Site of Tassie Belle and Star and Cresent Iron Ore Furnaces
Rusk, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
New Birmingham was a boom town nearby in the late 1880s built around local iron ore operations. The furnaces, capable of producing 50 tons of iron daily, were named "Tassie Belle," after the wife of the town founder A. B. Bevins, and the "Star and Crescent." About 275 workmen were required to keep furnaces in continual operation. The town grew to over 3, 000 people with a business district of 15 blocks including 32 mercantile houses, an ice plant, the spacious Southern Hotel, bottling works, and an early electric power plant. The 1883 panic bankrupted the industries and killed the town.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the late 1880s the boom town of New Birmingham sprang up around two iron furnaces—the "Tassie Belle" and the "Star and Crescent"—that could pour fifty tons of iron a day. Some 275 workmen kept them running, and the town swelled past 3,000 people with hotels, an ice plant, bottling works, and an early electric plant. The financial panic of 1893 bankrupted the industry and the town died as quickly as it had risen.
Why it matters
New Birmingham embodies the volatile ambition of Gilded Age industry in the New South, when a single mineral discovery could conjure—and then erase—an entire city almost overnight.
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Related people
- · A. B. Bevins
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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