The Cherokee County Historical Society meeting was held Saturday, March 5 at the Chamber of Commerce office on the campus of Gadsden State-Cherokee in Centre.

Jim Bennett, commissioner of the Alabama Department of Labor, was the guest speaker. Bennett is a graduate of Jacksonville State University and the University of Alabama. He served 15 years in the Alabama Legislature as a member of House of Representatives, and has also represented the Homewood area of Jefferson County in the state Senate.

In 1983 Bennett was appointed by Gov. Jim Folsom, Jr. to a vacancy in the secretary of state's office. He won a full term in 1994.

Jim is also the author of “Old Tannehill, a History of the Pioneer Ironworks in Roupes Valley”, “Tannehill and the Growth of the Alabama Iron Industry,” and “Historic Birminigham and Jefferson County.”

Bennett's topic for discussion was the life of Moses Stroup. Stroup and his father Jacob came from a long line of iron workers going back six generations to Germany. When Jacob Stroup was 11, his father apprenticed him into the iron trade.

Moses Stroup worked with his father in North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Moses built his first furnace in Cartersville, Ga., before selling his interest and moving to Alabama. He then built three furnaces, including the furnace at Round Mountain (1852), Tannehill (1859) and Oxmoor (1863).

Round Mountain Furnace used red ore. Many people did not believe that the red ore produce a good quality iron, but Stroup disproved this idea. The Birmingham iron industry which would develop years later used the same type red ore to become one of the nation's leading producers of iron products.

Bennett gave Moses Stroup a lot of credit for paving the way for the present growth of the iron industry in Alabama.