Photograph as originally submitted to this page in the Historical Marker Database www.HMdb.org. Click on photo to resize in browser. Scroll down to see metadata.

Photographer: William Fischer, Jr.
Taken: November 29, 2008
Caption: Basic Ingredients
Additional Description: Interpretive marker in front of the furnace reconstruction:
Before the age of railroads the basic ingredients of iron production needed to be nearby. That explains why furnaces were built in rural settings surrounded by the necessary raw materials.

A source of iron ore was essential.

As the furnace fires burned, limestone separated impurities from the molten iron.

Huge forests supplied wood for charcoal, a fuel that burned with intense heat.

A stream or creek provided water power to operate machinery designed to fan the charcoal fire, raising its temperature to nearly 3,000 F.
Submitted: December 3, 2008, by William Fischer, Jr. of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Database Locator Identification Number: p45612
File Size: 0.079 Megabytes

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