Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail

FAIN: ZR-256706-19

Vulcan Park Foundation (Birmingham, AL 35209-1214)
Phillip Warren Ratliff (Project Director: February 2017 to July 2024)

The Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail and a mobile app that will interpret five anchor sites as well as pathways between the sites through audio stories triggered by GPS location. The free app will also allow users to access historic photos, music, and lengthier oral histories to deepen the knowledge about Birmingham’s industrial past.

The Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail is a collaboration between five public sites in the Birmingham metropolitan area: Sloss Furnaces National Historic Landmark; Vulcan Park and Museum; Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park; Railroad Park; and Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve. Together, the five sites host 1.5 million visitors annually. Tannehill is the lead applicant and fiscal agent for this grant. Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail seeks to encourage visitors to any one of the anchor sites to visit other sites, when possible, along new corridors emerging in the Birmingham metropolitan area. The Birmingham Industrial Heritage Trail will interpret the anchor sites and the pathways in between them, to consider architecture, music, foodways, and general cultural and industrial history.