Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve


Ruffner Mountain Nature Preserve is a 1,040 acre nature preserve located in the eastern portion of Jefferson County, Alabama in the City of Birmingham's historic South East Lake neighborhood. The preserve includes a visitor center containing native Alabama animals including foxes, raccoons, raptors, snakes, turtles, owls, and coyotes. The Ruffner Mountain area was home to iron ore mines and stone quarries, supplying the area's steel mills.
The preserve contains more than of hiking trails.

History

In 1883, William Henry Ruffner, a professor at Roanoke College who had served as Virginia's first superintendent of public instruction and who had trained as geologist at Washington & Lee University, and John L. Campbell completed a survey for the Georgia Pacific Railway from Atlanta to the Mississippi River, including the Birmingham District.
When the mines were finally shut down in the 1950s, nature reclaimed the area. 1977 marked the beginning of the Ruffner Mountain Nature Coalition, a nonprofit that leased 28 acres of land belonging to the City of Birmingham for protection and preservation. The Trust for Public Land added over to the preserve from 1983–1985, and an additional in 2000 under Alabama's Forever Wild program.
In 2010, construction was completed on RMNC's state-of-the-art LEED certified Treetop Visitor's Center and Education Pavilion. The new nature center replaced the organization's old administrative office building, visitor's center, and pavilion. The contractor, Stewart Perry, Inc., and architect, KPS Group, designed a building using sustainable architecture and materials ranging from a rainwater collection system to a myriad of recycled building materials and furnishings.