Newlee Iron Furnace - Cumberland Gap National Historical Park Historic District - Lee County, VA - NRHP Historic Districts - Contributing Buildings on Waymarking.com

From the National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form:

"2. Iron Furnace

This structure was used during the nineteenth century as a charcoal blast furnace for smelting iron. Probably built between 1813 and 1835 by Martin Beaty, it was operated intermittently until about 1881, by a number of people including John G. Newlee for whom the foundry was named at the end of the century. The foundry and buildings were used for ammunition storage for a part of the Civil War. This foundry is considered one of the last examples of a cold-blast charcoal furnace.

The furnace is located at the base of Cumberland Mountain, next to Gap Creek near Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, at an elevation of 1350 feet. In 1870, the foundry group consisted of the blast furnace itself, a 25' x 26', 35'-high limestone chimney lined with firebrick; a casting shed, a 15' x 20' single story frame building connected to the south; a 2 1/2-story, 30' x 45' storehouse to the north, with a 30' overshot water wheel to power the blast machinery; and a fleming mill detached from the complex nearby. Presently the site includes the 30' remains of the blast furnace, a grass-covered slg pile, a large stone with drill-holes for splitting it, and a portion of a flume, cut to channel Gap Creek around the foundry."

From the National Park sign at the furnace

"From the early 1820s to the 1880s, an iron smelting business here took advantage of the rushing waters of Gap Creek. Today only the creek and part of the original 30-foot-high stone tower remain, a small part of an industrial complex of buildings, slag heaps, and machinery then called the Newlee Iron Frunace.

All the ingredients needed to make iron were nearby: iron-ore deposits close to the surface, limestone, abundant firewood to be made into charcoal for fuel, and waterpower to run the air bellows and a massive hammer mill. Some iron made here was sold to local blacksmiths. Some of the 150-pound ingots or 'pigs' were shipped down the Powell River to Chattanooga, Tennessee.

A typical early-1800s ironworks needed a hammer mill and bellows next to the tower, as well as a way to continually dump charcoal and ore into the top of the chimney. For Newlee Furnace, the exact positions of these components are not known.

Frontier-era ironworks had an enormous appetite for firewood. During the 60 years iron was refined in this tower, more than 10 square miles of trees went up in smoke."