Alabama Blast Furnaces

Round Mountain Furnace: Cherokee County, near Centre

Round Mountain Furnace about 1880. with cast house on the right and furnace stack enclosed in frame structure on the left. ROUND MOUNTAIN FURNACE Cherokee County, near Centre April 1852 IN 1848 the War with Mexico came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. During that same year the eldest son of Jacob Stroup, the builder of Cane Creek Furnace, prospected through Cherokee County and purchased several hundred acres of ore lands. This son, Moses, was an iron-master of note in his own right. In Georgia he had erected furnaces and a rolling mill and at the latter had rolled the first railroad strap iron in the South. The little stone furnace which Moses Stroup began in 1849 was located at the base of Round Mountain, from which it took its name. The plant was situated on the site of a forge owned by William and Henry Milner. Cedar Bluff, the nearest town, was five and one-half miles east of Round Mountain. On February 11, 1850 Moses Stroup and Wilson Nesbitt incorporated the Alabama Mining and Manufacturing Company. Before the furnace went into blast, Stroup purchased Nesbitt's interest. The following letter -'-(1 116 }5c-•.- ROUND MOUNTAIN FURNACE was written by Moses Stroup to Michael Tuomey, State Geologist, from Round Mountain Furnace, March 18, 1855, describing operations at the furnace: "Round Mountain was first put in operation in April, 1852, and has been in operation most of the time since. It has produced two and one-half tons metal per day, and consumed on an average of six hundred fifty bushels of charcoal per day. A portion of the metal is converted into hollow ware and machinery, which is sold in this State, the balance is run into pigs, which find a market in Georgia. The ore' used is the red fossiliferous kind. It is taken from the side of the mountain, very near the furnace, where it lies in strata from ten to twenty-four inches in thickness; and is delivered at top of furnace at sixty cents per ton. This ore, when properly treated, makes the best quality of iron for castings and foundry pig. "The furnace is thirty-two feet high, eight feet in the boshes, and driven by steam power, the steam generated by the waste heat of the furnace, blown by a cold blast. The number of hands employed for all purposes connected with the furnace is forty-five. It is over half a mile from the Coosa River, on which is shipped the pig iron to Rome, Georgia. There is an abundance of good limestone within a mile of the furnace." Sometime during the year 1855 Stroup sold his holdings to Samuel P. S. Marshall of Eddysville, Ky. John Peter Lesley in his Manufacturer 's Guide published in 1859 lists Round Mountain furnace as hot blast and adds that for the three years previous to 1857 the output averaged 11 tons per week. Marshall operated the plant for several years then sold his interest to J. M. Elliott, a steam boat owner of Rome, Georgia. Shortly after outbreak of the Civil War, the Round Mountain Furnace was leased by Daughdrill and Creigher. In the Spring of 1863 a contract was signed with the Nitre and Mining Bureau and a money advance was obtained from the Confederate Government for the purpose of enlarging the plant. The following notice appeared in the Montgomery Weekly Mail of May 13, 1863, and indicates the progress of this work: "Judge Marshall, of Centre, Alabama, one of the operators of the Round Mountain Iron Works, informs the Atlanta Confederacy that the Company have now a large number of hands rebuilding the works, which will probably be completed and ready for operations in two months." View of dismantled Round Mountain Furnace. showing cylindrical iron top. A report dated Feb. 14, 1865 from John C. Breckinridge, Secretary of War, to President Jefferson Davis, giving the status of the iron industry in the Confederacy for 1864, states that the Round Mountain Iron Works operated two blast furnaces. There is no other evidence that a second stack was ever operated here. It is possible that Daughdrill and Creigher, lessees of the Round Mountain furnace, may have operated another of the neighboring furnaces but evidence for that assumption is also lacking. During the war almost all the iron made at Round Mountain Furnace was shipped via...