Elyton Land Company
Papers
AR 0024, 025, 529

Overview

The Elyton Land Company was the real estate company that founded the city of Birmingham. The Elyton Land Company was established January 26, 1871. The first president of the company was Col. James R. Powell. Powell directed the purchase of land on which to build a city east of Elyton, then the county seat of Jefferson County, where the South & North Alabama Railroad and the Alabama & Chattanooga Railroad were to cross. The company determined that the new city would be called Birmingham, and engineers began to lay out the blocks and lot of the new city while the Elyton Land Company began promoting Birmingham as the new industrial city of the South.

Scope and Content

This collection includes minute books for 1870 to 1900, the original survey of the site of the City of Birmingham conducted by W.P. Barker (in which the streets, avenues and blocks were laid out), deed records, bond books, one letter press book containing copies of the company's outgoing correspondence for the 1871 to 1872 year, rental and lease records, cash books, ledgers, journals, and other financial records.



Sources

Caldwell, Henry Martin. History of the Elyton Land Company and Birmingham, Alabama. 1892 Monograph. Birmingham Public Library Digital Collections