It was purchased one year later by the Sloss Iron and Steel Company as a source of fuel for their blast furnaces in Birmingham.

Other advanced equipment was also installed at Brookside, placing it at the forefront of mining technology in the Birmingham District at the turn of the century.

Sloss, like other employers in the booming industrial expansion of the early 20th century, had difficulty recruiting skilled labor.

Recruitment efforts extended internationally and Brookside became the home of many Czechoslovakian immigrants and their families who made their way to the mines.

As Brookside became a destination for Eastern European miners in the area, the culture of the town reflected their ethnic traditions.

Unlike other mines where skilled whites and unskilled blacks could be played against each other by the owners, the Brookside miners were tightly organized and carried out a successful (albeit violent) strike in 1906.

In 1924, Brookside served as one of the settings for the Famous Players–Lasky's 1925 feature film Coming Through, which was based on Jack Bethea's novel Bed Rock.

Silent film stars Thomas Meighan, Lila Lee and Wallace Beery stayed with local families during production.

Founded in 1894, its onion dome church was re-faced with brick in 1965 and still holds services for approximately 70 congregants.

The “Annual Russian/Slavic Food Festival,” observed the first full weekend of each November, brings visitors to tour the temple, see traditional Eastern European dances, and sample time-honored ethnic plate lunches and baked goods prepared by the Sisterhood of Saint Olga.

[4] It lies along the banks of Five Mile Creek, a tributary of the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior River, in the southern end of the Cumberland Plateau.

In 2022, an investigative report by John Archibald of AL.com (the website of The Birmingham News, The Huntsville Times, and the Press-Register of Mobile) uncovered a surge in Brookside Police's aggressive and arbitrary ticketing of motorists passing through the city.

In 2020 its officers, who drove unmarked cars and wore uniforms without Brookside insignia, made more arrests for misdemeanors than it has residents.

"[10] Mark Levie Pettway, sheriff for the overarching Jefferson County, stated that "I wouldn’t be surprised if they (FBI) opened up an investigation.

"[11] One person claimed that an officer wore "a Norse sign sometimes appropriated by white supremacists – on a ring and one of his gun clips.

"[12] AL.com later reported that at least seven officers had left the department, and that the remainder had adopted new uniforms and vehicles to present a less-paramilitary appearance.

[14] The "reports of abuses" by the Brookside Police department caught the attention of the Alabama Senate, which unanimously passed a bill limiting the amount of money cities can keep from fines.