page_title: Pine Grove Iron Works
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Pine Grove Iron Works / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The ironmaster's mansion, also known as the Ege Mansion, of the Pine Grove Iron Works in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Impressive structure on the historic site. This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 77001158
context_page_description: The Pine Grove Iron Works was a southcentral Pennsylvania smelting facility during the Industrial Revolution. The works is notable for remaining structures that are historical visitor attractions of Pine Grove Furnace State Park, including the furnace stack of the Pine Grove Furnace. The site was listed on the National Register of Historical Places on April 13, 1977 for its significance in architecture and industry. It includes seven contributing buildings, two structures, fourteen sites, and two objects.
context_section_description: Pine Grove Furnace was built about 1770, the second of nine Cumberland County furnaces. It was built and operated by Robert Thornburg and John Arthur, in the interest of George Stevenson, who already owned Laurel Forge downstream on Mountain Creek. The furnace smelted iron ore to produce colonial cast iron products such as wagon wheel iron, fireplace backs, iron kettles, ten plate stoves, and in the late 19th century, Baldwin Locomotive parts.
  The Pine Grove Furnace facilities were identified as "Pine Grove Iron-Works" by 1782 ("Mr. Eger's [sic] iron-works" in 1783), and in addition to water raceways and charcoal hearths (traces of which are still visible), support facilities were built near the works, e.g., the 1829 L-shaped iron master mansion  (named "office" in 1872).  A saw mill was built c. 1777, and the Pine Grove No. 1 bank was used for limonite iron ore while two quarries provided limestone.  The 1870 South Mountain RR, with offices at Pine Grove, connected the furnace to limestone pits and three operating ore mines. 
  The charcoal-fired furnace was deactivated in 1874, and the engine house(s) continued pumping the ore pit (now Fuller Lake) to keep reduced water levels.  The cold blast furnace had been converted to hot blast by 1877, and remodelling in the 1877-8 winter including changes to allow alternate fuels.  Connellsville coke was first used on March 22/23, 1879; and anthracite was first used shortly afterward.  A rail extension to the Wild Cat pits, 2.5 miles west of Pine Grove, was considered in 1880 but not completed.  Net iron output in the peak year of 1883 was 6,000 short tons (5,400 t).  The SMRR-succeeding 1891 Hunter's Run and Slate Belt Railroad and 1910 Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railway operated to the Pine Grove Railroad Station and the nearby Pine Grove Park.
  Iron production ended in 1895, and the Pine Grove Iron Works was sold on September 12, 1913, as part of 3 tracts which became the majority of the Pine Grove Division of the South Mountain Forest and, by 1931, the Pine Grove Furnace State Park.
  The ownership chain of the Pine Grove Iron Works was published in 1886, and a history by one of the superintendents was published in 1934.  The Ironmaster's Mansion was restored by 1985 and renovated from 2010 until April 5, 2011.  In 1991, Railroads to Pine Grove Furnace was published.
caption: Ironmaster's Mansion, the Ege Mansion
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