L&N Cane Creek Branch (Mary Lee track)

Banner Mine camp house (James Sims photo)

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The Banner Mine is somewhat notorious due to the 1911 disaster that claimed over 100 lives, many of them convicts who had little choice about working in the mine.  This is well documented in the book, Convicts, Coal and the Banner Mine Tragedy, by Ward and Rogers, and published by the University of Alabama Press.  There were a number of "prison mines" in the Birmingham District, and this is an interesting and unpleasant part of our local history.