Austin Stone 160 pages softcover
Imagine working for a company that owns your house, your grocery store,
your church, and even your children's schools. That was the reality of
hundreds of thousands of Americans during the early twentieth century.
In a world of robber barons, Big Mules, and privately owned towns,
choices were limited.
The biggest Mules of them all, the DeBardeleben family, held Alabama
industry with iron fists. Deep in the coal mines of Acmar and Margaret
in St. Clair County, Charles DeBardeleben was king. Fiercely anti-labor,
DeBardeleben would line his towns with barbed wire, concrete
guardhouses, searchlights, dynamite traps, and even machine gun nests.
Within the fortresses, the company formed idyllic "workers' paradises"
where every facet of life was provided and controlled by management. As
the wealth of black diamonds began to dry up, company towns quickly
faded into obscurity and coal barons fell from power. Miners found
themselves left in the cold.
The kingdom of Charles DeBardeleben was swallowed by pine trees and
kudzu, lying dormant for seventy-five years until the history of this
great empire was explored by St. Clair County's native son.
