Anniston, AL's first smokestack may get a stay of demolition after all. The City Council voted 3-2 last week to knock down the old industrial chimney. But Mayor Gene Robinson, who cast the swing vote for tearing it down, said Monday he is reconsidering.

Robinson said he has been inundated with calls from residents over the last week who want the chimney, located on the old West 11th Street Chalk Line property, to stay.

"I'm not getting any citizen saying, 'Mayor, we sure are glad you voted to take that chimney down,'" Robinson said. "It's all opposite. And that's why I think it deserves another look."

Councilmen Herbert Palmore and Ben Little, along with Robinson, voted for demolition. The men said the Chalk Line property needs to be cleared for new development and that saving the smokestack would be too costly as it may not be structurally sound and might contain environmental contaminants.

But the city never got a structural analysis or opinion on how costly keeping the chimney would be. Now, Robinson wants those questions answered.

The council will meet this week in the City Hall's old council chambers to talk about the chimney. Robinson said representatives from Gerard Chimney, the firm being paid $23,550 to demolish the smokestack, will be there.

Councilmen John Spain and David Dawson voted against tearing the chimney down, saying it was historical and should stay.

Betsy Bean, executive director of the Spirit of Anniston, said she is hopeful Robinson changes his mind.

"I'm cautiously optimistic and I just don't think he had the whole picture before," she said. "Until word gets out about a historic property, you don't know whether people care about it. Now he does know."

Bean and David Christian, chairman of the Anniston Historic Preservation Commission, said future developers may even want to incorporate the chimney into their project, something that has been done all over the country, including in downtown Birmingham.

They also said the city would lose an important feature if the smokestack goes.

The smokestack originally belonged to the Anniston Manufacturing Co., built in 1880 when Anniston was being established as a foundry town. Anniston founder Alfred Tyler started the mill to create jobs for foundry workers' families and to diversify the city's industry.

Over the next 20 years, the mill became one of the largest in the state and Anniston's biggest employer.

But by 1993, like many textile mills, it was seeing tough times. Its last owner, sports clothing maker Chalk Line, Inc., declared bankruptcy and closed in 1994.

Left vacant, the old mill's buildings crumbled, deteriorated and even burned in 1998. Deemed too-far-gone, the buildings were demolished a few years ago, but the smokestack remains.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency identified the Chalk Line property as a brownfield site. Anniston has since received more than $400,000 in grants from the EPA and the Appalachian Regional Commission to clean up the 15-acre site.

The city asked state historic preservation officials whether it could knock down the chimney. Because the mill is no longer there, state officials said the city legally could demolish the smokestack.