The Cahaba Coal Mining Company was an American coal mining company that operated in the Cahaba Basin of central Alabama from 1883 to 1892. Founded by Truman H. Aldrich and Cornelius Cadle, the company developed mines in Bibb County and built the company town of Blocton (near present-day West Blocton). At its peak the company controlled over 1.2 million acres of coal lands and operated 467 beehive coke ovens, making it the largest supplier of coal and coke for the Alabama iron industry. The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) purchased the company in 1892.
Truman H. Aldrich, a mining engineer who had previously managed the Pratt Coal and Coke Company mines, resigned from Pratt in 1881 and began acquiring coal lands in northern Bibb County. In 1883, Aldrich and Cornelius Cadle incorporated the Cahaba Coal Mining Company with an initial capitalization of $1 million, divided into 10,000 shares at $100 each. The board of directors included Aldrich, Cadle, W. S. Gurnee of New York, and Samuel Noble and A. L. Tyler of Anniston. Aldrich was president and treasurer; Cadle was vice president and general manager.
Cadle, born May 22, 1836, in New York City, had been raised in Muscatine, Iowa. He served with the 11th Iowa Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War and was wounded during the Vicksburg campaign. After the war he worked with the Freedmen's Bureau before entering banking in Selma.
The company built an eight-mile railroad spur from Woodstock into the Bibb County wilderness to reach underground coal seams. The company town of Blocton grew around the mine site; Aldrich named it after seeing a block of coal weighing nearly a ton pulled from the ground. First coal was shipped in the spring of 1884. By summer the company employed 800 men working seven mines on the Woodstock and Underwood seams.
Peter B. Thomas was mine superintendent, and Lewis Minor of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, oversaw 467 beehive coke ovens that produced 600 tons of coke daily. The company controlled more than 12,000 acres across Jefferson, Shelby, and Bibb counties, with total holdings eventually reaching 1,238,031 acres. Armes described it as "the best and largest area of good coal land ever gotten together in the State" and called the company "the greatest coal company of that period in the South."
By 1890, Blocton had approximately 3,600 residents. West Blocton, a separate settlement nearby, was incorporated in 1901.
In 1888, Aldrich formed the Export Coal Company, which shipped the first Alabama coal to the West Indies, Mexico, and South and Central America. The export operation ran two ocean-going tugs, six barges, two schooners, and two steamships. By 1890 the company exported approximately 50,000 tons of coal annually. That same year, Aldrich formed the Excelsior Coal Mine Company, which was later consolidated with the Cahaba company.
In 1890, the United Mine Workers of America organized a strike at the Blocton mines. The company broke the strike by hiring African American replacement workers. The coal camps drew immigrant miners from Italy, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, and the area earned a reputation for lawlessness during the boom years.
In 1892, Aldrich sold the combined Cahaba and Excelsior coal operations to the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company. TCI doubled its capital stock and land holdings through the acquisition. Cadle continued to serve as vice president and general manager under TCI until the operations were fully consolidated. TCI itself was acquired by U.S. Steel in 1907.
The Blocton Coke Ovens, remnants of the company's 467 beehive ovens, are preserved as a park in West Blocton. A historical marker erected in 1998 by the West Blocton Improvement Committee and the Alabama Historic Ironworks Commission marks the site. The Blocton Italian Catholic Cemetery, associated with the Italian miners who worked in the company's mines, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Hoole Special Collections at the University of Alabama holds the company's meeting minutes and other corporate records.