Sloss Furnaces

This place is awesome. I can’t believe you can actually go up in here and climb around. And by the way, this place is BIG. Easily, you can spend an afternoon here if your little girl or boy has an interest in anything industrial. It’s perfect safe, although a few stretches will make you nervous. Hold their hands! I enjoyed my time passing through here romping around like a kiddo. Every now and again you turn a corner and spot a lively green plant blooming inside some old block of rust. Bring your Nikon. You’ll go snap happy. Inside, don’t skip out on the introductory video. It’s only 10 minutes and it’ll give you the gist of what you need to know. Can you believe it’s free?

Sloss Furnaces is so badass. This gem in Birmingham is a National Historic Landmark, the sole 20^th century blast furnace being preserved in the US, according to the official website. I just adore meandering around and taking in all of it. I probably could be better about reading each of the educational markers, but the ones I do read contain lots of fascinating background info about the steel industry and this particular mill. It’s incredible what these guys did back then. The industrial backdrop makes for fantastic photos too. Fire up that Instagram.
Though I’ve never been to any, there are a fair number of concerts here, as well as a beer festival and a Halloween shindig. Private events are also an option; my friend went to a wedding at Sloss once, wow, rad! Also, there are classes and workshops in case you ever wanted to dabble in hot metal.
Find self-​guided tour maps and restrooms, as well as a gift shop, at the visitor center. If the gate adjacent to the center is locked, trying going further down to find an unlocked gate. For those of us who dislike crowds, you won’t find much of any on a typical day at Sloss.
For history and industry buffs, and for those who prefer free things and just plain unique attractions, Sloss is for you.

Free to visit and what a place! Just wander around with your free brochure and take as much time as you would like.
Very unique and worth the stop.

Where do I even start? Visiting Floss was definitely the most interesting and bizarre thing I did on my visit to Birmingham!
The Furnaces is a National Historic Monument just outside downtown. It is a pig iron-​producing blast furnace that was operated from 1882 to 1971. It is the only blast furnace in the U.S. to be preserved and restored for public use.
It’s free and open to the public. And you can wander around and read information about the history of the furnaces and Birmingham. It’s pretty amazing. And highly photographable — so bring your cameras!
Biggest con? Pretty unsafe. NOT a place to take kids. There is rusting iron everywhere and things that seem like they should be roped off aren’t.
One of the coolest place I’ve ever been!

You’ve seen them on Ghost Adventures, and while Zak might be full of crap, this place is full of history and lingering feelings. When I found out I was going to Sloss, I was thrilled. I’ve been wanting to see this place first hand, and there it was, rising on the horizon — 10 minutes away from my hotel.
The first thing you see is the water tower, with the big block letters declaring the name, and then the wrought iron fences. We were given a preview of what to expect, told not to climb on things and let go at will.
The place is CREEPY, even in the full daylight, there were odd things, odd sensations on the skin, etc. But the way light fell through windows and arced in dusty strands against the defunct machinery was coldly beautiful. Seeing new life of green shoots sprouting against the red brick was stunning. Wet pools of black water seemed endless, and shards of glass on a window sill seem. errie.
Is the place haunted? In my perception, yes. but that’s my own experience. I know what I felt, heard and saw, but your millage may vary.

Sloss furnace has so much history and its one of those places everyone should check out. I’ve been to a few concerts here and had a blast. This visit was cool because we got to stroll around, eat food from 35 local vendors and drink a few beers at the «breaking bread» festival. Any event that’s being held at Sloss Furnace is probably going to be a good time. If you’re in town just visiting Birmingham make Sloss part of your agenda. It’s a really cool venue!

Sloss is a great historical landmark that has been revitalized as an awesome event space. I have now been out to Sloss a few times and the historical relevance is still really cool. I would really like to go back outside of an event and explore the history side of things.
The space is large and they have an awesome indoor space with a stage at the bottom. You can see part of the old factory façade through the sides and behind the stage. At the back of this venue, you go down some stairs and there is a huge fountain fixture of old pipes in a pond. Really hard to describe. But really cool to see.
The one downfall as an event space is the parking. The traffic flow and parking arrangement is still not the most optimal. If they could work on this, it could be one of the premier outdoor venues in Bham.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sloss Furnaces but the importance of both this site and the overall production of steel in this area were highlighted many other places we went, so I wanted to learn more. This is a really unique site — a little falling apart, a bit creepy, and full of Birmingham history. No admission and the site is open to you wandering at your own pace. Major kudos for excellent use of technology, as the site has an self-​paced, self-​guided audio tour you access via cell phone. There are a number of signs/​markers around the site and you just dial into the main number, input your code and learn! (Yes, I’m a nerd.) I am not super into engineering or industry but I found the info about ore refinement interesting. I did think that this site is the perfect place for a steampunky wedding or event. Very post-​industrial.

This place was very unique. It is something that you would never see at another place. It looked like it just stopped working and frozen in time. There are tons of huge tools just sitting around. The only thing that has been changed is that safety rails have been added to certain areas.
You can go into and onto tons of areas around the facility. It is open for people to walk around freely.
We were handed a map when we walked in and I believe that they give tours, but we had a friend who had been there many times to guide us around. Apparently they have events there at night.
Awesome place to tour!

A slice of history. A piece of the past. It is a fascinating place to wander as you’ll always find something new each visit. Watching nature reclaim is always a fascinating thing. I suggest stopping in at least once whether you like ghost hunting, learning about the past, or just seeing what happens through time.

More of an industrial playground than a historical landmark, this bit of Birmingham history is fascinating, perilous, and truly beautiful.
If you’re into architecture, industrial design, photography, or you’re simply a bit of an urban spelunker, you simply MUST visit Sloss.
Sloss offers tours (see their website for more information), but I highly recommend exploring on your own. You’ll get to walk by, through, up, and even down into the spaces, including water tunnels, machine rooms, towers, and even the machines themselves. And while almost everything is open to the public, and I highly advise you to plunge down into tunnels and up rusty stairs, BE CAUTIOUS! This is not Disney World or a rubber-​padded playground. There are no safety rails or nets. If you climb up to the top of the tower/​silo– it’s at your own risk.
It’s no wonder that around Halloween, Sloss gets transformed into a giant haunted house. Even on a beautiful sunny day, it’s rusting structures are haunting. That being said, when we visited, there was a wedding set up, and it was clear that, given the right circumstances, such surroundings offer a very powerful beauty.
At the back of the «complex», for lack of a better word, is a lovely museum and the metal works school where they host a number of welding and metal-​working classes. You can even see and interact with some of the pieces out on the lawn by the field.
I’d love to revisit in hopes of finding some new tunnel or path that I missed the first time.

My wife watches all of the «Ghost Hunter» type shows and really wanted to see Sloss Furnaces. We stopped by just in time as the last tour of the day was about to start, and admission here is free. Our tour was with a local professor who did a great job of explaining how Birmingham revolved around the industry, and then explained how everything worked as we walked through the works. Apparently this is the only works that has been preserved from the time period, so it is really a unique place.

If it were up to me this would have been torn down and replaced with condos or a theme park, however, I enjoyed the video and touring the furnaces. I learned a great deal about Birmingham in the 10 min video. The guide is very knowledgeable and welcoming. Admission is free, so it is definitely worth it if you have the time.

Noël, Tony and I headed over to the Sloss Furnace National Historic Site while in Birmingham. We were too late for the final tour but I was able to walk around a get a few photos and find out information. next trip to Birmingham we are going on this amazing tour.
History:
Sloss received National Historic Landmark designation in 1981 and opened its gates in September 1983, as a museum of the City of Birmingham. Its collection consists of two 400-​ton blast furnaces and some forty other buildings.
Nothing remains of the original furnace complex. The oldest building on the site dates from 1902 and houses the eight steam-​driven «blowing-​engines» used to provide air for combustion in the furnaces. The engines themselves date from the period 1900 – 1902 and are a unique and important collection – engines such as these powered America’s Industrial Revolution. The boilers, installed in 1906 and 1914, produced steam for the site until it closed in 1970.
Between 1927 and 1931 the plant underwent a concentrated program of mechanization. Most of its major operation equipment – the blast furnaces and the charging and casting machinery-​was replaced at this time. In 1927 – 28, the two furnaces were rebuilt, enlarged, and refitted with mechanical charging equipment, doubling the plant’s production capacity.
While the site strongly reflects the changes made from 1927 – 1931, some of the technology is more current. The company built a dehumidification plant during World War II to reduce consumption of coke. Use of the system was discontinued when the war ended, but the building and equipment remain. In the late 1940s the company two slag granulators to produce the «expanded slag» needed to make structural concrete, mineral wool and other products. Finally, in 1949 and 1951 the company replaced the old blowing engines with two-​turbo blowers.
Sloss is currently the only twentieth-​century blast furnace in the U.S. being preserved and interpreted as an historic industrial site. The dramatic scale and complexity of the plant’s industrial structure, machines and tools make the Sloss collection a unique contribution to the interpretation of twentieth-​century ironmaking technology and presents a remarkable perspective on the era when America grew to world industrial dominance. At the same time, Sloss is an important reminder of the hopes and struggles of the people who worked in the industries that made some men wealthy, and Birmingham the «Magic City
TOUR INFORMATION:

A must visit if you’re in Birmingham and a glimpse into the history of the city.
It’s free to come by and wander around. Follow the arrows on the ground for a guided tour with brief stories along the way. There are also guide-​led tours as well.
I really recommend walking around by yourself though. There’s something eerie about being able to walk through the buildings, down into the basements, etc.
Also a great place to take some awesome photos. I love the fountain at the front of the furnaces. Don’t forget to check out the gift shop.

I. love. Sloss. Furnaces.
Maybe it’s because I am a sucker for Ghost Hunters and they visited Sloss in an episode. Maybe it’s because I spent a good amount of my youth dinking around in abandoned buildings and warehouses that I am not supposed to be in…
For whatever the reason, I love Sloss. While down south visiting my Alabamian boyfriend a few years back I begged him to take me here and he [begrudgingly] obliged, lol. It was the weekend before Halloween so they were getting it ready for whatever seasonal terror maze they decorate it for but when we were there it was absolutely dead (no pun intended). There was still daylight and we had the place to ourselves to roam around and it was fantastic climbing the stairs, looking through the pipes and exploring the area. I will be back. (and I WILL drag him there again, lol)

I’ve been to Sloss Furnaces many times but only for two occasions, the haunted house/​trails in October and Brewfest in the summer!
This place is full of History (google it) and looks the part. Lot’s of pipes and structures that you have no clue what they are unless you read about them. Makes for some great backdrops for picture taking, however :) Anyway, I find this to be an awesome local venue for outdoor activities. As mentioned, this serves as an amazing Halloween venue that’s well structured and put together. Not just the haunted tour itself, but the ticketing process, movies while you wait, shows, concessions etc. It all just works and makes sense.
I’m starting to find that it’s getting a tad cramped in the summer time for the Magic City Brewfest, but it’s still a good venue with a nice layout for the beer, food, potties and music! Might even catch a mist from the murky pond fountains if a good breeze comes thru ;P
All in all… this place is just cool… bottom line!

This was a pretty cool place to visit. It’s really surprising (and maybe unsafe?) that they let you have such free reign over this place.
There’s a self-​guided walking tour which involves going to designated sign posts, calling a number from your cell phone and punching in the number of the stop. Then a recorded message tells you about that particular place. I thought this was pretty cool, and other places should use this method.
It’s a cool peek back into the history of Birmingham and what life was like 100 or so years ago. But the place could use some organization. We tried to do the self-​guided tour and couldn’t find the next place on the map to go to. We ended up wandering around and listening to whatever location we came across next. There’s doesn’t seem to be much order.

The venue for Brewfest was cramped for the amount of people that showed up but that didn’t mean the hosts didn’t make the most out of the space that they had. The event ran incredibly smoothly so the space almost didn’t seem like that much of an issue.
The furnaces seem really intimidating at first when you pass by it on the freeway. As expected on horror documentaries, you think you’re voluntarily driving yourself to your own doom, but the tourist-​friendly attractions at the base of the tall, cold structure instantly become family-​friendly.

This is a very cool piece of history for Birmingham. The buildings and grounds provide for great photo and event opportunities, which happen here regularly. Concerts, festivals, photo shoots, etc. You can learn a lot about the history of the factory and city through their materials here.