page_title: Nittany Furnace
section_title: Centre Iron Company
hierarchical_section_title: Nittany Furnace / Centre Iron Company
caption_attribution_description: English: Picture of Nittany or Valentine Furnace (labeled Nittany Iron Works) in Spring Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, US. View is to the northwest. As identified from contemporary Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, the building on the left is the stock house, connected by a hoist to the furnace. In front of the furnace are three stoves. A boiler house sits in front of the stoves, and the brick engine house is to its right, in front of the tall smokestack. A small part of the cast house roof is visible behind furnace and stoves.
context_page_description: Nittany Furnace, known earlier as Valentine Furnace, was a hot blast iron furnace located in Spring Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania, United States. Placed in operation in 1888 on the site of an older furnace, it was an important feature of Bellefonte economic life until it closed in 1911, no longer able to compete with more modern steel producers.
context_section_description: The preliminaries to the furnace's construction began in 1885, when Valentine and Thomas, an old ironmaking firm of Bellefonte, decided to sell off its properties. These then consisted of Bellefonte Forge, on Logan Branch just south of Bellefonte, and Bellefonte Furnace, a cold blast charcoal iron furnace lying about a mile south of the town, also on Logan Branch, as well as holdings in local iron ore mines. Both plants were served by the Bellefonte, Nittany and Lemont Railroad, a subsidiary of the PRR. The ironworks and ore lands were bought on August 2, 1886, for $400,000, by the Valentine Ore Land Association, whose principals organized the Centre Iron Company to erect a new iron furnace on the site of Bellefonte Furnace, which was to be torn down. A $600,000 mortgage was immediately raised on the properties, to supply the purchase money and funds for rebuilding the furnace. The leaders of the company included Edmund Blanchard, W. M. Stewart, and B. K. Jamison, a Philadelphia banker. The plant was built in 1887, and the Nittany Valley Railroad was built to supply it with ore. It became necessary to raise additional funds, and in 1887, the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased $75,000 worth of bonds in exchange for exclusive rights to rail traffic to and from the furnace. The first load of ore was delivered by the Nittany Valley on February 28, 1888, and the furnace went into blast on March 4, 1888. The company was originally headed by Jamison, but by 1890, James B. Coryell was president and Jamison vice-president. At this time, the furnace had one 70-foot (21-meter) stack and three hot-blast stoves, with a capacity of 30,000 tons (27,200 tonnes) of iron per year. Ore was supplied from local hematite deposits, and the furnace was fuelled by Connellsville coke. In the same year, however, the failure of Jamison's bank precipitated the closure of the furnace by the sheriff on November 15, 1890. It was subsequently sold under foreclosure.
caption: Nittany Furnace around the time of its purchase by the Nittany Iron Company, looking towards the northwest. The building on the left is the stock house, the furnace lies to the center of the photo, connected by a hoist to the stock house, and the three stoves for the hot blast are visible in front of the furnace.
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