Blocton, first called Gresham, was a Cahaba Coal Mining Company town founded by Truman H. Aldrich in 1883-84 and centered around the coke ovens. Other company officers included W. A. Clark of Muscatine, Iowa, and Cornelius Cadle, Jr., the town's first postmaster. The first coal was shipped in February 1884. Ten coal mines were eventually opened, the last in 1915 by the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company division of U.S. Steel. In its hayday around 1900, Blocton was the largest company town in the Cahaba coal field, with nine churches, two depots, schools, fraternal lodges, a company store, waterworks, a hospital, and over 375 miners' houses, but it declined after U.S. Steel ceased operations in 1928. Construction of the bee-hive coke ovens began in 1887 after Woodstock Iron Company directors Samuel Noble, Alfred L. Tyler, and W.S. Gurnee became large stockholders in the Cahaba Coal Mining Company to ensure a steady supply of fuel for two new coke furnaces at Anniston. When the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company acquired the Cahaba Company in 1892, 467 ovens were producing coke for furnaces at Oxmoor, Bessemer, Birmingham, and Trussville. After U.S. Steel assumed control in 1907, the ovens operated intermittently for a short time. In 1985, large endwall stones were removed and later used in the restoration of the Civil War furnaces at Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park. The Town of West Blocton purchased the site in 1972 and 1997.