Joseph and Robert Woods and Thomas Yeatman built the first charcoal cold-blast furnace here in 1830. It used brown hematite ore from local deposits.
The furnaces of the region were used in the indirect method of smelting. (Smelting is a two-step process involving the blast furnace to produce pig iron and then a refinery forge to convert it to wrought iron.)The furnace never produced any other than the pig iron, which for the most part was sold and shipped to foundries, mills, and pipe works. Tennessee's large capacity for iron production made the state of strategic importance to both the North and the South. The South needed Tennessee's manufacturing capabilities to produce weapons of war for its cause. Knowing this, the North made the capture and destruction of key iron production facilities a part of its strategy. Thus, iron furnaces, forges, and works were the sites of several engagements between the Union and Confederate armies.
Distroyed by Union forces in 1862, the present stack was built in 1873, with a railroad to Tennessee Ridge, on the route of the present day highway. Operations here were discontinued in 1901.
