Sadler Plantation House - McCalla, Alabama

One of the best preserved historic homes of its nature in Alabama, the Sadler Plantation House is located in the community of McCalla on the outskirts of Birmingham.

Located just up Eastern Valley Road from Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park, the Sadler House dates back to the days when early settlers first moved into the area following the Treaty of Fort Jackson that took hundreds of thousands of acres from the Creek Nation.

The original core of the house was a square "single pen" log cabin built somewhere between 1817 and 1820 by John Loveless. Tradition holds that he selected the site for his home because it was an old Indian field that had already been cleared. Loveless died within a few years of building the cabin and his widow sold the farm to Isaac Wellington Sadler.

Using the original cabin as the frame for one side of the house, Sadler launched a major expansion project during the 1830s that resulted in the two-story, "dog trot" style house that is visible today. "Dog trots" were so named because they were open hallways that dogs often trotted through, but they also offered cool breezes that helped cool homes.

The Sadler Plantation House is now owned by the West Jefferson County Historical Society, which maintains it in beautiful condition. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/sadlerhouse.

Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park - Birmingham, Alabama

Located just minutes from downtown Birmingham, Alabama's Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park is a major Civil War landmark.

Covering 1,500 acres of beautiful rolling country, the park centers around historic ironworks that once produced up to 22 tons of iron per day for the Confederate war effort. Tannehill iron was used to manufacture everything from cannon and artillery projectiles to cookware for the Southern military.

The massive furnaces at Tannehill were built using slave labor between 1859 and 1863. An estimated 500 workers lived on-site, operating the charcoal fueled furnaces to produce iron from locally mined ore. The product of the operation was shipped by wagon to Montevallo and from there by rail to the massive Confederate industrial complex at Selma.

The Tannehill furnaces operated until just weeks before the end of the war. On March 31, 1865, the ironwarks was seized by 3 companies of the 8th Iowa Cavalry as part of General James H. Wilson's raid through Alabama and Georgia. The wooden structures of the ironworks were burned and the massive stone furnaces damaged.

Now beautifully restored, the Tannehill furnaces are the historical centerpiece of a massive park that also preserves other historical structures and offers a wide array of recreational opportunities including cabins, campgrounds, a miniature train, picnic areas, hiking trails and more. To learn more, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com/tannehill.