Shannondale Iron Furnace

[eTraxx]

A friend of mine was roaming around Saturday and ran across this old iron furnace. Pretty cool!

http://mentilucent.net/Iron/IronFurnace.html

[Ray Dunakin]

That's really cool! The masonry must be really good, to hold up so well after all these years.

[Mobilgas]

Interesting structure....like the color's on the stone..... green moss and all      Craig H

[teejay99]

Thanks for the pics , Ed . I'm into modeling steel mills although 50's era . This furnace must be from the 1800's would you say ?

Terry

[eTraxx]

Thanks for the pics , Ed . I'm into modeling steel mills although 50's era . This furnace must be from the 1800's would you say ?

Terry

http://www.shannondale.org/forum/content.php?197-The-Shannondale-Iron-Furnace

Around 1839 two entrepreneurs, Perdue and Nichols built a furnace about a mile South and adjacent to Shannondale Springs along a stream now eponymously named Furnace Run.This stream empties its waters into the Shenandoah River just downstream of the river's "Horseshoe Bend". The operation included a receiving area for raw materials, a stone furnace to provide heat for the process and western wing for the storage of the finished "pigs" of iron. Up to three tons of pig iron were produced daily during the industry's heyday during which the operation employed, housed and fed up to fifty men.

The Shannondale furnace supplied its raw product to the armory in Harper's Ferry as well as markets downstream on the Potomac River. The venture was successfully operated until the Civil War at which time it is believed the main structures of the facility were destroyed. All that is still extant is the stone furnace stack. The area surrounding the furnace was cleared in 1975 by the Shannondale Garden Club, but has since fallen to neglect and is once again surrounded by brush and small trees.

That link has a generic drawing of such a furnace. Looks like it would make for a cool dio!

[gin sot]

I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the artist Edwin Tunis, but he put out a number of self-illustrated books about life and industry in the early United States.  I can recall one that described an early bloomery furnace very similar to the depiction above, that I thought would make a swell diorama . . . despite the fact that at that point my modeling hadn't progressed much past a Tyco trainset and a few poorly assembled Monogram and Revell jet kits.

I still find small, primitive industries pretty compelling, especially the ones the model railroad bandwagon hasn't gotten around to overdoing yet.

[granitechops]

Ed, any idea what the lintels were made from, to last over 100 years they must be good, I would guess from looking at pic P1060052 in that link you gave that they were cast iron, Or maybe possibly wrought iron, dont seem to be rusting like steel would in layers like
Edit,
yes thinking about it, if they were producing pig iron, it would be sensible to use what was to hand, although the lintel had to exist before the furnace came into production!!

[Frederic Testard]

It' a really nice drawing, Ed, and surely would make a nice dio subject. Now, you'd have to find a way to suggest the heat, smoke and red molten iron. Not too easy, perhaps.

[JohnP]

The Internets hold quite a bit about iron making in these old furnaces. Virginia has a bunch of these- the Allegheny Front had iron deposits all along it with lots of trees for charcoal and later coal for coking with limestone in the hills too so furnaces popped up in numerous hilly locations.

http://www.betweenthelakes.com/iron/fobf_7_5_03.htm - nice photos of a cleaned up furnace

http://www.tannehill.org./ - I really want to see this someday. Restored in appearance.

http://www.cornwallironfurnace.org/index.htm - Here's another must see. Looks beautifully restored.

http://www.virginia.org/site/description.asp?attrid=40679 - Here's one typical for around the hills of VA. I've been to this one and a few others.

http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/se02/index.shtml#info - And yet another one to see what buildings were plugged on to the furnace itself.

http://www.ironminers.com/ - cool site of crazed people exploring old iron mines.

I saved a bunch of like because someday I would like to model one. Buildings and all. Some of them were modernized a bit so they lasted longer into the late 1800's like this local furnace: http://www.ironfurnaces.com/wiki/index.php?title=Lucy_Selina_Furnace_%28VA%29 
They all had railroad access, some with narrow gauge coming down from the mine and standard gauge to haul away the iron pigs. It would be a magnificent scene with red LED's and 20 Seuthe smoke generators at full voltage.

John

[eTraxx]

Check that link. He went back and took a more photos including some close ups

[granitechops]

Just went back to that link, some intresting wood grain detail if you enlarge the pics of the house,
Not being over familiar with your architectural prferences over the pond, just asking, is the roof zinc sheeting? or something else?