Episode 6: Great Western Iron Furnace - a podcast by Ayla Anderson

For pictures from this episode, visit my personal webpage here: https://www.curatorschoicepodcast.com/episodes/episode6

Deep within the Land Between Two Lakes, stands the Great Western Iron Works: a short-lived, history-rich iron producer. 

Driving through the Land Between Two Lakes (LBL), you drive right past this huge three-story-tall limestone structure. It’s 10 feet wide, 40 feet high, and is an old iron furnace. This is one of only two still intact from the 1800s; there was a total of 18 in production during the iron ore industry era in LBL.  This is known as the great western iron furnace and has a very unsuccessful history.

As I said before, they are made from these huge limestone slabs and are rectangular, tapering inwards towards the top, basically just a really huge kiln. Had a chimney running up through it, and was next to a hill with a wooden bridge leading to the top of the furnace. 

Men working the furnace would dump charcoal, hematite ore, and limestone would be carted by hand over to the top of the furnace and dumped in. The hematite contained about 60% pure iron; the charcoal provided the heat from burning. Steam pumps at the base of the furnace provided bellows of air to blast the fire, to melt off all the unnecessary stuff as tremendous heat would build up inside the furnace (Temperatures in the ore box reached 3,000 degrees F!).

The molten iron would then pool at the bottom and be funneled through wet sand to produce the iron bars. This is actually where the term "pig iron" came from, the main stream of molten iron would have smaller streams funneling off the sides, looking like a mother pig with her sucking piglets. 

The Great Western Furnace began operation in 1855 and during its first 34 weeks, it produced 1,350 tons of high-quality iron. Then its short producing life was over. The furnace owners, William Newell and John Pritchett were heavily in debt over the purchase of ~10 acres of land, acquired for the ore and timber needed to produce iron. Along with mismanagement, limited resources, and a nationwide economic recession spelled doom for the short-lived furnace. 

Episode Links:

• Four Rivers Explorer’s article “Great Western Iron Furnace’: www.fourriversexplorer.com/great-western-iron-furnace/

• Four Rivers Explorer’s article “Center Furnace in Land Between the Lakes”: www.fourriversexplorer.com/center-furnace/

• RootsRated article “The Story Behind Land Between the Lakes: America’s Largest Inland Peninsula: rootsrated.com/stories/the-story-behind-land-between-the-lakes-america-s-largest-inland-peninsula

• Forest Service webpage: www.landbetweenthelakes.us/

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