By: rkohrs
Image: Russ Kohrs ⧉
License: Copyright, All Rights Reserved

Uploaded: 8 Mar 2019
Last Updated: 8 Mar 2019

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The ruins of Elizabeth Furnace at Elizabeth Furnace National Recreation Area, George Washington NF. This is one of the old iron smelting furnaces so important for the local Shenandoah Valley economy during the 19th century as well as for the confederate civil war effort. The furnace took iron ore, mined by hand from local beds of limonitic and hematitic Ridgeley Sandstone and Bloomsberg Formation (likely more the latter), mixed with locally produced hardwood charcoal and limestone to produce pig iron. Slag was a by-product that was skimmed off the top. The process required that the furnace be located in the midst of the resources necessary, including running water (Passage Creek here). An entire community sprung up around these, made up of skilled labor like colliers (charcoal-makers), woodsmen, etc. and labor from white indentured servants and Africans enslaved and "rented" out by local plantations or perhaps even owned by the furnace operators.