Birmingham was founded on June 1, 1871, by the Elyton Land Company whose investors included cotton planters, bankers and railroad entrepreneurs. It sold lots near the planned crossing of the Alabama & Chattanooga and South & North Alabama railroads including land formerly a part of the Benjamin P. Worthington Plantation. The first business at that crossroads was the trading post and country store operated by Marre & Allen. The site of the railroad crossing was notable for the nearby deposits of iron ore, coal, and limestone � the three main raw materials used in making steel. Birmingham is the only place worldwide where significant amounts of all three minerals can be found in close proximity. From the start the new city was planned as a great center of industry. The founders, organized as the Elyton Land Company, borrowed the name of Birmingham, one of England's main industrial cities, to advertise that point. The growth of the planned city was impeded by an outbreak of cholera and a Wall Street crash in 1873. However, it began to grow shortly afterward at an explosive rate.
The town of Elyton, Alabama, and several other surrounding towns were absorbed into Birmingham in 1911.
The turn of the 19th to 20th century brought the substantial growth that gave Birmingham the nickname "The Magic City" as the downtown area developed from a low-rise commercial and residential district into a busy grid of neoclassical mid-rise and high-rise buildings and busy streetcar lines. Between 1902 and 1912 four large office buildings were constructed at the intersection of 20th Street, the central north�south spine of the city, and 1st Avenue North, which connected the warehouses and industrial facilities stretching along the east�west railroad corridor. This impressive group of early skyscrapers was nicknamed "The Heaviest Corner on Earth".
The Great Depression hit Birmingham especially hard as sources of
