The Iron and Steel Museum of Alabama at Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park serves as the main center for interpreting Alabama’s nineteenth-century iron industry and its growth from the Civil War era into the twentieth century. Opened in 1981, it connects Tannehill’s preserved ironworks to the wider Birmingham iron district and explores blast furnaces, machine shops, and wartime production. Its collections include more than 10,000 artifacts, among them machinery, tools, steam engines, archaeological finds, and matériel from Confederate industry. Linked to the larger Tannehill site, the museum also reflects the broader human story through excavated slave cabins and other preserved historic structures.