2010 Brookside History Events
“Brookside, Alabama, a quiet mining town in western Jefferson County, developed from the efforts of Sloss-Sheffield Iron and Steel Company to produce its own coal for use in the blast furnaces located in Birmingham. Brookside grew up around the coal mines of Sloss. Brookside’s unique ethnic makeup, however, sets it apart from other similarly founded Alabama towns. While quite a variety of ethnic groups called Birmingham home, Slovaks were the dominant ethnic group in Brookside. Slovak immigrants left their homes in Nieletz, Saros, and other villages in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to settle in Brookside, Alabama, in the 1890’s. By 1910 Slovak families constituted approximately 37% of Brookside’s population and they had established two churches, a school, a social organization, and firmly rooted their eastern European traditions in the fabric of their own, and Brookside’s daily existence.”
Staci S. Simon (Glover)
Masters Thesis 1997
University of Alabama at Birmingham
Brookside Today
Today Brookside is reinventing itself as a recreation destination. The beauty of Five Mile Creek, abundance of wildlife and rugged hills surrounding Brookside make an ideal location for canoeing, picnicking, fishing, hiking, bicycling, mountain biking and running. The city is proud to be constructing the western end of the Five Mile Creek Greenway that is planned to extend from Center Point Reed Harvey Park, through Tarrant, Fultondale, Jefferson County, Brookside and Graysville. When the Greenway is complete the Five Mile Creek Greenway Partnership will connect over 16 miles of rails to trails, 36 miles of canoe trails and over 20 miles of parks and pathways throughout the Five Mile Creek Watershed.
Throughout the development of the Greenway, local history will be the connecting strand, weaving the history of coal into the beauty of the trails. Coke ovens, coal tipples, miner’s villages, and the oral history of the people will be included in the trail designs.
Family time on the Greenway