In West Blocton Coke Ovens Park stand four rows of the remains of the Cahaba Coal Company's beehive block coke ovens, which were not the earliest coke-producing units in the Cahaba Coal Field but may have been the largest single installation, stretching more than a mile if placed end to end. In 1883 the Cahaba Coal Company built a railroad extension from Woodstock to a mine being opened in a nearby town, named Blocton by mine owner Truman Aldrich for a one-ton block of coal removed from the No. 2 mine. By 1887 Blocton coal, valued for steam purposes, was being supplied to four major railroad corporations, and demand exceeded the available output. By 1889, 140 coke ovens were operating, 150 were ready for operation, and 185 more were authorized after the Pioneer Mining and Manufacturing Company's successful use of coke made from Blocton coal. One hundred tons of coke were being shipped daily to the Eureka Company at Oxmoor and the same amount to the Birmingham Furnace and Manufacturing Company at Trussville, while coke also went to a company in Anniston owned by Cahaba Coal Company directors Samuel Noble and A. L. Tyler. By the summer of 1890, Blocton had grown to 3,600 people and 467 coke ovens were operating with an estimated output of 600 tons a day. In 1909 U.S. Steel authorized new tracks to the Beehive Coke Ovens at Blocton, but company records do not show any coke being produced there after that year.