to have an endowment is the Maybelle Sloss Society.
And so, we have named our current foundation after our founding mother.
We're 119 years old this year.
And so, I know we're gonna be here for another 100 years at least.
- I had a great uncle who started AA.
And, my grandmother helped bring the Red Cross to Birmingham.
I know know that Colonel Sloss was very involved in founding the First Methodist Church downtown.
He put the land together for that, and the Presbyterian Church downtown.
So, he was a city builder, and his children were clearly very engaged in the city and involved, you know, as a number.
There's so many wonderful families in this city that in the early years, that all contributed to help make Birmingham a beautiful city.
And, he was one of those people.
(upbeat music) - The idea that Birmingham could be the host for the World Games started a long time ago, started several years ago.
I had a hard time imagining how Birmingham could pull this off.
And, the sort of unveiling of thinking, which is we are not gonna do a crazy Olympics idea.
We're not gonna build a burdenous stadium.
We're gonna take people into all the different neighborhoods of our city, of our county, and we're gonna take people to Birmingham Southern, we're gonna take people to Sloss Furnaces.
And, I kind of love that idea.
I started to think it's like, this is freaking genius.
This is absolutely brilliant.
- The international group with World Games came out to Sloss, and they could not believe what they saw.
And, they said, "We have to have some games here," and we have this giant Sloss field.
So, they've been working hard, setting up the events that will be here will be sports climbing, parkour gymnastics, men's beach handballs, and break dancing.
And we will be, although we're world recognized now, it's going to be simply amazing after the end of these games, because we are gonna be highlighted throughout the world.
And, we're very honored and proud to be part of this amazing event, not just for Birmingham, but for the state of Alabama.
- We in Birmingham tend to underrate ourselves.
People who've never been and have some preconceived notion of what Birmingham is, they come to the city and they want to tell us how good we've got it.
And, we haven't always believed them.
If there is going to be a great outgrowth of the World Games, it's changing that attitude.
It's believing that not only can we do this, but we deserve the success that hopefully will continue to come up.
- Sloss Furnace, the notion that it's gonna be a venue for the World Games, just, I love that, that we're using our whole city for this event where the world is coming.
We really have an opportunity to tell our story.
And, I think people are always surprised by what they find in Birmingham.
- Because of our history.
Because we are a beautiful city.
It's a comfortable city to move around in.
People are very, very welcoming.
There's no friendlier people than the citizens of Birmingham.
The Lakeshore Foundation, which is an advocate for people with disabilities across the world, headquartered in Birmingham, and they were a US Olympic Training Center.
They were very instrumental in helping bring the World Games to Birmingham, and in making it the first accessible World Games.
So, it's just thinking about, again, how do we create and build a city that everyone feels comfortable in and that can work for everybody?
- Here it is, July 7th through the 17th, the world is coming.
This is only the second time that it would've been in the United States.
And, when it comes here and be known across the world and one of those spaces that will be a part of this historical moment is Sloss Furnace, come on.
Who could ask for anything more, you know?
It's great.
(piano music) - Arthur Page Sloss Senior was my grandfather.
So, in 1920 he started a real estate company.
- He started with houses and developing what we'd now call subdivisions.
- In 1939, he started building Five Points West, which was the first shopping center in the Southeast to my knowledge.
- He was a little intimidating to some people.
He had false teeth, and as a little kid he'd tell you to come over, and then he would rattle his teeth at you.
And, he thought that was hilarious.
- But, he was also a man of great generosity.
He died when I was about 21.
So, I spent a lot of time with him.
And, I would go with him to the stores, and he would talk about neighborhoods and what makes neighborhoods work and how do you build community around spaces.
And, I think that was where I started developing that interest was because of my grandfather.
- The way that AP Sloss Senior and that later generations have used their talents and their resources and at bottom their vision has been of great benefit to the city.
(upbeat music) - Arthur Page Sloss Jr, or we used to call him Petey or Petey Boy by his mom.
He was one of two children, offspring of Arthur Page Sloss Senior and my grandmother Catherine Sloss.
And, if you met him, you felt like you had known him your whole life.
- Pete Sloss Jr. was very much shaped by his experience of the Depression.
He says that he had vivid memories of his family going from having money, being rich by most people's standards, to not having a lot of money.
While it shaped who he was and how he approached the rest of his life, he never felt deprived.
He said, I had a pony in my backyard.
You know, not many people could say that then, and certainly not many can say it now.
They could ride the street car to the Alabama Theater in downtown Birmingham.
That was seven cents.
You get into the movie for a dime, and then you ride the street car back home.
And, he said, "For a quarter, you've had a pretty good day."
- I wouldn't say he was lost.
He just wasn't quite sure what he was gonna do when he was young.
And, he had been in the Army.
He was in the Merchant Marine, you know, again, it's another person in a weird way, like Colonel Sloss, who was a product of war time, who grew out of war time and had the opportunity to do big things.
- Pete began developing a subdivision in Titusville and then he went and developed houses around ACIPCO, American Cast Iron Pipe Company in the northern part of the city.
And, this was not a middle class black neighborhood.
This was primarily a poor black neighborhood immediately around this great industrial complex that ACIPCO had, still has, in north Birmingham.
He would build houses for people, sell the houses and tell them, "Pay me what you can."
And so, he developed, you know, those kind of relationships, which were very rare at the time.
- I graduated from college and my grandfather had just died.
So, I came home to help my dad with his business.
I'm not a fan of suburban sprawl.
So, and we had this beautiful city which had largely been emptied out in the 60s and 70s as cities across the country were.
So, our mission became to try to recruit people back into the city.
And, we started that work together in the late 70s and really started working in this area around Sloss Furnaces in the area of Lakeview where we've been concentrated for many years in about 1986.
So, that was our work.
It was how do we build, how do we rebuild a great city?
How do we recycle these beautiful historic buildings?
How do we preserve these beautiful buildings?
Because, a lot of them, you know, a lot of cities tore everything down for parking and just, there were a lot of poor choices in my opinion, on city building that went on during that stretch of time when we were building big boxes and highways and sprawling out to the suburbs.
And so, the opportunity to build more density in the city was something that appealed to me.
And, fortunately my father agreed to let us do that.
- He was kind and gentle.
He was personable.
He would sit down with you and say, "Tell me about your life."
He was a remarkable human being and was my best friend.
I think he was the best friend of each of my sisters.
And, everyone who met him felt like he was just a dear friend.
- Pete is easily one of the nicest guys I've ever met, but he was absolutely the best man I ever met.
And so, we ended up towards the end of his life, I'd pick him up every two or three weeks, and we'd go to lunch.
And, I can't recollect what we talked about, but you'd always leave Pete feeling good about yourself.
And so, all of a sudden I realized where the girls got it from.
It was Pete.
And, I didn't know their mother as well, but as I got to hear stories about her and her advocacy, it was obvious where their sense of caring and their spirits came from.
- So, my mom was Carolyn Lowrey Sloss, and she grew up in Thomaston and Greensboro, Alabama, small country girl.
And, she had five brothers who were all rough and tumble, and she turned out to be a beauty queen, so feminine, so lovely, so talented.
She had this voice that her mother sort of cultivated in her that took her to New York City, and she was able to qualify for a place at the Metropolitan Opera.
She was sure that she didn't wanna spend the rest of her life on a farm in Alabama.
So, she came to the city, was Miss Alabama, alternate, was Miss Tuscaloosa.
was Miss Maid of Cotton.
And, I think that the beauty pageants were, because she had to make money to go to school, and so she qualified for these pageants and would win, and she would get tuition for colleges.
But, then she met my father in Birmingham, then she went to sing in New York for the Metropolitan Opera while he was actually starting his early military days.
And, she fell in love with him.
And, they eloped, because she wasn't supposed to be married as a employee of Metropolitan Opera and sang with the opera for a year, and then decided to give that up and to come to Birmingham and raise a family.
So, thank you, mom.
- If I had to say what I thought about the family, Pete, their mother, Carolyn and and the sisters is they just have this wonderful spirit.
And, what I realized Pete's came from was he had three kids that he knew were absolutely crazy about him.
And, he was at his best when he was with them, and they were at their best when they were with him.
So, it was just a wonderful family.
(upbeat music) - When Sloss became a national historic landmark in the 80s, one of the things they wanted to do was to light up the site, similar to what you see Vulcan sitting up top, any corner of the city where you're at, you see Vulcan.
And, every time I would drive by Sloss coming from Malfunction Junction or any place you, you know, Sloss was sitting there in the dark.
- There Sloss Furnace is in the middle of beautiful Birmingham, but it's just a black hole at night.
You know, I think that that people drive past it, and it just absorbs light rather than sparkles with possibility and hope, which is what, you know, what Birmingham is trying to do.
- It all started with an incredibly inspiring project called Light Sloss Project, where Cathy Sloss, other board members had a conversation about what could we do to really show the power and the prowess of this magical place?
And, I remember Kathy Sloss looking across the table and said, "Let's just light this thing."
- The board of directors of Sloss worked really hard over the last six months to raise enough money.
And, we have a wonderful local designer, so we're all about local who put together a plan to light Sloss Furnaces.
And, that will happen tonight.
And, at 8:30, they're gonna flip the switch, the mayor will be there.
- Anyone driving over the bridge on First Avenue North, anyone driving on Highway 31, anybody flying over the city or just 2059, lighting Sloss Furnace to me sends a message to the entire community, that Sloss is still here, it's here to stay and it's not going anywhere.
And, it's a part of the Birmingham fabric.
- Tonight means that we're not only lighting up Sloss in the colors of World Games, but it will be lit up forever, and it will be lit up as a beacon to the people who built Birmingham and the people that really don't get enough recognition.
- I get a chance to just participate in the countdown and flipping the switch for something that will be with us forever and something that will be powerful every night for anybody that drives around our community.
- We can't have the whole community there, but we hope that people will spread out on the ridges and at 8:30 and watch us flip the switch to lights Sloss Furnaces.
(upbeat music) - It's my real honor.
- [Crowd] 4, 3, 2, 1.
(crowd applauds) - The mayor, my daughter and other youth flipped the switch.
To see the lights come on in many ways represented the beginning of new chapters for Sloss Furnaces.
- Gosh, it was mind-blowingly beautiful.
I think it's the light is velvety.
It is warm and welcoming.
They had a whole light show where it echoed the official colors of the World Games.
More concerts and events and uses of the space will happen, because it's just gorgeous.
You can see how gorgeous it is, especially at night.
It's just beautiful.
- We did more than just light a place, but we created hope that there is still magic left in Sloss Furnaces for the next chapter of this great city.
- We had such a challenging past.
The furnace has really brought together people from all different walks of life, and they worked shoulder to shoulder in these tough conditions.
That was in the late 1800s, and we jumped forward to the Civil Rights Movement, which was a time of terrible injustice.
I can't say enough about what a dark time that was in our history.
And, I feel like we, through the leadership of Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King and people Birmingham being sort of an epicenter for all of that, they affected change.
I was a little girl.
I was really very much removed from all that, living on the other side of the mountain and being so young.
But, my sister Cathy, who was three and a half years older, really felt the effects of that.
- I got to know Fred Shuttlesworth in 1991.
He was a great teacher of mine, a close friend and he used to say, "Birmingham gave me a hard head for a hard city," 'cause it was a hard city.
You know, if you really look at the history, if you think about segregation and Jim Crow and shadow slavery and all the things that happened in this city and really across this country, Birmingham was the cradle for a lot of that activity.
And, I was a little girl 10 years old in church at the Advent, four blocks away from 16th Street Baptist Church when that church was bombed and four little girls were killed and they were my age.
And, that had probably one of the greatest impacts on me in my life ever.
And, on all of us, everybody in the city.
It is something that changed the dynamics of everything, but the bombing of that church was so painful for everybody and had a huge impact on my work and our interests and among other people in the city as well.
Everybody, as far as I'm concerned.
- I love to talk about Cathy.
She is my older sister by three and a half years.
She was someone who I was always in awe of, because she was kind and social and very popular and just had like gentleness, kind of like my father, but also a great spirit.
So, she went to Converse and was Converse College in South Carolina, was very interested in becoming a piano major.
Finished at Wofford College and came back to Birmingham and had an opportunity to work with my father in the real estate business, and he needed her.
- My grandfather had died and my father needed help, and I decided to come home and work in his office, which I did.
I very quickly saw the beauty of this city, and the changes that had occurred.
A lot of the money had left the city.
A lot of the neighborhoods were deteriorated.
A lot of the buildings were empty.
And so, my interest in historic preservation and conservation just kind of came together.
My dad, who was a big outdoors man and loved the outdoors as well, said, "Why don't we try to rebuild what's here, and see if we can help with that."
So, that was the work that we began to do, which was really about urban revitalization beginning in the 70s and 80s and 90s.
- She had the vision that Colonel Sloss had and wanted to take buildings and make something more of them.
She wanted to take neighborhoods and revitalize.
- One day she took me around and showed me her portfolio of properties, and it was at a time that Birmingham, I won't say was in decline, but it was at least in remission.
And, a lot of the development in some key areas was not happening, and values were stagnant if not declining.
And so, these projects would come up, and Cathy would always say, "It's important, it's important, it's important."
I'd say, "Yeah Cathy, but so is making money."
"No, no, it's important.
We gotta make sure the right things happen."
Well, I tend to think everyone thought Cathy was a little bit crazy.
And then, one day the tide started turning, and the growth started coming to Birmingham and all of a sudden people realized that she was a visionary.
- She's probably, I think at one time in her life she was serving on 29 boards.
She's so well respected.
I've heard people call her the mother of Birmingham.
- That was really the beginning of let's say, a new era for Sloss Real Estate, and the role that they played in the continuing development of Birmingham.
- From a generational standpoint, we all know the Sloss family.
They've been benevolent.
The family member that I have the relationship with and spend time with and have a cadence with and a genuine rapport with is Cathy Sloss Jones.
Her heart, it's so big, and when I say big, it's big for Birmingham.
She loves Birmingham.
And, she has not separated her history and what her family has done from what she does.
- I mean not just because of us, but fortunately people really have come back to the city center, and our neighborhoods are currently being rebuilt and it's a really exciting time to be in Birmingham.
- I'm also in awe of my sister Cathy, and she's still my sister.
We talk about amazing mundane things like flowers and food and I'm just watching to see what is coming next.
(upbeat music) - Pepper Place is near Sloss Furnaces along the rail corridor, and it was an abandoned neighborhood in the 1970s and 80s.
It was an old Dr. Pepper syrup plant, which had been empty since 1971, but it's beautiful.
A design by an architect named Wildon.
During the depression, Birmingham was considered the hardest hit city in America.
Roosevelt gave a speech and said so.
So, the Kiwanis Club and the Chamber of Commerce got together and said, "We needed to diversify our economy," and they picked this area around Pepper Place as the area to do that.
- It was not a great area at all, very neglected.
And, in the late 80s, I think it was like 1988, my sister and my dad, the company bought the first building, which is just right across the way where the Dr. Pepper sign is.
They imagined it as like a professional design center, decorators and lighting designers and antique dealers and people that are serving the design industry.
- And, she invited an architect and a lawyer and a banker and the Sloss sisters and my mother and father and many important people in town.
And, she convinced everybody that this could become a design district.
- Cathy and my dad were providing this environment that was kind of cool, like nobody else was really doing converted warehouse type of spaces, like people just weren't doing that yet.
- Chris Leinberger wrote a book called The Option of Urbanism, and one of the important things in this book is he talked about downtown adjacent neighborhoods, and that they were primed for the next phase of growth and development as we began to, as a country, rediscover the value of concentrated development and began to harvest the potential of our urban centers.
And, the fact that Sloss, Frank Stitt, others were beginning to see that this was a superb place for that farmer's market idea.
Leinberger said we need to make the places that people wanna come, and then they will begin to build around that opportunities for more living, for more in additional commercial activities.
- So, they recruited a lot of small local businesses.
There was a biscuit factory, and a children's clothing store and a air conditioning company and a plumbing store that has now grown into 2000 stores across the world.
So, it was really about changing our economy in this area.
So, it was fun for me to start working, 'cause the buildings were beautiful.
It was abandoned, and the way we did that actually was to start a farmer's market.
- Cathy got together with Chef Frank Stitt, and a few other chefs and this farmer called Danny Jones and they started this farmer's market.
They were like, "Oh, you know, we can help the restaurants.
We can help the farmers.
we can bring something good to downtown Birmingham and people will, it'll all happen at Pepper Place.
It's like there's parking, Nothing's happening here on the weekend at all.
There's room."
And so, it started like with seven tents and then grew into something miraculous.
Again, it's like, it just happened.
- From 1986 to '95, I began to really learn about this amazing city of Birmingham and it's culinary foundation, which started of course with Frank, and it has become an amazing culinary city, but even when it wasn't known, it had this base of people who really loved and supported food and wine.
Not every city has that, you know, that pond full of, you know, small microbes that crawl out of that pond into and then grow into, you know, a thriving culinary scene.
You know, it's like nuclear fission when Frank got here and our universe was created.
Highlands is a huge success.
I grew from that experience.
We opened in 1995 at Hot and Hot, and then Ovenbird in '15 and now we've moved Hot and Hot from our original location here in Pepper Place.
And, Pepper Place was the only real decision there was to make.
- It was the market that really changed the dynamics of this place by incubating small local businesses.
And, our guiding principles were always to honor the history of a place, to do things that would help build community, to recognize beauty and to build local economies.
So, we wanted spaces that work for everybody across the community, and we want it to be beautiful.
So, the market was kind of the hidden ingredient for making that happen to me.
- You can get unique, like the most unique mushrooms you ever saw.
You can get incredible, like this one of a kind pimento cheese that people line up down the block for.
The pastry guy only sells here.
The guy who makes all the breads and pastries, he sells to a few restaurants, but he doesn't want a storefront.
He sells at the market.
Literally, people are at least a block lining up to get his almond croissant, his, oh they're so good, these cinnamon rolls and his baguettes, which are fantastic.
- There are businesses here and restaurants and lofts being built all around the neighborhood.
I mean it's a place, it was from a seed of vision that it has become a real important neighborhood in the city of Birmingham.
- For me, the Pepper Place Market, and the Pepper Place district is phenomenal.
And, one of the reasons that I am so thrilled about living here, and it's also something that I introduce people to as part of my business model.
Once I got here and decided I was all in on Birmingham, I started a service to make sure when visitors come, they feel in touch what they need to see themselves here.
- What has happened at Pepper Place over my 27 years here.
It's funny, I think about the farmer's market, which is so vibrant.
People say to me, "Wow, what an amazing overnight success Pepper Place has been."
I said, "Hold on, now.
Cathy's been working at this for 30 years.
It was a long night.
It was not an overnight success.
It just happened to be, yes, it was an overnight success.
It was just a long night."
- It's not religious.
It's not sports.
It's not politics, it's just about being together in this beautiful space.
There's grass and there's trees, and that's been very intentional.
I think Cathy very intentionally planted a lot of trees and has worked really hard to make sure that there are green spaces.
We have plans to add more green spaces, because those are all places where people gather and can be together and know each other and then feel like they have a place there and stay and put down route and you know.
Anyway, that's how community happens, and it all happens right here.
- It has grown from a quaint little market where you could go see friends to a major gathering spot in the community that people are trying to copy everywhere else.
It's been fun for me watching her vision come together.
And, when I say her, I mean the family, because Lee certainly has played a major role.
And, if you walk out here a 100 degree weather, Lee is right there trying to get you to buy more tomatoes, The best tomatoes in America at that, right?
- It's not just about Pepper Place and the farmer's market.
It's not just about what Pepper Place has to offer in the form of supporting small businesses.
It's really about community impact, what they do around food security, what they do around supporting the philanthropic and foundations and the community in the city of Birmingham.
I'm a huge fan of the Sloss family, because they continue to put their time, treasure, where their mouth is, and they're committed to making Birmingham better for all people.
- Years ago, Dick Harrington, who was a wonderful mayor for a long time, had formed a committee to envision a central park for Birmingham.
And, I was on that committee with a number of great planners and leaders in the community.
And, what we said is it would be great to build a railroad park near UAB to the west.
And, Sloss Furnace is already existed to the east and to connect them.
So, we don't have a river.
We can't build a park along our river, but we can build a park along our rail corridor.
So, it's a river of steel basically.
And so, there is a design and a plan.
Railroad Park is complete.
It is beautiful.
It has changed that part of our city, dramatically.
Sloss Furnaces is currently.
And so, the vision is to connect all of that.
The Rotary built a Rotary Trail that connects between the two, and there's a bicycle trail that connects.
- Frank Setzer, who is the founder of Urban Studio, drew a map 20 years ago with a big green sword that connected lots of the places in our city from east to west, and it followed the railroad, the abandoned areas of the railroad reservation, which was our founding place.
Well now, even though we have 60 something trains a day still going through there through the heart of our city, there are swords of possibility that lay vacant and dormant.
And, the idea that that could become a green link that pulled together our entire community is now being realized.
I mean, it's so wonderful to see the impact that we've had with Railroad Park and the Barons coming downtown, but that is an anchor that then led the trail system, which is just a block from here began to thread together neighborhoods and communities across our city.
It is so wildly successful.
There are hundreds of people that pass my front door every day.
They're walking, they're jogging, they have baby strollers, they have dogs, they're in groups.
It's the grandmamas, and it's the families coming out together.
In fact, it's so wonderful to see Frank's table.
Frank Stitt has a commemorative table at the eastern end of Rotary Trail.
And, you'll see people gathered there for lunch, and you'll see people with their kids having a picnic.
- The goal, and I hope you know, to continue the work of building this central park for Birmingham that will reach really from I-65 all the way to Sloss Furnaces and beyond.
- We all feel this rootedness in Birmingham, because we've been here for five generations, and I think that we all are so grateful to Colonel Sloss and what he started here.
So we, my sisters and I feel a responsibility, certainly my mother more than anyone, felt that making Birmingham a better place was part of her mission in life.
My father never really spoke about Sloss Furnace, the furnaces, he never gave us any sense of ownership or pride about that place, which I think was helpful, because I think you can begin to identify like we have some ownership of that.
That was Colonel Sloss.
That was years ago.
That was another generation and another brilliant man who cared.
And, we have to do our part now to make Birmingham a better place.
- We are now a city on the move.
Well, we are now mobilizing all of the things that we learned as a city of opportunity and a city of promise to catapult us into a place where the world takes note and says, we are a model city for science, development and entrepreneurship.
- Currently, in Birmingham, I feel like we are trying to embrace our past and try and continue to make ourselves better.
I'm so hopeful, and I love this city, and it's beautiful and the quality of life is so great.
People come here and they think we're backwards, and we're all racist.
And, I think that they find that we have a broken past and we're trying to make that right and we are kind.
And, there's gentility and hospitality here.
- I am so excited about the possibility of more folks recognizing who we are, what we offer them, and as a community for their families, and having them come to Birmingham.
- And, I believe that it's our ability to give that torch to the next generation and to empower them with the resources and the wisdom needed to lead that's going to continue to allow us to become a magical place the world over.
- Well, I think it's the city.
You know, I think we are lucky to have been part of that, but I think there's something in the juice of the city that makes it really special.
And, what has inspired me is how can I help grow the city?
You know, and so many of my friends and so many of my, you know, other people I know in the community.
So, I think it's the city.
I think the city owns us, actually.
It's the inspiration.
- Compared to most cities, Birmingham is a new city.
And, I know a number of years ago there was the thought of, Oh, well we don't make iron and steel there anymore, so let's clear that off and do something else.
But, fortunately there was some historic preservationist people here in town who said, "No, wait."
Nothing explains the growth and the history of Birmingham better than these great monoliths that represent what really made Birmingham, Birmingham.
- Today Sloss is the only 20th century blast furnace in the United States.
30% of our visitors are international.
And, we'd like to say we're still pouring iron today, because we have a world renowned metal arts program.
They make everything from unique, individual products, sculptures to the trophies at Talladega.
And, we're very blessed to have that particular aspect of Sloss.
It is our future, as is just letting the people of Birmingham know, if not for your ancestors, there would be no Birmingham.
- From a sense of community, a sense of positivity, a sense of growth.
And, the fact that the space is designated as a national monument takes you to the word treasure.
I just see the future for where it is today, just continuing to blossom for us and have meaning and impact.
- Sloss Furnace got its historic landmark the year I was born 1981, and so I'm right in line with the preservation of Sloss.
And, for the last 40 plus years now, I think the city of Birmingham, the Sloss family and others have done everything they can to keep this historical landmark in everybody's face and everybody's mind, not only preserving that history, but finding a way to utilize the space in modern time.
- We also see a future as a museum, too.
One that creates experiences that young families can enjoy to provide real storytelling about the birthplace of Birmingham.
And, in order to achieve those things, preservation are gonna be incredibly important as is the creation of an endowment.
To consistently work on the needs to preserve that site, it's among the board's highest priorities so that it could be experienced for generations to come.
- We will keep going, and we will keep growing, and we will keep investing in as well as supporting Sloss, because it means so much to the city of Birmingham and the people of Birmingham.
- When people drive into Birmingham for the first time Sloss Furnace is oftentimes the first thing that they see or they notice, and they say, "Oh, what's that?"
And, it really is a symbol of the way that Birmingham exploded in growth 100 years ago.
And, the good thing is that there's still a Sloss generation that continues to grow and develop beyond the manufacturer of steel and iron.
- As far as the future of the Sloss Furnace, you know, we've lost my parents, which is heartbreaking.
It was time.
They were both up in their 90s.
They've lived full, good lives.
They left a great legacy in their daughters, and the, you know, people live on in other people.
So, the impact that they had in the community was great.
- You know, it's funny, I remember a conversation with Pete once, and he said, "You know, Cathy loves to give money away."
He said, "And, I'm still not sure she's learned that you have to make money before you give it away."
I think that the history of the Sloss family is, one of finding this balance between I want to more than make a living.
I wanna prosper, I want to do well, but I want to do that in a way that helps my community to prosper.
And, I think they've achieved that.
- I would say the three of us are powerhouses, and we're creative.
We have an amazing amount of energy that came from my mom.
We have the means and the connections to impact change, and we're about doing it.
I think that's the future of the Sloss family.
We have offspring, and I hope my kids will have children.
Cathy's son has two little ones, and I guess we turn it over to the next generation.
And so, that's also in the makes, in the works.
- I will work in Birmingham until I die, I think.
My son is working with me now.
So, interestingly I'd like for the work of our family to continue in this city.
Birmingham is one of the really great cities in this country.
I think we have a lot of good work to do on equity and health and you know, again, these guiding principles that mean so much in terms of how you build a really strong community.
And, a lot of that work is happening in Birmingham now across the city.
So, I plan to just still be here and keep working until the end and trying to make it more beautiful and work better, so everybody has a place here.
- We can't believe that the World Games are finally here.
It's been an incredible week.
It's hot, but the weather has been wonderful.
I'm at Sloss.
The mayor has been here.
I've been going to rock climbing from people from all over the world.
And, parkour has also been going on here at Sloss.
So, I've been able to go all over the city.
But, we're particularly proud of the work that's been going on at Sloss Furnaces.
- Sloss Furnace showed up and showed out.
One of my favorite things growing up as a kid in the 80s was break dancing.
Sloss was the backdrop for something so cool that will actually be in the Olympics in 2024.
- I think that events like this prove that anything is possible.
And, I think the more we demonstrate that we can work together as a community, we will have succeeded.
- I think considering Sloss not only being a part of the background, but I would say more so foundation of the building of Birmingham, there is so much to be thankful for as it relates to what Sloss produced, and the accelerated growth that was created because of Sloss that allowed Birmingham to become the Magic City.
We need to honor that.
We need to respect that.
We need to cherish it, but we also need to embrace the present and the future related to Sloss too, because that out-sized role in creating Birmingham, it will also play, I believe in out-sized role in the continued growth of Birmingham.
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