Pennsylvania's Iron Industry Fuels Progress and Victory

Pennsylvania's Iron Industry Fuels Progress and Victory. Civil War Trails. , During the Civil War an industrial complex existed on the floodplain along the Susquehanna River between Marietta and Columbia which included eight anthracite-fired iron furnaces and the canal and railroad facilities which served them. This historic complex possessed regional importance during its period of major activity from about 1845 to 1900 as a producer of pig iron. The furnaces exemplified the technology of the period by their use of anthracite coal for the smelting of iron ores. Because northeastern Pennsylvania could supply a rich source of anthracite and because the Pennsylvania Canal made it possible to transport this coal to areas which had none, anthracite-fired furnaces, using locally available iron ores, were built throughout the eastern part of the state. These furnaces helped make Pennsylvania a leader in iron production., Lancaster County ranked high in Pennsylvania in production of pig iron during this era, and the complex of eight furnaces along the Susquehanna contributed significantly to that output. Had the Confederate Army been able to cross the Susquehanna River in 1863, they could have decimated the local iron industry and transportation networks, which would have been disastrous to the Union's war effort.