Sloss Furnaces

Built in  1872 in Birmingham Alabama, Sloss Furnaces was the worst job you could ever get. It was named after James Withers Sloss. In just one night, Sloss Furnaces turned the city of Birmingham into a thriving town, giving it the nickname of "Magic City". Workers inside the plant said it was a living hell and who could blame them? Working sixteen hours a day near a 120 degree furnace without pay isn't exactly paradise. Yet there were no hopes of having breaks or holidays because there were none. Plus, "Slag" had the right to wake any of the foreman up at any time he liked and force them back to work. Those who were desperate for employment received the worst part of the job; the Graveyard Shift. This ran from 9pm to 5am the next day. The man in charge of this shift was James Robert Wormwood but to his workers he soon was referred to as "Slag". Slag pushed his foreman to do dangerous risks, and forty-seven people perished due to this and therefore, this shift was removed in 1911. Two unfortunate foreman had fatal accidents while working at Sloss. Richard Jowers died in 1897 when methane gas was too much for him and he fell right into the furnace and was incinerated instantly. The other was Grant Hangsworth, in 1921, who died after being snagged by a wheel well, though approximately every two seconds, his body would come back around, still attached to the wheel, with less of his body than the previous "cycle". Anoa Tysand (however you spell his name) perished when molten ore spilled out of a container and his body caught fire. There's a legend behind Sloss Furnaces. Men called Pig Workers had to remove the ore out of rocks but this wasn't an easy task, since Slag made these men pick it out with their bare hands for eight hours and one could easily imagine what the results were. If Slag found even one piece of ore in the rock, the worker responsible would be fired without payment. Perhaps one of the most bizarre mysteries of Sloss Furnaces is that one day, Slag lost his balance on top of Big Alice, the tallest furnace in the plant and was incinerated. Yet, at no time has Slag ever been atop Big Alice in any of his years spent at Sloss. Still others claim that his workers were fed up at not receiving what they deserve for the hard work they did decided to feed Slag to Big Alice but none of the workers were brought to trial. Over 100 reports of sightings have been reported at Sloss, including lights and machinery turning themselves on and off without anyone's assistance. Sloss' tunnel hides over a dozen restless spirits within. The site continues to hold its annual Fright Fest and a variety of other events every year.

Sources:

1. A segment of Fox Family/ABC Family's Scariest Places on Earth. 2. http://www.slossfurnaces.com/ 3. http://www.frightfurnace.com/