Jo Ellen Litz

Recipes

People Above Politics

Taking Action, Getting Results.

2501 Cumberland St., Lebanon PA  17042

644-4698

If you demand open government, drop me a note to receive email alerts informing you of meeting highlights that let you know how commissioners vote on issues.  Litz@mbcomp.com

Team Litz:

Honorary Chair:     Lt. Gov. Catherine Baker Knoll --a woman who broke the glass ceiling and contributed greatly to PA politics; born in 1930, died November 12, 2008.

Chair:  Jeff Werner

Treasurer:  Richelle Whitman

Cornwall Iron Furnace

Rexmont Rd. at Boyd St, PO Box 251, Cornwall PA  17016; (717)272-9711

Tuesday through Saturday 9-5 summers, 10-4 winters

Sunday Noon-5 summers, Noon-4 winters

(Closed Mondays except Memorial, Independence, and Labor Days)

Adults 13-59 $3.50; Seniors 60+ $3; Youth 6-12 $1.50; Children -5 Free; Family $8.50; Groups $3/person - 10 minimum with advanced reservations.

For over two centuries the iron industry was the economic backbone of Lebanon County.   Near Cornwall Ore Banks, once the greatest known deposit of iron in the United States, Cornwall Furnace was built in 1742.  The 30' tall sandstone pyramid was the seventh iron furnace constructed in the province of Pennsylvania, and the first in what is now Lebanon County.  As years passed, furnace operation was modernized, buildings remodeled, and equipment updated.  The last major renovations were made circa 1856-57, and in 1883 the now obsolete furnace "went out of blast" forever.   Of the other charcoal furnaces that produced America's iron for a century and a half, little, if anything, remains beyond piles of stone ruins with scant trace of auxiliary buildings.  Remarkably, however, at Cornwall the entire complex survived intact, so that today a visitor can take a "time machine" journey into the past and visit the world of 19th century ironmaking.  Nowhere else in the United States, and in only a few places in the world, has a furnace this old been so well preserved.   Particularly striking is a giant 24-foot iron and wood gear, part of the steam-powered mechanism that blasted air into the furnace.

Cornwall Furnace was once the heart of a nearly 10,000 acre "iron plantation," a self-sufficient community that existed solely for the production of iron in the form of cast iron products and bars of "pig" iron.  (Pig iron was transported to area forges for further refining.)  Cornwall Furnace also produced cannon and cannonballs during the Revolutionary War.

Reigning over the industrial empire was the ironmaster, first Peter Grubb and his descendants, then Robert Coleman and three generations of his family.  Remnants of magnificent estates and villages of workers' houses still dot the surrounding countryside.

Since 1932 Cornwall Furnace has been administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

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