Birmingham Stove & Range: Corn Bread Pans

An American Cast Iron Manufacturer

If you've begun looking for vintage, antique American cast iron cookware for your kitchen, it's practically a guarantee that you'll hear about Griswold and Wagner, brands considered to be the "gold standard" of cast iron cookware. But when you go looking for these pans on eBay and in antique malls, you'll soon find they are almost always overpriced and expensive. Because of their popularity, Griswold and Wagner pans can be difficult to find.

However, in your search for cast iron pots and pans, you will be much more likely to find something like…this.

Or...this.

"What is this? Is it made in the USA? Is it worth anything? Should I get this?"

To answer this last question: YES!

This is a cast iron pan from Birmingham Stove & Range, and this is one of the great secrets of cast iron cooking. There are many brands of antique, vintage cast iron that perform just as well as Griswold and Wagner; but because these brands aren't as "famous" they can often be found for far, far less in price. Among the most popular of that kind are the "unmarked" cast iron pans – ones that don't have the manufacturer stamp on the bottom. Many people across the country, and around the world, have one or more of these "unmarked" pans. They have no idea who made these pans, but they work wonders in the kitchen and are treasures to have, even if they are not "valuable antiques." The most common of these "unmarked" pans are from Lodge Manufacturing – the same Lodge that makes the cast iron pans you see in Wal-Mart today – Wagner, and Birmingham Stove & Range (abbreviated here as BS&R). Folks love these pans, because they can often be found for pennies…and when cleaned up, they perform like champions.

A Brief History of Birmingham Stove & Range

A brief and summarized history of Birmingham Stove & Range is as follows:
The Atlanta Stove Works company was founded in 1889 (originally named Georgia Stove Company) to produce cast iron stoves. Their original location was on Krog Street, home of the famous and long-lasting Krog Street Market. Initially, their business boomed to the point where in 1902, a separate foundry was built in Birmingham, Alabama especially for the production of hollow ware and cast iron cookware to supplement their stoves. This separate foundry was named Birmingham Stove & Range.

Many of the original records from Atlanta Stove Works have been lost, especially because the original factory burned down in 1915 and was re-built. It is known that the first series of Birmingham Stove & Range cast iron pans, the Red Mountain series, was introduced in the year 1930. This name was based upon the geographic area around Birmingham, Alabama, known as the Red Mountain area – an area so rich in iron ore, the rock faces have a reddish tinge from the hematite iron ore present in the landscape.

In addition to stoves, Atlanta Stove Works also produced a barbecue grill stand named the Atlanta Stove Works Cue-Cart, which is legendary among barbecue afficionadoes. Even today, the Cue Cart is seen as the standard to which barbecue grills are compared. (More about the Cue Cart: www.barbecuen.com/faqs/cuecart.htm#axzz2lsc4emvB )