Paschal Green Shook

• September 20th, 2021

Paschal Green Shook was born into the iron business, and over his lifetime made great contributions to the life and progress of Alabama.

Shook began his career with the Southern Iron Company of Chattanooga, a firm organized by his father. Two years later, the Tennessee company moved its headquarters to Birmingham, and Shook came as a stenographer to the firm’s general manager. Shook’s first major assignment came in 1896 when TCI’s president asked him to investigate the prospect of making steel in Birmingham. Shook’s perceptive report recommended open-hearth furnaces for steel production. TCI organized the Alabama Steel and Shipbuilding Company to handle plant construction and ensuing steel production. As secretary and treasurer of the new subsidiary, Shook assisted his father in the building of the plant, and upon its completion, Shook became assistant general superintendent of the operating facility. Several years later the company was bought and Shook lost his position. Shook and John F. Fletcher decided to form their own business, Shook and Fletcher Supply. In 1903, Shook married, Caroline Belle Sharpe. When Shook’s brother entered the business, the company expanded into mining operations, and this expansion coincided with World War I and increased demand for iron products. Shook was also a major civic benefactor. He served on the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, the Birmingham Community Chest, the Birmingham Chapter of the American Red Cross, and the Jefferson County Tuberculosis Sanitarium. Both Birmingham Southern College and Howard College awarded him honorary degrees in 1946.

Daniel Pratt

• September 17th, 2021

Daniel Pratt helped provide cotton gins for Alabama’s predominant antebellum economic activity, founded Alabama’s most prominent early industrial town, and helped lay the foundation for postbellum development in manufacturing and railroad transportation.

In 1819, Pratt left his home state of New Hampshire and traveled to Savannah, where he worked for a year as a carpenter. In 1827, Pratt returned to New Hampshire for a visit and met and married Ester Ticknor. In 1831, Pratt realized the advantage of taking cotton gin manufacturing to fresher cotton fields and Pratt and his wife left for Alabama. In 1938, Pratt purchased land on Autauga Creek. It was on this land that Pratt would realize a lifelong goal:  the building of a town, Prattville, as the site for his enterprises. He established a cotton gin factory, a cotton mill, a grist mill, a woolen mill, and a foundry, which combined, employed more than 200 people. By the late 1800s, Pratt’s gin business had grown so large that he contracted with mercantile firms in six strategically located cities to sell his gins. Pratt had become the largest cotton gin manufacturer in the world. At the end of the Civil War, Pratt shifted his reliance upon a cotton economy to the new industrial order:  iron and railroad transportation. In 1949, the Alabama Newcomen Society honored Pratt posthumously as “Alabama’s First Industrialist.”

James Craig Smith

• September 17th, 2021

James Craig Smith brought glamour to the textile industry by becoming a prominent textile manufacturer, a fearless industry spokesman, an outstanding civic leader, and an unselfish educational benefactor.

Smith attended Gulf Coast Military Academy. In 1925, he graduated from Virginia Military Institute with a Bachelor of Arts degree. His first job at Avondale Mills, which his grandfather was president of, was to weigh cotton. Soon after Smith joined Avondale, he married Mary Page Thompson. Smith’s ability, business acumen, and incisive mind led him to become president of Avondale Mills in 1951. As president, Smith was the corporation’s spokesman for modernization. He constantly urged the improvement of mills and argued for the purchase of new machines. Perhaps Smith’s most lasting contribution to Avondale was the Zero Defects Program, which urged employees to take pledges to do their jobs right the first time. Smith became a spokesman for the textile industry. He served as president of the Alabama Textile Manufacturers Association, president of the National Cotton Council, and president of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute. Under Smith’s leadership, Avondale became the world’s largest producer of ticking and cotton-carded and combed knitting yarns. Smith was an outstanding civic leader, serving as a director and past president of the Alabama Chamber of Commerce; a trustee and past chairman of the Eye Foundation; a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of Commerce and Business Administration; and a director and past president of the Alabama Safety Council.

John Cecil Persons

• September 16th, 2021

A Birmingham News editorial stated, “Rare indeed is the man who serves so outstandingly in so many ways. John C. Persons was such a man.”

Persons enrolled in The University of Alabama Law School, and after graduation worked for Jones and Penick law firm. After a lengthy courtship, Persons married Elonia Hutchinson and moved to Columbus, Miss. Hoping to continue his law career, Persons moved back to Tuscaloosa in 1915 to establish a law practice. Instead, he bought an interest in a lumber company and soon controlled three others. Persons rebuilt his financial base after World War I by incorporating two new lumber companies. After a series of mergers, Persons served as president of American Traders National Bank. Under Persons’ leadership, the bank survived the Great Depression by merging with First National Bank. When Persons returned after World War II, he was soon promoted to chief executive officer and guided the bank for another decade of growth. Persons served as a Captain in the Army during World War I, earning the Distinguished Service Cross, and as a Major General in World War II, earning the Distinguished Service Medal for his service in the South Pacific. Persons served his community and its youth through affiliations with the Birmingham Board of Education, Junior Achievement, Boys’ Club, American Legion, and Red Cross. Persons served in a professional capacity in the Birmingham Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank and the Advisory Board of the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington.

Ben E. May

• September 9th, 2021

Although few knew the magnitude of his endeavors, Ben E. May’s contributions are now recognized by the giants of the medical field.

Ben E. May, a Mobile businessman, contributed more to the eradication of suffering and disease than many scientists. At the age of 15, he worked in a sawmill where he learned about the enterprise in which he would make his fortune. After one year of formal higher education at the Georgia Institute of Technology, he moved to Mobile. May quickly recognized the value of timber property and began acquiring cut-over lands with the idea of reforesting them. May’s fortune was made during World War I as he supplied England with much-needed timber for the war effort. May took the money he made from this venture and invested it inland in southwest Alabama, Florida, and California. He founded and became president of the Gulf Lumber Company in Mobile in 1940 and served as vice-president of Blackwell Nurseries. He also served as director of the First National Bank of Mobile and Morrison’s Cafeteria. May’s real success in life came from his intense desire to use his wealth to assist others. May supported the Weizmann Institute; Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin; Dr. Paul Dudley White, renowned cardiologist; and Dr. Charles B. Huggins, director of cancer research at the University of Chicago. May was also instrumental in establishing the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham.

Mildred Westervelt Warner

• September 9th, 2021

Mildred Westervelt Warner, the only woman president of a major integrated paper company, led Gulf States Paper Corporation for over 20 years.

She began her career with EZ Opener Bag Company of Illinois and moved to Alabama in 1928 when Gulf States Paper Corporation (EZ’s successor company) was incorporated. She became executive vice-president at that time. In 1938, she became president and served in that position until 1957.

Her sensational career in the paper industry is well known to industrialists throughout the nation. She was, indeed, a pioneer. Long before the rise of women to executive positions became a public issue, she proved that the roles of homemaker and mother, community worker, and industrial executive are compatible.

Mrs. Warner achieved much as an executive leader. She created a professional forestry organization to handle the forestry affairs of Gulf States. In 1948, she guided the development of a program in which company foresters advised private Alabama landowners in developing sound forestry conservation practices. In 1953, she established the Westervelt Game Preserve, and in 1956, she was instrumental in employing the first corporate specialist in forest game management in the South. This specialist advised in the development of an overall game management program, which is now widely copied.

In 1948, Mrs. Warner directed the expansion of the Tuscaloosa plant, almost doubling plant capacity. She saw the need to expand the company’s limited product line. In the early 1950’s she developed the mill at Demopolis, which marked the first installation in the paper industry of a continuous digester for making highly bleached market pulp.

After her retirement as president in 1957, she served Gulf States for two years as Chairman of the Board. In her retirement, Mrs. Warner devoted her energies to philanthropy. Churches, educational institutions, libraries, orphanages, YMCAs, and scouting were among those who benefited from her generosity.

The University of Alabama awarded Mildred Westervelt Warner an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1956. She was awarded the First Citizenship Award of the Tuscaloosa Civitan Club and the Woman of Achievement Award of the Tuscaloosa Business and Professional Women’s Club. Mildred Westervelt Warner received many honors during her lifetime. Her memories are a statewide program of forest conservation and a thriving company providing thousands of jobs.

Biographical information provided by Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame.

Edward Aubert Roberts

• September 9th, 2021

Edward Aubert Roberts, a quiet force that shaped the city of Mobile, served not only Alabama, but the nation, with a modest spirit, never seeking recognition or reward.

Ed Roberts was the first employee of Waterman Steamship Corporation in Mobile, which was formed to cultivate opportunities for steamship navigation after World War I. Roberts, a Mobile native, attended University Military School and Auburn Polytechnic Institute, prior to becoming Waterman’s chief assistant. On the $125 a month salary of a cargo clerk, Roberts began his career, and his efficiency won him steady promotions that led to becoming president of the company in 1936. During World War II, Roberts headed the largest privately owned steamship line in the nation, operating a fleet of 125 ships. Roberts personally served as an advisor to the director-general of the War Shipping Administration, a position for which he was awarded a Certificate of Merit from President Harry S. Truman. After the war, Roberts served without pay to develop a multi-million-dollar post-war expansion program. In recognition of his services, the Mobile Civitan Club named him the first recipient of its Man-of-the-Year Award in 1948. Roberts also served as a member of the Business Advisory Council of the U.S. Department of Commerce. He also founded another business empire, Southern Industries, which under Roberts’ leadership grew from $1.9 million in total assets in 1946 to more than $28 million in 1964.

Samuel Noble

• September 9th, 2021

Samuel Noble was the founder of Anniston, Alabama, which he envisioned as “the model city of the South.”

He was an iron­ master and entrepreneur who helped Alabama’s recovery after the War Between the States by building this industrial base in Northeast Alabama.

The son of James and Jennifer (Ward) Noble, he was born in Cornwall, England, on November 22, 1834, but grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, where his family had settled after emigrating in 1837. His father, an ironmaster, worked for a railroad until he could build a foundry.

Samuel Noble and his brother grew up in an atmosphere of furnace and forge. Young Samuel began learning his father’s craft at an early age by working in the foundry during school vacations. According to reports, he was always energetic. As a teenager, he was “full of both fun and work.” He belonged to the Reading Hose Fire Company, to a literary and debating group called the “Washington Club,” and a social dancing club. He also read law books and was interested in politics. During his years in Reading, Samuel Noble made many friends and contacts which proved useful to the family’s business in later years.

In 1855, when Samuel Noble was 21, the Nobles moved to Rome, Georgia, where they established James Noble and Sons. The Noble Ironworks soon became the largest of its kind south of the Tredegar Works in Richmond, Virginia. The enterprise included a foundry, rolling mill, nail factory, and stove and hollow wire factory, capable of making a variety of products

– from steam engines to boilers to iron bridges to mine equipment. One of the most famous products was the first railroad locomotive manufactured South of Richmond.

When the War Between the States began, the company obtained government contracts to produce iron products – such as cannons, cannon carriers, and caissons for the Confederate Army. The company experienced a setback when the uninsured carriage house and rifle factory in Rome were destroyed by fire, but about the same time obtained another government con­tract to build a new furnace. The result was Cornwall Furnace in Cherokee County, Alabama.

Samuel Noble took an active part in the Cornwall project, first as an overseer of the construction of the furnace and then as superintendent of its operation. He frequently made the 48-mile journey from the furnace site and back in one day – a strenuous trip in the 1860s.

Both the ironworks in Rome and the Cornwall Furnace were destroyed by Federal forces in 1864.

Samuel Noble had early emerged as the leader and spokesman of the family, perhaps because he was gifted with a hard, keen sense and practical energy. After the war, he secured capital from the North not only to rebuild the ironworks in Rome but also to buy extensive brownore properties and a large acreage of yellow pine for charcoal in Calhoun County, Alabama.

Samuel Noble traveled a great deal – raising capital or marketing the products of the Noble Iron Works. On a trip to Charleston, South Carolina, he met General Daniel Tyler, a capitalist from New York. Samuel Noble’s enthusiasm about the potential of the Alabama ore fields impressed General Tyler so much that he went with Noble to explore them. The result of this exploration was the formation of the Woodstock Iron Company in 1872, with General Tyler’s son Alfred as president and Samuel Noble as general manager.

By April 1873, the company had built and lit a forty-ton blast furnace (called No. 1 Furnace), and thus a new Alabama industry was born. The town of Anniston – named for General Tyler’s wife Annie – was established that same year.

No. 1 Furnace produced a high quality of carwheel iron which found a ready market in the North. The steady demand for this iron enabled the Woodstock Iron Company to survive the panic and depression of the 1870s. By 1879 the company was able to construct Furnace No. 2 and by 1880 to enlarge No. 1.

Anniston started in 1873 as a “company town” in a clearing in the woods – but not an ordinary one. Samuel Noble set out to make a model city. He laid out streets and parks. He provided lots for churches. He erected schools. The careful planning attracted wide attention.

In the 1880s Anniston grew by leaps and bounds, especially after 1883 when the Woodstock Company (which had retained possession of all property) formally opened the town to the public and encouraged new industries. Within fifteen years, Anniston had attracted over $11 million in capital investments.

Samuel Noble played a large part in the economic development of Anniston. He and his associates organized the Clifton Iron Company at Ironaton and built two 40-ton charcoal furnaces and also enlarged an older one called Jenifer. He acquired coal companies and constructed two 200-ton coke furnaces to make pig iron for the manufacture of cast iron pipe – a pioneer enterprise embodied in the Anniston Pipe Works Company organized in 1887. He was also instrumental in the construction of a cotton mill with 12,000 spindles.

Besides providing employment through industrial expansion, Samuel Noble enhanced community life by opening the Anniston Inn, which became a gathering place for both residents and visitors. He also launched the town’s first newspaper, The Hot Blast. He and General Tyler built the Grace Episcopal Church in Anniston.

Samuel Noble was known in the city he founded as a man who gave generously to every cause, race, and sect, and as one who earned the loyalty of his friends and employees. He was once described as a man who “put as much labor on his mental and physical forces in one hour as most men do in a year.”

Samuel Noble died suddenly on August 14, 1888, at age 53. This industrial pioneer had served Alabama well. He had established the foundations of a modern city and an industrial base in Northeast Alabama during the most difficult economic periods in the state’s history.

Source of biographical information: Grace Hooten Gates, The Model City of the New South: Anniston, Alabama, 1872 – 1900, Huntsville, AL: The Strode Publishers, Inc., 1978.

Heman E. Drummond

• August 24th, 2021

Those who knew Heman Drummond described him as an unusual person. He was a miner, of course. But he was also an oil driller, an innovator, and a risk-taker. He was a man who dreamed hard and worked hard. He was an honest and compassionate man who inspired others to work with him.

In 1935, Heman Edward Drummond founded the H. E. Drummond Coal Company when he began to develop a small drift mine in an area between Empire and Sumiton, Alabama ­ called Drummond Hollow – on land homesteaded by his mother. On April 5, 1956 – just twenty-one years later – he died of heart failure, but he had built a strong foundation for what has become one of Alabama’s major businesses. He did not see the fulfillment of his dreams, but under the leadership of his five sons, Drummond Company, Inc. has become one of the largest privately held firms in Alabama and a prominent leader in America’s coal industry. Drummond Company, Inc. today employs 3,300 people and conducts business throughout the world.

Heman Edward Drummond was born in Walker County, Alabama (near Sipsey) on August 8, 1905, the son of Dr. Isaac Freeman Drummond (a country dentist and school teach­ er) and Ida (Phillips) Drummond. In the late twenties and early thirties, young Heman worked for the Debardelaben Coal Corporation, first as a machine cutter and then as a foreman.

In 1935, when he was thirty years old, he decided to go out on his own. He developed the small drift mine in Drummond Hollow, where daily production averaged about fifty tons. After he bought a coal-cutting machine in 1937, production increased to about 100 tons per day. The coal was loaded onto small rail cars, pulled to the mine mouth by mules, and then hand-loaded onto the two trucks he owned. Customers would come and pick up their domestic coal, which sold for $2.60 a ton, and coal was also sold to railroads.

Money was scarce in the 1930s and people de­ pended on each other to get by. (The saying was that people mined coal, but farmed for a living). Since there were practically no coal sales in the summer, Heman Drummond stockpiled coal in Drummond Hollow and depended on credit to keep the mine operating.

Testimony of these hard times is a loan note executed in 1943 by “Mr. Heman,” as he liked to be known. To secure a three-month bank loan of $300, he mortgaged three mules – described in the note by color, age, and weight, and one by name: “Tobe.” Because of his good name and reputation for honesty, Heman Drummond managed to get the help he needed. Out of respect for him banks – and even his competitors – provided needed resources.

In 1942, after acquiring land on the Sipsey River close to Burton Bend, Heman Drummond opened his first strip mine, in which he used a rented ¾ yard link-belt dragline. Making money as a small strip miner wasn’t any easier than it was as a small underground miner, but slowly

1. E. Drummond Coal Company began to prosper. One reason was that Heman Drummond had the foresight to buy land whenever he could scrape the money together, thus enabling the company to expand operations.

Some people looked askance at the land buying Heman Drummond did because they wondered how he could support his family. He and his wife (nee Elza Eliza Stewart, whom he married in 1928) had seven children – five sons and two daughters. But those who knew him well always realized that he thought of his family first.

Mining companies have many mines in different locations today, but at that time the Drummond family surface-mined one location at a time. They mined near the Sipsey River, then in Sumiton, then went back to Drummond Hollow, then to Arkadelphia.

During World War II, Drummond and his family kept the mines operating in spite of the lack of manpower and various material shortages. The Drummonds became self-made mechanics, making parts and repairing machinery themselves. Only one tractor could be acquired during the war.

By 1948, the Drummond mining operation had graduated from the ¾ yard shovel to a 1 ¼ yard, 1928 model, Northwest and a 2½ yard, 2000 Manitowoc.

Heman Drummond was a risk-taker in many ways. In addition to his coal mining ventures, he was engaged in oil and gas exploration in North Alabama. He was successful in locating natural gas, but not in commercial quantities. During his short lifetime, Heman Drummond accomplished a great deal. He founded a company and directed its growth and progress during two decades that included part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the first post-war decade. He left his sons a rich heritage:

• A successful business in which they had been well trained and were well equipped to operate.
• Land holdings that would provide coal reserves for years to come.
• Valuable lessons in perseverance, hard work, business know-how, and concern for employees and fellow citizens.

As one of “Mr. Heman’s” friends once said, “Heman was one of the finest men I have ever known, and a true friend… I would give anything if he had lived to see his boys’ success… He would have been so proud.”

Heman Drummond was known throughout Walker County as a warmhearted, generous man who could always be depended on to come to the aid of individuals in need, quickly and without fanfare.

Long hours and hard work at the helm of a small but growing business occupied Heman Drummond’s days fully. His business skills were the product of inborn abilities and broad experience. With great foresight and honest effort, he forged his dreams into the beginnings of today’s Drummond Company.

Sources of biographical information: Contour, Drummond Company employee publication, Vol.2, No.4, Winter1978-79; Wayne Flynt. Mine, Mill, and Microchip: A Chronicle of Alabama Enterprise. Northridge, California: Windsor Publications, Inc., 1987.