Old Industry

[Jammer]

I'm not sure if this is the area you were talking about, but it's part of the American Iron Company, started in 1740. The first part of the PDF is interesting and some of the rest of it. Then there's a section about the social gatherings at the estate.

http://www.oldindustry.org/NJ_HTML/vanishing_ramapo.pdf

[Jammer]

Here's some info I found on Mt Hope, this does look like an interesting place. It's hard to believe all the equipment that has been left sitting around. A whole rack of wheat lamps, coon hunters would go crazy.

I really like the Iron Miners website, looks like a bunch of kids that get to travel all over and go into old mines as "research", must be nice, if we went there we would be told to GET OUT! Too much liability..

http://www.ironminers.com/ironmines/mou ... mine-1.htm

[Jammer]

Went down to Tennessee this last week and managed to make it to 5 more furnace sites.

First is Cottage Furnace in Central Kentucky. Surprisingly this furnace is still full of Iron. The furnace master's son was killed and he left the site to see what happened and the Iron was never tapped out. This furnace sets on the edge of a deep ravine so I'm not sure how they made iron unless a lot of the edge has dropped off over the years.


It's hard to tell but, I think this is some of the Iron inside.


Estill Furnace, just down the road, is in pretty bad shape. Three walls have collapsed and weeds are taking over.



Trigg Furnace sign is all that remains. While I was taking pictures the homeowner nearby came out and we talked. I looked down in his yard ans saw a small piece of slag, he said "take all you want!". It was all over the yard and in the ditch, so the furnace must have been right there where they built his house. The slags there were bright blue to purple, Ohio slags are dark green to black.

[Jammer]

Great Western Furnace in Tennessee is right in the middle of the Land Between the Lakes region. It had a nice description of how the iron was made.




And, Bear Spring Furnace just outside Dover Tenn. is in good shape and we found more blue and purple slag in the ditch across the road. There was actually a piece of pig iron laying in an old forge but, my wife wouldn't let me bring it home.



Much of the firebrick was intact and you can see the slag line at the rim to the melting chamber.

[Harry]

Those are great, I wonder if anyone is operating one of these stone furnaces still? I understand they would not be competitive market wise but I would think a running operation could make for a big draw. Where I was born and I would suspect many other places they have a pioneer village which is a museum of historical buildings and other artifacts that have been saved to represent a time gone by.

[Jammer]

http://buckeyefurnace.com/index.html

I believe the is the closest to one opperating in the U.S. Very well rebuild and set up like it was ready to fire up. I don't believe the stack has any firebrick in it and where to get the tons of ore, charcoal and limestone needed to make Iron.
I hope, someday, to have an operating Cupola Furnace and be able to do demostrations at some of these old sites. Not sure that it will ever happen but, I'm keeping it in mind.

[Harry]

It is understandable why they dont operate these as a historical working furnace since they are a 24/7 ongoing operation once fired but it still seems like they could fire one up for a week once or twice a year and have volunteers run it.

I suppose the danger to both the volunteers and the visitors would be pretty high but what a spectacle it would be and how cool to see it making 12 tons of iron a day the way they did 160 years ago.

[Jammer]

http://www.gamineral.org/Historic-Photo ... in-Tn.html

This is a Copper mine and smelter in southern Tenn. The amount of charcoal used for smelting totally deforested the area for 50 sq miles. Some of it was caused by the acid from melting the copper sulphate ore making acid rain. I doubt if the EPA would allow an operation to fire up or OSHA for that matter. It would be way cool.I'm concerned about having a little foundry and cupola myself, I think if there's a complaint, big brother would shut me down.

[Harry]

Yup, it may just be one of those things that is gone for a reason. Who knows though, maybe some day a group will get together and get a permit to run a week out of the year, plan a big community celebration type thing around it and make it a big even. Sure would be something to see as far a glimpse back into time. Heck I would love to take a tour to a foundry like yours and see first hand how its done today, once you get the fire bug it takes a pretty good hold

[Jammer]

We are back in the furnace areas again and checking out some neet stuff. We went to a mineral museum yesterday and today. They both had some amazing stuff, mostly Fluorite and Galena in the south Missouri, west Kentucky and southwest Illinois. I'll have a bunch of pictures when I get home.