Buckeye Furnace: Blast from the Past 
By Randall Edwards 

Two natural resources - iron ore and forests - led to major changes in southern Ohio's landscape. The discovery, in the early 1800s, of thick deposits of iron ore near the surface of the Appalachian foothills prompted the construction of nearly 70 iron furnaces in what become known as the Hanging Rock Iron Region. 

Those furnaces needed charcoal to fuel the process that turned ore into pig iron. To make charcoal, the "colliers" (workmen who made charcoal) needed firewood. And so began the first wholesale clear cutting of Ohio's once majestic hardwood forests. 

"Each furnace might need 8.000 to 12,000 acres of timber to make its charcoal. And there were 11 furnaces in Jackson County alone. So you can imagine what it did to the hills around here," explains Steve Henthorne, deputy director of facilities management for the Ohio Historical Society and the former live-in caretaker of Buckeye Furnace. 

While the stone "stacks" of many of the abandoned iron furnaces can be seen in many places around Ohio, the Buckeye Furnace, located in Jackson County near Wellston, is the only place in Ohio where visitors can see the stack, as well as a re-creation of the wooden buildings that comprised an "iron plantation." 

Thanks to two nature trails on the 270-acre site owned and managed by the historical society, visitors can witness the regeneration of the forest, while getting a peek at some of the remnants of this short-lived but remarkable industry. 

The site has two nature trails totaling 1.6 miles in length, interpretive signs on the trails bring attention to natural features as well industrial remnants of the furnace that was built in 1851 and operated until 1894. 

Visitors can imagine what it was like when the furnace was surrounded by a small village, made up of 125 to 200 company employees and their families. These furnace villagers were responsible for creating the iron for the pots and skillets that served pioneer families across the frontier, as well as cannon balls for the Union Army. 

A short distance down Co. Rd. 58 is the parking lot for the nature trails, where visitors can walk through the native hardwood forest that has grown back over the century since the furnace went cold. 

As soon as you park the car on one of these pull-offs, you'll step out into history - the site's caretakers paved parts of the lot using heaps of old slag left over from the iron-making process. Along the Pit Trail, shallow depressions are visible, which may be filled with water in the spring. These were created when miners removed the ferriferous iron ore from the ground. 

But Henthorne, an avid bird-watcher who returns to the site regularly, recommends looking for more than history. The site features a relatively mature forest (by Ohio standards) and those forests are filled with birds. He regularly sees pileated woodpeckers, red-shouldered hawks and Carolina wrens, and migratory songbirds are thick during late April and early May. 

Beavers have returned to Little Raccoon Creek, and in the areas where they have impounded water, wood ducks and mallards like to visit. Bobcats, though rare, have been spotted in the region. The discovery around 1845 of larger, more pure supplies of iron ore in the upper Great Lakes spelled the beginning of the end to the Hanging Rock iron furnaces.