Get an ADT-Monitored Home Security System in Bessemer, Alabama

Bessemer is a southwestern suburb of Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. The population was 26,019 at the 2020 census. It is within the Birmingham-Hoover, AL Metropolitan Statistical Area, of which Jefferson County is the center. It developed brusquely as an industrial city in the late 19th and in advance 20th centuries. In 2019, it was named Alabama’s “Worst City to Live in” by 24/7 Wall Street.

The town was founded in the postbellum get older by the Bessemer Land and Improvement Company, named after Henry Bessemer and owned by coal magnate Henry F. DeBardeleben. He had inherited Daniel Pratt’s investments. The mayor and councilmen voted to incorporate the city of Bessemer upon September 9, 1887. Located 16 miles southwest of Birmingham, Bessemer grew rapidly and its promoters believed that it might overtake the new city in economic power.

Given the iron ore, coal and limestone deposits in the area, the city became a middle of steelmaking from more or less 1890 through the 20th century. It attracted rural migrants from across the South, as well as European immigrants. By the 1950s, the city was majority African American in population.