Ivanhoe Furnace

Ivanhoe Furnace. . The abundant natural resources of Southwestern Virginia brought settlement and transportation to the area, helped supply wars, and provided the building blocks essential to a growing a nation., Just over a hundred years ago this peaceful, forested tract of land held the Ivanhoe Furnace. The 19th century emblem for prosperity was smoke, and blast furnaces like Ivanhoe pumped out smoke 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Imagine working in excruciating heat with the roar of the blast in your ears and constant risk from deadly gas, molten metal and steam explosions: Dangerous and volatile, blast furnaces dotted the region and provided jobs, brought transportation and settlement and fueled the local economy., (captions) , (Left) This furnace, believed to be built by the Hendricks Brothers Company, went into blast the last of April 1882, producing ten tons of iron per day. It fell into poor conditions in the early 1910's and was shut down soon after., (Above) A blast furnace is a huge, steel stack lined with refractory brick, where iron ore, coke and limestone are dumped into the top and preheated air is blasted into the bottom: These materials are then converted into liquid iron. The hot melted ore is poured into a long tray with several smaller inlets off a main branch. The runner and its small offshoots is said to resemble a sow and piglets and is called pig iron.