Legend of John Henry

The Legend Of John Henry

From the journal of E. L. Voyles

Seaboard Air Line Railroad 1912-1954

Oak Tunnel penetrated Oak Mountain in Alabama. Oak Tunnel was a short 1,200 foot tunnel located about two and a half miles southeast of downtown Leeds, Alabama. Travel another two miles by rail and you'll find Coosa Tunnel. The two tunnels were opened in 1888. Oak Tunnel was famous among railroad workers throughout the southeast as the location of the race between John Henry and the steam drill in 1887. So naturally after moving to Sanie, Alabama in 1912, I quickly set out to discover the full story I had been hearing about John Henry and the steam drill contest since I was a teenager.

Seaboard Air Line Railroad hired two track workers in 1912 who where sons of railroad workers in 1887 and 1888 when Columbus and Western Railway built the two tunnels in Shelby County, Alabama. In those days, railroads hired private contractors to survey, build roadbeds, lay ties, ballast and rails. So their fathers worked for railroad contractors and not the actual railroad. Seaboard Air Line did business the same way by hiring private contractors to build from Wattsville to Birmingham and Cedartown to Atlanta.

During a railroad sponsored BBQ outing near Irondale, Alabama, I questioned everyone I could find about the legend of John Henry. Including the fathers of the two new hires who worked for railroads in Birmingham in 1887. What I learned was amazing. One after another, men would talk about John Henry. Their stories matched perfectly. So, I knew there must something to the legend. They talked about railroading in Alabama and supplied names and events. From that day forward, I decided to keep a journal of railroad history.

Over a two year period, I talked to over 30 railroad workers from four different railroads serving the Birmingham area. I can’t say for sure whether the story is real or not but I can say that all of the railroad workers I spoke with had knowledge of John Henry's death near Leeds and the contest that occurred in 1887.

In the fall of 1912, two Central of Georgia supervisors invited me to visit the actual site of the race. They pointed out the top section of a railroad issued steel rod lodged into solid rock on the crest of the cut near the southeastern tunnel portal. The steel cap had "BS 16" stamped on it, which we assumed stood for a 16-foot steel rod manufactured by Bethlehem Steel. Click to see the steel rod.

Finding the rod sticking out of the rock near Oak Tunnel confirmed the stories Central of Georgia and other railroad workers had been telling for 26 years. Most railroad workers in the Birmingham area had known for years that this was indeed the location of John Henry’s race against the steam powered rock drill. The two supervisors pointed out two rather old wooden maintenance buildings near Oak Signal just as the men had spoken about in their stories. Behind the largest building was suppose to be where the railroad buried John.

They pointed out the remnants of an old rail camp. In 1887, Dunnavant's Camp was a very large rail camp. The massive camp had two separate areas. The tracks, ties, ballast, construction equipment and supplies were housed in an area located at the base of Oak Mountain. This area was selected because wagons could easily haul heavy materials over the mountain from Leeds, Alabama. Leeds was about two miles from Oak Mountain and the Georgia Pacific railroad was under contract to drop rails and other construction materials for the Columbus and Western at the Leeds depot. When the line opened in 1888, this area was converted to a steam engine service center with four sidetracks. The men, horses, wagons, food tents and showers were housed closer to Coosa Tunnel near the community of Dunnavant. Thus, the name of the camp. A simple road passed near the rail camp. It was the only road at the time into Leeds. And most people rode wagons to town on Saturday to pick up supplies. The railroad workers would harass the locals as they rode by. This created an ill taste with the locals as the women were afraid to travel alone.

In the spring of 1913, while performing maintenance near Acmar in the Sanie block on Seaboard’s mainline, a loaded Central of Georgia coal train heading back to Henry Ellen for the trip to Birmingham stalled in the tunnel on the Margaret mine branch line that crossed under Seaboard's mainline near Acmar. Click to see Central of Georgia's tunnel under Seaboard near Acmar. I walked down the hill to see if I could help and struck up a friendship with a Central of Georgia Engineer who said he had being running freights through Oak and Coosa tunnels since joining Central of Georgia shortly after their takeover of the Columbus and Western Railway. He said that most Central Engineers believed that John’s ghost haunted Oak Tunnel. Engineers would blast a short whistle three times to say hello to John's ghost. And on occasions while holding in Oak Siding, some Engineers and Firemen, reported experiencing strange events in the cab of their locomotive. This prompted me to investigate further. I spoke with dozens of Engineers, firemen and conductors about Oak Tunnel and the story of John Henry. Like I said earlier, I can’t say whether this is a true story or not, but every Central of Georgia employee I spoke with told similar stories. And most agreed that there was a real contest held there in 1887 between John Henry and a rock drill. An overwhelming percentage had strange feelings between Oak Signal and the tunnel portal.

This is a summary of their stories. Columbus and Western Railway was running out of money as they desperately pushed to enter the rich coal fields of Birmingham. They were in an all out race with L&N to grab hauling rights to the vast number of coal mines that were springing up in and around the booming city of Birmingham. Georgia Pacific had decided to ignore most of the mines in the southern and eastern areas surrounding Birmingham leaving the areas wide open for Columbus and Western. The railroad felt that high levels of coal traffic would save their line from being auctioned off by its creditors. So, when they hired private contractors to quickly build their railroad from Childersburg to Birmingham. They requested the fastest crews available. The contractor knew of a legendary Steel Driver who had been working on roadbeds and tunnels in West Virginia, Virginia and Georgia. The man was known as John Henry. But John Henry was only a nickname given him by fellow rail workers. No one really knew his real name. He was described as 6’0” and 200 pounds of solid muscle. He always had a smile on his face and played the banjo. His wife Polly Anne was a great cook. And John and Polly Anne were very much in love. So, the contractor wisely hired her as the master chef for Dunnavant’s Camp to persuade John to come to Alabama.

John Henry was a Steel Driver. Which meant his job was to hammer steel rods with a big sledgehammer into rocks to create holes for blasting devices. The steel rods they used were known as “Jacks.” A lot of men referred to this method as "Jackhammer." A foreman would would place dynamite into the holes and blast the rocks and dirt away. The roadbed crew would clean the debris and use a team of mules with a leveling plow to create a level roadbed for laying tracks within grade perimeters needed for steam engines to safely pull and stop a train. This was the fastest method of roadbed construction in the late 1880’s.

Each steel driving crew consisted of three specialized workers. A driver, a shaker, and a loader. The shaker was the team leader. His job was to hold a steel rod steady while the driver hit the steel rod with a sledge hammer. Shakers set the rhythm for the steel driving process by signing songs or chanting much like the military uses in boot camp. The driver hit the rod in patterns following the rhythm established by the shaker. This was fun to watch. A shaker named Lazarus was known as the rhythm king at Dunnavant's Camp. The loader was responsible for changing out steel rods. He used a wooden hoist to lift and replace the heavy steel rods.

The basic manual drilling techniques used in those days for railroad construction involved two similar versions of steel rods. The most widely used version was known as "SR" or solid rods. These were long and narrow solid steel rods an inch and a quarter in diameter with tiny grooves on the sides. Solid rod kits were delivered in sets with a series of rods ranging from 1 to 20 feet in length. Each rod in the set had a sharpened point on the bit end of the rod and a two inch driving head on the other end. A solid rod looked like a very large nail. Solid rods were heavy and a hoist was needed to lift rods out of a hole. This process was repeated over and over until the desired depth was achieved.

The second version was known as "CR" or composite steel rods. Composite rods involved a series of two-foot steel rods that connected together.

Most steel drivers started their day with heavy hammers but they would normally switch to lighter hammers after lunch. John Henry did not like the smaller and lighter hammers, so he used his big heavy hammer all the time. This intimidated his fellow Steel Drivers. And John seldom missed his strike point on a rod cap or head. Over the years, his accuracy and speed had earned him the title as “King of Steel Drivers.” A lot of Steel Drivers wanted to work as far away from John’s crew as possible to avoid being embarrassed by John's superior speed.

The mechanical rock drill was a simple contraption that ran on steam heated by kerosene burners for tunneling and compressed air for underground mining. But other than different power sources, the tunnel and mine versions of the drill worked exactly the same. The mechanical version used the same steel rod composite and cap system used by manual crews. But instead of a person driving steel rods with a sledge hammer, the mechanical version utilized a weight that moved back and forth on a guide striking a steel rod held in place by the frame of the drill. This eliminated the jobs of drivers and shakers. And only one loader was assigned to three machines. Click to see a mechanical drill.

The salesman was in Alabama in September of 1887 trying to sell compressed air versions of his rock drill to coal and ore mining operations. Large productive underground mines were dominating the landscape of Birmingham in 1887.

The rock drill salesman discovered John Henry’s legacy as a Steel Driver while staying overnight at the Lakeview Park Hotel in Birmingham. The Lakeview Park Hotel was a swanky place that opened for business in July of 1887 in the affluent Lakeview community located on the south side of Birmingham.

Mr. Stephens heard about the Lakeview Park Hotel while delivering a compressed air rock drill in Calera, Alabama. The resort hotel was the talk of the town. Local and national politicians, big money investors and dignitaries were spotted nightly in the casino, spa and restaurant.

Mr. Stephens was on his way to deliver a steam powered rock drill to a rock quarry in Dallas, Georgia when he decided to spend the night in Birmingham and seek out powerful mining executives staying at the hotel.

While visiting the bar of the hotel, he heard three men talking about Henry F. deBardeleben and Jesse Overton looking for capital to start a company called Alabama Fuel & Iron. They needed money to open massive mine complexes around Birmingham. Some of the areas mentioned were future mine sites in Margaret, Acmar, Overton, Leeds and Acton.

One of the three men at the table turned to Mr. Stephens and struck up a conversation. It turned out that the three men were high profile investors supplying capital to many of the mines located around Birmingham. The investors quickly learned that Mr. Stephens was selling rock drills. In 1887, rock drills were gaining popularity with mining companies and the investors asked for additional information. Mr. Stephens joined the three men at their table to discuss the rapidly expanding mining business in Central Alabama and how he could supply dozens of rock drills to expedite their mining operations.

During his conversation with the three investors, Mr. Stephens discovered the legacy of John Henry, the King of Steel Drivers. And he discovered that John was actually driving steel rods less than 20 miles from Birmingham, and living in a railroad camp called Dunnavant's Camp. He learned that the construction company building the rail line for Columbus and Western Railway did not own a rock drill, or any modern machines. Due to a severe lack of funding, the company was still using old fashioned methods of construction. Which included manually driving steel rods to create holes for dynamite instead of using steam powered mechanical rock drills. This was music to his ears and he created a plan to use the railroad to promote rock drills.

When morning arrived, he loaded the steam powered rock drill promised to the rock quarry in Dallas, Georgia on a rented wagon and found his way to Dunnavant’s Camp. He searched out the Captain of the construction crew. In front of co-workers, he challenged the Captain to conduct a race between John Henry and the rock drill. The Captain laughed and asked him to leave the rail camp. But Mr. Stephens was persistent. He rented a hotel room in Leeds for a week to be close to the rail camp.

After several unfruitful trips to the rail camp, he finally caught up with John Henry leaving the food tent. He challenged John Henry to a race with his rock drill by claiming that one of his rock drills could replace five steel driving teams, a total of 15 men. This angered John and after several minutes of heated debate, John accepted the challenge.

John Henry approached the Captain and told him he wanted to go head to head with a mechanical rock drill. An event that would pit man against machine for the first time in history. The Captain tried to talk him out it but John was stubborn as well as strong. The Captain agreed to allow the race but it could not interfere with construction. At the time, construction on Coosa Tunnel was months behind schedule due to unexpected hard rock embedded in the mountain.

The race was set for a Friday in September of 1887. Central of Georgia and Southern Railway employees in 1912 and 1913 stated that the actual date of the race was Friday September 30, 1887. These employees personally knew Georgia Pacific employees who operated the three special trains used to transport executives and investors from Birmingham to Leeds to watch the event. They all agreed that September 30th was the date of record. According to their stories, three trains from Birmingham arrived at the Leeds Depot about 6:30 in the morning on the Georgia Pacific Railroad and passengers were loaded on stagecoaches for the trip over Oak Mountain to the site of the race. Being a lifetime railroad employee myself, I can tell you that Friday would have been the only day the railroad was willing to shut down operations for an event not relating to construction.

It seemed that no one gave John any chance of winning and bets were being made against him. Some said it would be a landslide victory for the rock drill. After all, how could a man physically keep up with a mechanically driven drill?

Nearby Coosa Tunnel was already under construction, and both portal entrances for Oak Tunnel had been surveyed and staked to start construction in October. The Captain wanted to test the durability of the steam drill in rough terrain, so he selected the rocky area where the southeastern portal of Oak Tunnel would be bored as the site for the contest. All the trees on the mountain near the tunnel site had been cut and removed to expedite construction. Oak Tunnel was scheduled to be a short tunnel with track that crested midway through the tunnel to keep the climbing gradients within specs.

Construction crews had already graded a roadbed for the railroad between Oak and Coosa mountains. Crews used this roadbed to move materials and men between the two rail camps located between the mountains. A winding dirt road ran from Leeds to Dunnavant and crossed over Oak Mountain near the site of the race. This dirt road was used daily by the railroad to transport materials that arrived in Leeds on the Georgia Pacific. The dirt road was later paved and became Highway 25.

So, John, his shaker and loader set-up 30 yards from where the Captain told Mr. Stephens to set up the rock drill. Remember, the rock drill salesman was attempting to sell his quota of rock drills to coal and ore mining companies in Birmingham. To accomplish this, he invited dozens of executives and investors, including the three men he met earlier at the Lakeview Hotel, to watch the race. Several hundred people from the city of Leeds, Alabama were present. But reporters were not notified at the request of the railroad.

The race started at 8:00am sharp. The dinner bell rang out three times and echoed across the large curious crowd positioned on Oak Mountain to witness the race. The dinner bell was normally used to signal meal times for railroad employees.

Mr. Stephens was using a steam powered Ingersoll rock drill for the race and Ingersoll required operators to wear protective clothing to prevent the operator from being scalded by escaping steam. By the time he got his protective clothing on, John Henry was already on his second steel rod. Finally the rock drill came to life and hissed and moaned as the hammer of the drill pounded its first steel rod.

The rock drill was mounted on a tripod with adjustable legs. Morning showers made the mountain terrain slippery, causing the legs of the tripod to slip and slide on wet rocks. Mr. Stephens spent most of the morning adjusting the legs of the tripod.

The man vs. machine race lasted for three and a half hours before the dinner bell rang loudly at 11:30am to signal lunch. During the 30-minute lunch break, Mr. Stephens added lubricants to keep the drill operating smoothly and water for steam.

He noticed that John was smiling and joking with his co-workers. John had just finished driving a 10-foot steel rod into the rocks when the race stopped for lunch. When Mr. Stephens saw the wooden hoist lifting a 10-foot steel rod out of the hole, he realized that perhaps John had a chance to win.

At 12 noon, the race resumed. The sun came out and the temperature increased rapidly. The air was now very hot and muggy. John was determined to win the race, but the Captain noticed that within minutes of resuming the race after lunch, John was sweating profusely and showed signs of exhaustion. He warned John to beware of the heat and muggy conditions. But John was on a mission.

About 12:45pm, the loader used the wooden hoist to pull the 12-foot steel rod out of the hole and replace it with a 14-foot rod. The loader and Rubin, John's shaker, noticed that John was acting irrational. They tossed buckets of water on John to cool him down. John's pace was way off and he was occasionally missing the steel rod with his hammer. John stopped hammering for long periods of time to catch his breath and reorient his bearings. The heat was taking a toll on him.

At 2:00pm, a 16-foot steel rod was loaded into the hole. By this time, John Henry was struggling and alternating between hammering steel rods and resting his tired arms and body.

At 3:00pm, the Captain rang the dinner bell three times to stop the race. John quickly fell to his knees to catch his breath. Mr. Stephens began the process of stopping the rock drill.

The Captain and several others verified the race results and determined that John Henry and his steel driving crew had hand driven solid steel rods 14-feet into Oak Mountain, while the steam powered mechanical rock drill finished the day at 10-feet. John Henry had defeated a mechanical rock drill. Man had beat a machine for the first time in history.

We know that John Henry actually reached a depth of 14 feet since two feet of the 16-foot rod he used that day was visible above the ground in 1912.

John was kneeling on the ground with his hammer in his hand when he shouted that he was blind. His co-workers carried him down the mountain and loaded him on a wagon in an attempt to get him back to his tent. John's wife rushed to his side and held his hand. Before the wagon could move an inch, John died.

So, John Henry died September 30, 1887 possibly from heat complications and dehydration. Perhaps heart failure played a role due to the high levels of physical stress John encountered during the race. They said the railroad buried John Henry with honors near the western end of Oak siding, where Oak Signal is located. Polly Anne stayed on as the camp chef until the camp closed in July of 1888. I was told that the railroad bought Polly Anne a house nearby so she could be close to John's grave. She decided to stay in Alabama for a while, raise her son, and be close to John’s last performance as a Steel Driver.

When John Henry won the race, the railroad won ownership of the rock drill. The completion of Coosa Tunnel was well behind schedule due to tougher than expected rock encountered midway through the mountain. Railroad workers in 1914 stated that the steam drill won by the railroad in September of 1887 was used to complete Oak Tunnel in record time and used to finish Coosa Tunnel so the rail line could finally open for service.

The industrial emergence of the pneumatic drill mentioned in this story forever changed how men drilled holes into rocks for blasting. Not many men today have the stamina to manually drive steel rods into solid rock. And most railroad issued steel rods were recycled into rails in the early 1900's. The steam dill was an earlier version of today's Jackhammer.

Oak Tunnel was completed in the spring of 1888 and Columbus and Western finally brought supplies by train from Birmingham through Leeds and Oak Tunnel to Dunnavant's Camp. Before the tunnel opened, supplies were hauled over Oak Mountain by wagon.

Columbus and Western scheduled a press day June 20, 1888 to have the press cover Captain J.C. Faulkner driving the "Silver Spike" west of Coosa Tunnel to complete the line. C & W's "Boss Crew" consisted of Engineer Loveless, Fireman Harrington and Conductor Perkerson. They built a short construction train at the newly built Columbus & Western Depot in Leeds using steam locomotive "CRR 112" to power the train from Leeds through Oak Tunnel to Coosa Tunnel. The press representatives rode a Georgia Pacific train from Union Depot in Birmingham to Leeds where they boarded the Columbus and Western construction train about 11:00am. At 11:20 they arrived at Dunnavant, about a half a mile short of Coosa Tunnel. This was due to the fact that the track crews under Captain J.C. Faulkner's command still had over 300 feet of track to lay inside the tunnel and about 400 feet outside the tunnel on the Duunavant side. Chief Engineer F.Y. Dabney, Major J.T. Harrell and Track Engineer Baker walked the press crew through Coosa Tunnel, dodging about a hundred workers who were busy laying 300 feet of track inside the west end of Coosa Tunnel.

The Silver Spike was scheduled to be driven at 4:00pm. But at that hour, track crews had just completed laying tracks inside Coosa tunnel. About 3 inches of water was slowing draining out of the tunnel at 4:00pm. Coosa Tunnel was built 35 feet lower on the eastern side to allow water to drain naturally. About 6:30pm, members of the press decided to go back to Birmingham and boarded engine "CRR 112" for the trip home. The train passed through Oak Tunnel running 30 mph and made it to Woodlawn Junction in 48 minutes. Minutes later, the train made it to the yard near downtown Birmingham and the press members were transported by wagons to a dinner presented by Chief Engineer Fred Y. Dabney.

The track crews finished laying all the track at 9:20pm and Captain Faulkner hammered the "Silver Spike" at 9:25pm about 400 feet west of the western portal of Coosa Tunnel near the Dunnavant railroad camp. Between June 20th and June 30th, the crews reinforced the wooden trestle over Georgia Pacific at Leeds and fine tuned the track to meet 30 mph track speeds.

Train number 61 was the first scheduled train to pass through Oak Tunnel. Passenger train 61 rolled through the tunnel on July 1, 1888 at 2:45pm loaded with dignitaries headed for Birmingham. Train 62 returned back through the tunnel the next day about 12:45pm heading for Columbus and Savannah. Columbus & Western ran passenger trains 61 and 62 all the way from Savannah to Columbus to Birmingham. But 61 and 62 were the only two passenger trains that made the full trip in and out of Birmingham. Passenger trains 171 and 172 turned around at Childersburg and returned to Columbus after connecting with E T, V & G in Childersburg and Anniston & Atlantic in Sylacauga. Freight train service depended on traffic loads. But because trains hauling freight were short in those days, a lot of freight trains ran this line daily. After Dunnavant's Camp closed in 1888, C&W built several side tracks and locomotive service facilities on the old camp site. Central of Georgia used the facilities for many years after taking over the Columbus & Western. At various times over the years, water, coal, fuel and oil were stored there to service locomotives. Central of Georgia had a small passenger station in Leeds for many years but it was torn down when Central of Georgia discontinued local passenger service. The classic passenger streamliner "City of Miami" used the Central of Georgia rail line and passed through Oak and Coosa Tunnels as part of its run between Chicago and Miami.

Most of the Columbus and Western rail workers, including the steel drivers, found jobs with emerging coal and ore mining companies in and around Birmingham after the mainline was completed into Birmingham. Fred Dabney was Chief Engineer, W. H. McClintock was Superintendent and G. A. Whitehead was the General Passenger Agent in 1887 and 1888.

Central of Georgia eventually took over Columbus and Western Railway, and the legend of John Henry.

Central of Georgia Engineers stated they would blow their steam whistles three short times before entering the tunnel as a memorial to John. It's a railroad tradition. In John's days and my railroad days, all railroad workers were very close like brothers. In did not matter which line paid your check. We all stuck together. On my trips to Oak Tunnel between 1912 and 1914, I vividly remember hearing Central of Georgia Engineers blow their whistles three times approaching the tunnel. The sound echoed for miles. There was nothing like a steam whistle blowing. It was a great sound to hear.

After taking control of the Columbus and Western Railway, Central of Georgia built branch lines in 1905 to serve massive coal mine operations in Margaret, Acmar, Overton and Leeds. Theses were the mines mentioned by the three investors Mr. Stephens met in the bar at the Lakeview Hotel in 1887. The very same investors who told him about John Henry.

This completed the business plan set forth by Columbus and Western in 1886. The coal operations near Margaret and Acmar were operated under the business banner of the Alabama Fuel & Iron Company, led by Henry F. deBardeleben and Jesse Overton. The company secured financing for the mines from Mr. Colgate, the toothpaste millionaire. In response, Central of Georgia named the coal washer and rail junction located near Acmar "Colgate Junction." The branch lines to Margaret and Acmar split at this junction. The Margaret branch line followed Middle Black Creek to the mine complex. The coal mines provided much needed revenue for many years, justifying extending the rail line into Birmingham in 1888.

Note: Oak Tunnel and Coosa Tunnel are now owned by Norfolk Southern Railroad and classified as off-limits to visitors. This is an active rail line. Please DO NOT ATTEMPT to visit the tunnels. Trains approach without warning.