Buchanan Furnace
Licking Township, Clarion County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
A short distance northwest of here is the well-preserved cold blast furnace, named for James Buchanan. It was built in 1844; abandoned, 1858, due to lack of timber. At the time of its operation, the iron industry was very prosperous in Clarion County.
The Story
In the 1840s, the hills of Clarion County rang with the work of the charcoal iron industry, and the cold blast furnace built here in 1844 — named for James Buchanan, the Pennsylvanian who would soon become the nation's fifteenth president — was part of that booming trade. Furnaces like this one smelted local iron ore using heat drawn from vast quantities of charcoal, which meant they devoured the surrounding forests at a staggering rate. By 1858 the nearby timber was exhausted and the furnace fell silent, a common fate that turned many a prosperous ironworks into a quiet ruin in little more than a decade.
Why it matters
The rise and swift fall of this furnace captures the story of antebellum American industry, when the young republic's hunger for iron reshaped whole landscapes and rural counties briefly became engines of the national economy.
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Related people
- · James Buchanan
Themes & tags
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