Piper
The town of Piper was established in 1901 a half mile of northeast of here by the Little Cahaba Coal Company, named for Oliver Hazzard Perry Piper, a partner of industrialist Henry F. DeBardeleben. Two coal mines were opened in 1901 and 1903. The first was sealed in 1935 due to fire. Piper was one of the larger mining towns in the Cahaba Coal Field reaching greatest employment in 1914 with 432 miners and related workers. The Piper-Coleanor High School operated from 1931-1940. After World War II, a third mine was opened. Beginning in 1947 it was operated by the Shaw & Tutwiler Corporation. Coal was first mined in the area by N. H. Thompson and sons, W.H. and Lewis, who had moved here from Hinds County, Mississippi during the Civil War. The last coal was mined on a limited scale in the 1950s.
Marker is on Cahaba River Drive (County Road 24), on the right when traveling north.
Courtesy hmdb.org
