Theophilus Jowers

Richard Jowers (called Theophilus Calvin Jowers in Kathryn Tucker Windham's book) was a former foundryman at the Alice Furnace.

According to Windham's account, Jowers came to Oxmoor Furnace in 1873. He became an assistant foundryman at the Alice Furnace in 1887. On September 10, 1887, while working around the edge of the furnace to loosen a bell, he lost his balance and fell with it into the molten iron. Reports vary on how much of his body was recovered. Soon after, other workers began reporting that he was seen making the rounds and checking on his former crew.

After Alice Furnace was torn down in 1905, his ghost was reported to be seen at a second furnace until it, too, was shut down in 1927. Jowers' spirit is said to have then relocated to Sloss Furnaces across town. In 1927 Jowers son, John claimed to have seen a ghostly figure striding through the hot furnace at Sloss from the 1st Avenue North Viaduct.

References

• Windham, Kathryn Tucker (1987) The Ghost in the Sloss Furnaces. Birmingham: Birmingham Historical Society. ISBN 0-317-65100-5
• Lewis, W. David (1994) Sloss Furnaces and the Rise of the Birmingham District: An Industrial Epic. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 0817307087
• "Sloss ghost hunters have chance to see two for the price of one." (October 30, 2006). Birmingham News
• Diel, Stan (October 21, 2007) "Spirit hunters haunt Sloss." Birmingham News

External links

• Ghost at Sloss Furnaces web page