Truman H. Aldrich

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Truman Heminway Aldrich (born October 17, 1848 in Palmyra, New York, died April 28, 1932 in Birmingham, Alabama) was a civil engineer, a mining company executive, and briefly served in the United States House of Representatives and as Postmaster of Birmingham.

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[edit] Early life and education

Aldrich was born in Palmyra and suffered from poor health as a young boy. He attended public schools and a military academy at Westchester, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. He graduated in 1869 with a degree in mining and civil engineering and took a job with the railroads in New York and New Jersey. In 1870 he married Anna Morrison of Newark.

[edit] Alabama coalfield development

In 1872, Aldrich became a partner in a banking enterprise in Selma, Alabama. While in the region he investigated the existing coal-mining operations at Montevallo and around the Cahaba coalfield. The next year he secured a lease on the Montevallo coal mines and set to work extracting coal that summer. He purchased the mines outright in 1875 and named the surrounding settlement Aldrich, leasing the operation to his younger brother William while he prospected for new seams. He incorporated the Jefferson Coal Company in the town of Morris, from which he supplied fuel for the first successful coke-fired furnace in the Birmingham District, helping to establish the area as a center of iron and steel production.

In 1881 Aldrich founded Cahaba Coal Company in Bibb County. After building a railraod connector, the company laid out a "model community" on the bank of Caffee Creek. After seeing a "ton block" of coal brought from the mine, Aldrich named the town Blocton. Blocton coal earned a reputation as an efficient fuel for steam locomotives and the profitable company embarked on a period of great expansion. Aldrich advertised widely for miners who arrived from all over the United States, as well as Western and Central Europe. By the summer of 1890 over 3,600 people were residents of Blocton and products from the companies mines and overs was being sold to customers throughout the Southeast and parts of Latin America.

In addition to his many business interests, Aldrich pursued his lifelong fascination with paleontology, and collected thousands of fossils from his mining and surveying operations. He published the first Alabama State Bulletin on the state's fossil record with nine plates of illustrations he had recorded. Aldrich also supplied information on the coal fields he had surveyed to John Witherspoon Dubose and to Squire's "Report on the Cahaba Coal Field" published by the Geological Survey of Alabama in 1890.

[edit] Later career

In 1890 Aldrich faced a major labor strike, initiated by the United Mine Workers of America. He defeated this strike by hiring, for the first time, African Americans to operate the mine. In 1892 Aldrich sold the combined Cahaba and Excelsior Coal Company to the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. Aldrich became a second vice-president and general manager for TCI. As an executive of that company he secured investments that helped TCI survive the depression of 1893, including a contribution of grain and flour from B. B. Comer. He moved his residence from Blocton to Birmingham.

In 1896 Aldrich secured a nomination to the 54th United States Congress by contesting the election of Oscar W. Underwood. He served for less than a year before being defeated by Underwood in the 1896 election. He returned to the coal business as president of the Cahaba Southern Mining Company which operated mines at Hargrove in Bibb County. In 1899 be became a vice-president of the Birmingham Machinery and Foundry Company and, two years later, was named the acting president of the Sloss-Sheffield Steel & Iron Company. He also opened the Virginia mines, which were the site of a tragic explosion in 1905 that killed over 100 miners.

In 1902 Aldrich joined his son in a prospecting venture in Tallapoosa County called the Hillabee Gold Company. In 1905 he bought the Montevallo Mining Company back and served until 1910 as its president. In 1911 President William Howard Taft appointed him Postmaster of Birmingham.

Aldrich's continued research into the area's paleontology earned him wide esteem and he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Alabama, which received his collection of over 20,000 fossil specimens at the State Museum of Natural History. He died in 1932 at the age of 83, and is buried at Birmingham's Elmwood Cemetery.

[edit] Publications

  • Aldrich, Truman H. (1895) Contested election case of T. H. Aldrich v. Oscar W. Underwood. Washington: Government Printing Office
  • Aldrich, Truman H. (1931) Description of a Few Alabama Eocene Species and Remarks on Varieties. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama
  • Aldrich, Truman H. and Walter B. Jones. (1930) Footprints from the Coal Measures of Alabama. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama

[edit] References

  • Armes, Ethel. (1910) The Story of Coal and Iron in Alabama. Birmingham: Chamber of Commerce.
  • Emfinger, Henry A. (No date) The Story of my Hometown, Aldrich, Alabama. Aldrich: Privately Printed.

[edit] External links

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