Brierfield IRONWORKS

The Brierfield Furnace site was developed in 1861 by Caswell Campbell Huckabee, a Greensboro planter, and Jonathan Newton Smith, a Bibb County planter, on land purchased from Jesse Mahan near the Little Cahaba River, a tributary of the Cahaba. The endeavor was initially known as the Bibb County Iron Company, with Huckabee providing most of the capital and slave labor for construction. Richard Fell was employed to build a 36-foot (11 m) high stone blast furnace and, in 1862, a rolling mill. The company produced cast iron initially, but soon changed over to the more lucrative production of wrought iron. The iron was used to produce farm implements.

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In the years following the closure the site lay abandoned. During the World War II era thousands of bricks were scavenged from the site. In 1976 the Bibb County Commission, at the urging of the Bibb County Historical Society, created a park containing 45 acres. This initial effort has evolved over the years into what is now the Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park.