The Tennessee Coal and Iron Company built 120 coke ovens in 1883 six miles east to help supply its growing iron works. The company contracted with the state, and convicts worked the ovens until 1896. On August 13, 1892, Tracy City miners, who opposed the use of convict labor, burned the stockade and put the convicts on a train and sent them back to Nashville, as had been done in Anderson County, Tennessee, in 1891.