Florence Wagon Works
Alabama
Near here once stood the Florence Wagon Works, for a time among the larger wagon makers in the country. It began as the Atlanta Wagon Works, founded by Doctor Alfred David Bellamy, a New York born physician turned manufacturer. In eighteen eighty-nine he moved the whole operation to East Florence to be near the Tennessee River, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, the Florence Canal, and the region's timber and iron.
The secret was a single beloved product, the Light Running Florence Wagon, sold across America and overseas. At its peak the plant employed well over a hundred workers and turned out thousands of wagons a year. But the automobile doomed the wagon.
The company couldn't diversify, and its buildings were eventually sold and the work moved away.
