 After the war, commercial life and growth was dominated by the coal mine owned by Truman Aldrich who leased the mine and attempted to increase production in response to the growing iron industry in the region and the growing city of Birmingham.Starting in 1890, company owned worker housing was built in Montevallo to house miners.In the early 1890s, residents of Montevallo entered the city in a competition to be selected for the site of the Alabama Girl's Industrial School (later the University of Montevallo) a technical college for white women, raising funds to purchase land and antebellum buildings for the college they won and the college was founded in Montevallo in 1896.