The Brierfield Ironworks Historical State Park in Brierfield, Alabama, preserves the Bibb and Brierfield iron furnace site which played an important role in supplying iron to the Confederacy during the Civil War.

In 1861, Caswell Huckabee and other investors formed the Bibb County Iron Company.  Huckabee provided most of the capital and enslaved workers.  The No. 1 furnace was constructed and produced its first iron in November 1862.  In 1862, the company also began construction of a wrought iron rolling mill located near the Alabama and Tennessee Railroad.  A two- and one-half mile long tramway connected the furnace to the rolling mill.

Recognizing the importance of the furnace/mill complex and its high quality of iron for manufacturing naval cannons, the Confederate government purchased the Brierfield ironworks in 1863.  The No. 2 furnace whose ruins are seen today, was constructed adjacent to the No. 1 furnace (no longer present).  The Bibb Furnace was renamed the Naval Ordnance Furnace.  The rolling mill was completed.  The new furnace could produce 25 tons of iron per day and the rolling mill, 10 tons per day.  All production was sent to the Confederate Arsenal and Naval Ordnance Factory in Selma.  Production continued at these facilities until March of 1865 when they were all destroyed by Union forces.

After the Civil War, in 1865, General Josiah Gorgas, the ex-Chief of the Confederate Ordnance Bureau, and a group of investors formed the Canebreak Company which purchased the ironworks.  Giles Edward, a Welsh ironmaster, rebuilt the No. 2 furnace.  It was then renamed the Brierfield Furnace.  Gorgas was Superintendent.  He left in 1869 to become the President of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.  His home is preserved as a museum on the campus.