Always Trust the Weathermen?

 According to the weather forecasters, we were going to be getting rain in the afternoon and the morning would be cloudy. Pulling up to the top of Lime Hollow Road, I got my first view of the rising sun, silhouetting a large tree. I was heading over to pick up Ann Marie, we were going to take another ride in the country. We were heading south, towards Ohiopyle.

    Our trips seem to always follow a certain “outline”, with-in the first half hour we stop for fueling; coffee and something to munch on. This day was no different. Fueled, we hit the highway, and then onto two lane roads, aiming first for Latrobe.

    As per our outline, we usually have a couple geocaches to find. The first search of the day brought us to Fred Rogers Drive.

    If you look at the picture closely you can just see the cache hanging on the sign. Thinking of Mr. Rogers, it was truly turning into a beautiful day in the neighborhood! The skies were blue and there was no lack of sunshine. AMB quickly found the cache and three of the other four caches we looked for. I found the other one mainly because it was on my side of the car.

    We drove through the outskirts of Ligonier, passing beautiful snowy horse pastures and then through Donegal and over to Normalville where we then dropped down into the valley. Taking a few smaller roads, we eventually came to the remains of the Fayette Furnace.

    Sitting not far from the road, it is easily seen during the winter season when all the leaves are off the trees. It is a large looking furnace with two very large openings in it. It could be due to the size of the arches that make it appears so large. The side facing Bucks Run has collapsed, possibly due to the centuries of high water washing against it.

    The three remaining sides all have large cracks forming in them and there are a few trees growing on it. Trees can be very destructive as their roots force the stones apart.

    There are conflicting dates as to when it was built. The book I consulted, A Guide to the Old Stone Blast Furnaces of Western Pennsylvania, by Sharp and Thomas says it was either 1815 or 1827. There were 30 to 50 people who worked here. It produced about 500 tons of iron a year and went out of blast in 1840. It was a productive community. It is difficult to imagine when you look at the ruins, all that is here, is the stone stack! 

    We managed to find some paths through the ever present “jagger” bushes and were able to get close to it. Neither of us got any scratches or cuts!

    From here we headed north following the road we took to get to the furnace. This took us into State Game Lands and across a couple mountains. This sounds easier than it was. The roads had been plowed but were covered with a layer of packed down snow. Some of the steeper hills had been cindered. We would slowly work our way up the hill only to reach a spot where you couldn’t see what was below us, slowly we would creep forward until we could see where we were going. Luckily, we only met one other car while we were on these tight dirt roads. Coming to the start of one hill, we decided to turn around rather than chance it. Luckily there was a spot wide enough to turn around, most of the roads were only wide enough for a car to pass through. The edges were either ruts or piles of plowed snow. We chose another road and hoped for the best, we were following the compass most of all, when we came to an intersection, we kept heading towards the north.

    We went down a couple hills holding our breath, hoping that the conditions wouldn’t deteriorate and that we wouldn’t slide. The ride was worth it though; we saw some nice views from the top of the hills not to mention some beautiful Pennsylvania woodlands. A half hour or so later, we finally came to a paved road. We were only a few miles away from where we were heading!

    The final find of the day was in Laurel Hill State Park. It was a Multi-cache, meaning that we had to find a cache and then by doing some basic math with what we found in it, we would figure out the final location. It ended up being about a ¼ mile away, across a snow covered field. “We can do that!”, so off we went.

    The snow had a crust on it and so we had to break through it every step. In places the snow was 6 inches or higher. Ground zero was in some woods and the GPS signal bounced around a lot. We went back and forth and finally got it down to a 60 foot circle. The snow made it even harder to find, we checked all the “usual” spots such as stumps and logs but almost all of them had snow packed around them.

    Ann Marie finally found it under a fallen tree. She said she just happened to glance in the right direction at the right time and saw a corner of it. I believe it was her superior "geo-sense" that led her to it!

    From there we stopped in Mt. Pleasant for a late lunch and then headed back home. As we neared Pittsburgh the sky started clouding over, which was fine with us. The day was great as far as we were concerned. One lesson that was learned, or maybe re-enforced was, don’t trust the weathermen, just open the door and look for yourself!

Some Book Suggestions for the New Year!

With a couple days of the New Year under my belt, I took a look back at the books I had read in 2023. Out of the bunch, there were 15 that I really enjoyed. The books I’ve read over the past year(s) have come from many different sources. I read Book Page (available at most libraries free of charge) which tells about new and upcoming books. I love to frequent book stores, especially used book stores and I often get suggestions on what to read from friends. I also make use of the public library, a resource that sadly, too many people never use! The books I have listed may not necessarily be best sellers or on any “must-read” lists, they are just some of the ones which I really enjoyed during the past year. I hope someone else might find them enjoyable also.

    They are not ranked; they are listed in the order that I read them. That being said, here is my list. I’ll try to keep it short…

    1) Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. (Fiction) Taking place a few decades into the future, Wade spends his days in a virtual world called OASIS, along with the majority of the world’s population. In the game are puzzles based on the Pop Culture of decades gone by. When Wade solves one of them and gets the first key, he finds out that other players are willing to kill to win the game. (It is a pretty good movie also!)

    2) The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. (Fiction) Hugo lives secretly behind the walls of a Paris train station, keeping the station clock running correctly. He has a notebook that is taken from him by one of the shopkeepers in the station. He meets the shop keepers’ daughter, Isabella who helps him retrieve it and together they discover more about both of their families. This book is thick but half of it is comprised of drawings. The drawings help to tell the story. In some ways, this might also be described as “Historical-Fiction, you will see why after you read it!  I had to buy a copy after I finished it.

    3) The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, by V.E. Schwab. (Fiction) In the year 1714, a woman makes a pact which insures she will continue to live, but no one will remember her, she will be forgotten by everyone she meets. After 300 years she meets a man in a bookstore who remembers her…

    4) City Under One Roof, by Iris Yamashita. (Fiction) An Alaskan police detective goes to a tiny Alaskan town to investigate a possible murder. When she gets there, she finds out that the only way into the town is through a tunnel in the snow and that all the residents of the town live in the same building. The tunnel collapses and she and the residents are unable to leave. She soon finds out that everyone in town has things to hide.

    5) Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. (Fiction) A widow starts working at a Seattle Aquarium and makes friends with an octopus. The octopus is much brighter than anyone realizes and helps her to discover what happened to her son who disappeared on a fishing boat 30 years ago.

    6) The Selected Works of T.S. Spivit, by Reif Larson. (Fiction) I loved this book! It is about a 12-year-old kid who is a bit of a genius. He has filled notebooks with his notes and maps. He maps everything! Selections of his journal and maps are printed beside the text of the book. He is invited to The Smithsonian Museum, they don’t realize that he is just 12. He decides to go on his own without telling his parents, so he heads across the country and starts to discover the world outside of his hometown.

    7) The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. (Fiction) After a young shepherd has a dream of finding treasure, he looks at it as a prophecy and so, embarks on a journey to find it. The book incorporates, magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder. Originally published in 1988, it has become a “modern classic”.

    8) The Reading List, by Sara Nisha Adams. (Fiction) The book tells the stories of two very different people who are drawn together after a chance encounter with a reading list found in a library.

    9) Walking With Sam, by Andrew McCarthy. (Non-Fiction) The actor, Andrew McCarthy is feeling old and wants to hike the Camino de Santiago trail across Spain. His son accompanies him on the 500-mile trek and in the process, both learn about themselves and each other.

    10) The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston. (Non-Fiction) There have been rumors and tales of a city of extreme wealth hidden in the jungles of Honduras. The White City or The City of the Monkey God has been searched for but never found. The author joins a group of scientists who are trying to locate where it might be. Their destination is between steep mountains filled with deadly snakes, disease carrying insects, jaguars and quicksand.

    11) Dead Mountain, by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. (Fiction) In 2008, a group of experienced mountaineers never return from a long hike in the mountains of New Mexico. After search parties are sent out, they discover bizarre things at the hikers last campsite. Only 6 bodies of the 9 hikers were found. In the present day, 3 more bodies are found and a young FBI agent is sent to find out what happened 15 years ago.

    A couple interesting notes; While talking with my nephew Henry, he told me about a similar incident which took place in Russia, in the 50’s. As he was telling me about the incident, I wondered about the similarity between this and the book. After investigating a bit more, I found out that there was another book called Dead Mountain, by Donnie Eichar which tells a true story about a group of hikers who disappeared in Dyatlov Pass in the Ural Mountains. I also found out that Douglas Preston had written an article for the New Yorker about this event. He later morphed the article into a fictional book with his coauthor Lincoln Child. I have just started reading Eichar’s book!

    12) The Cartographers by, Peng Sheperd. (Fiction) When Nell’s father, the head of the NY Library’s Map Collection, is found dead in his office, she discovers a seemingly unimportant map in his desk. The simple gas station map leads her on a journey which helps her discover secrets about her family and also the “true” power of maps.

    13) Just My Type, by Simon Garfield. (Non-Fiction) This is a book about “fonts”. It has some history, many different stories about how and why certain fonts were made along with some trivia that anyone who is interested in books and reading might appreciate. (This blog was originally written in Bookman Old Style font in case you are wondering.) The book covers things that we see daily in so many places and never even think about. You will notice them more after reading this book!

    14) Starter Villain, by John Scalzi. (Fiction/Science Fiction) A substitute teacher, divorced and living in a house owned by his siblings, inherits his uncle’s super-villain business. A humorous book that shows that cats are a lot smarter than most people realize!

    15) Our Missing Hearts, by Celeste Ng. (Fiction) Bird Gardner lives with his father in a dorm at the college where his father works. He is 12 years old and his mother has been gone for 3 years. Having an Asian background, they must be careful in what they do and say. Many children are getting “relocated”, for their own good and the good of the country. Bird finds out that librarians were helping families to find out where their children were. Through the library he discovers why his mother left. In the second half of the book, he goes to find his mother. This book in many ways could describe parts of our own civilization. Though no dates are given, this book could very well take place in our near future!

XXXX

So, there are a few books to check out. Hopefully one or two piqued your interest. Remember, by visiting your local library, you can borrow them…for free! If you like the book, go to your local bookseller and get a copy to keep, and re-read!

 

Our Holiday Jaunt

 

A yearly thing Ann Marie and I do is to take a trip down into the Strip District during the week before Christmas. We do some shopping, stop at a few of our favorite stores and then, after getting a couple cookies at Enrico Biscotti, we go over to La Prima Espresso for some good coffee and then sit outside and people watch. Most of the time it is crowded, and people are happy and courteous. People are saying Merry Christmas to strangers and everyone is smiling. We enjoy watching the families that bring their children down to help them shop, the kids eyes wide open, trying to take it all in. These are memories being made! It is a great way to get into the Christmas spirit.

    We went down on Thursday, three days before Christmas Eve. With our steaming cups of java sitting in front of us and crumbs gathering on the table, we talked, watched and enjoyed the morning. The scenery was continuously changing. While we were there, a young man came up and asked about my camera. (I was shooting film that day.) He was a “film shooter” also and we spent a few minutes discussing cameras before wishing each other a happy holiday and parting ways. After the Strip, we went to visit our favorite bookstore, City Books and spent a little time with Arlan, the owner.

    From there, we headed north. Beyond Zelienople we stopped to find a couple caches and to take some photos of the scenery. Further north, we came into the outskirts of Mercer. The snow coverage was more prevalent here as compared to Pittsburgh where everything had melted. We turned towards the west and eventually ended up on the road we were searching for. We pulled over beside a dirt drive with signs all over the place warning about trespassing and that we were on camera.

    Despite the signs, we got out and walked up and down the road, peering into the woods. A small pile of what looked like dirt and trees looked like what we were searching for, another iron furnace. The Iron City Furnace!

    I guess the cameras worked because the owner of the land stopped by. When we told him what we were doing he was kind enough to allow us to visit the pile, and what was left of the furnace. The owner and I shared our knowledge of it, unfortunately neither of us knew very much. He was interested in learning more about it. We exchanged contact info and wished each other Merry Christmas. He was definitely a nice guy!

    The furnace has mostly fallen in on itself. From the road you wouldn't even realize what it was, in fact, when walking around it, it was tough to picture what it once was. Looking closer, there were a few places where rows of stones could be seen. Forcing my way to the top, through the sharp and thorny branches I was able to glimpse the bricks forming the round edge of the inner bosh. A small, dark opening on the side was the top of one of the furnace arches, allowing a glimpse down into the furnace. This was where the best-looking stones were, still nice and straight and all in line. The area in front of it was wet and swampy.

    My hands and legs will be complaining for the next couple days. I got at least 3 thorns stuck in me. Blood was flowing! All around the ruins were those thorny trees and bushes which seem to proliferate around iron furnaces; Honey Locust, Japanese Bayberry and Roses.  Anyone who has hunted or hiked in the Pennsylvania woods is familiar with these plants. The Locust thorns go straight in and then break off, usually getting infected a day later. While driving home I kept finding new thorns that were stuck in my pants!

    After taking some pictures we returned to the main roads and searched for a restaurant for some dinner. A nice Mexican place in Zelienople fit the bill and then it was back towards home.

   One more geocache waited for us and Ann Marie found it almost as soon as she got out of the car. It was hidden in a golf ball! Our first find was hidden inside a rock and the last inside a golf ball! Nice hides! Earlier, while we were looking for another cache, the car was sitting alongside the road with the flashers on. A truck pulled over and a gentleman got out, looking a lot like Santa, complete with a white beard. He asked us if we needed any help. After Ann Marie told him what we were doing, he wished us both a Merry Christmas and continued on his way! A little bit of country caring! There were two other guys who watched us search for a different cache from a parking lot across the street. They must’ve known where it was because when we finally found it, they tooted their horns and gave us a “thumbs up”. Yes, it seemed like everyone was in a good mood!

    We returned home 8 hours after we left, and then relaxed by playing a game of Scrabble. It was a high scoring game for both of us, our final scores within a couple points of each other.

    Later while doing some research on the furnace, I found out that there was another Iron City Furnace close to this one, a bit further north. We will visit it on a future date. I also discovered that I had been to this furnace before, in 2009, surprisingly enough, to find a geocache. The cache is no longer active or there.

    You might wonder why we search for these piles of rock. It is because they are our history; they are part of our past, part of the way we advanced our civilization. It is exciting, to us at least, to see these rocks and stones which were piled in these sites a hundred or more years ago. It is another hobby and, we have to do something to keep us off the street corners!

    It was another perfect day, we met lots of nice people, it was evident that the holidays were working their magic!  It was truly another happy Holiday Jaunt.

Mark the Date!

 We are already past the middle of December. Christmas will be here in less than a week and one week after that, we will be starting a new year! I thought we just did this…

    One of the usual things I do, often on the 2^nd or 3^rd day of the New Year is to get a couple new calendars. One to be hung in the kitchen and one that will set on the desk upstairs. Not long afterwards, I’ll start the process of marking all the important dates onto the new calendars.

    When I was working I had three calendars. I needed one for inside my toolbox. How else would I be able to remind my co-workers which day was Johnny Appleseed’s (John Chapman) birthday? (September 26, 1774) That's no longer needed.

    I wish I could remember all the important anniversaries there are. Of course, some are much more important than others. There are some that I don't want to miss! Sadly my memory doesn’t work as well as I wish it did, the ability to remember seems to fade a bit more each year. I’m just guessing that all the fun and excitement of my younger life may have helped that skill to diminish.

    I have been making notes for myself for decades. The idea was that if I write it down, it will become engrained in my memory banks. Unfortunately, it just clutters my desk with scraps of paper. They lay scattered at random across the surface, under the laptop and stuck in books as bookmarks. The problem with “notes” is that not all of them need saved for the same amount of time. I often find packing lists from trips taken months ago alongside lists of quotes meant to be saved. I don’t spend enough time separating and sorting them all. The calendars definitely help in this regard.

    Looking back at all the notes on my calendar, I see doctor’s appointments, auto service dates, birthdays, death anniversaries and notes about past explorations and other important memories.

    The notations remain pretty constant. I add much more as compared to the ones I eliminate, so my notations increase yearly. 

    Calendars have been around for what seems like forever and there are many different types. Stonehenge is a solar calendar. There are Lunar calendars, Hebrew, Chinese, Islamic and Aztec to name just a few. They reside on our computers and phones. We use the Gregorian calendar ourselves. This went into effect in October of 1582, a replacement for the Julian calendar which most of the world used until then.

    Marking my new calendars is a process that usually takes 3-5 days, depending on how busy I am. This year I am getting a head start on things having bought a couple during a recent shopping trip. I actually enjoy copying down all these dates. I often come across things which make me smile, (My grandson Mateo’s first library card 10/30/22) and also things which bring back sad memories. (Big Red RIP- 12/19/21) I remember times spent with co-workers and remember fun trips taken years ago (Crossing the White Mountains with Ann Marie 5/18/08).

    Some may think it’s foolish to spend all this time “writing” down all these events but I enjoy it. It is a trip down memory lane, a street I often have difficulty finding!

    Here are a couple bits of calendar trivia;

·        This coming year, 2024, is a leap year, having 366 days.

·        Italy and England didn’t start the new year on Jan. 1^st until 1750

·        There was no year 0, there are 999 years between 500BC and 500AD

·        If you save your 2023 calendar, you can reuse it in 2034, 2045 and 2051

·        If you still have one hanging around, you can use the calendars from 1940, 1968 and 1996 next year.

 So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and of course, Happy New Year a week or so early! I know it will be a good one; we get an extra day to enjoy this year! Let's make the most of it!

A Ghost Town in Southeastern Butler

A ghost town is a place that once was an active community but has since been abandoned by all or nearly all of its residents. Buildings, ruins and sometimes only roads remain. Ghost towns can be found on every continent.

    Friday morning I met two other photographer/explorers and we headed north into Butler County. Getting up early, I was able to see the planet Venus and the moon high in the sky as I packed my car. It was looking good for the day ahead!

    Franko, Bob and I got off rt.28 near Freeport and headed east to Winfield Road. We passed through farmland and eventually dropped off of the top of the hills and entered into the valley. A huge cement plant sits at the bottom of the hill, right beside our destination, West Winfield.

    Making a turn, we entered what used to be the main street of the community. Today, there is nothing there. Houses lined both sides of the road for about a ½ mile or so. There was a plant which processed limestone from the mines across the stream. A railroad ran into the town and further down the road, a brick plant used to operate. Earlier in the town’s history, an iron furnace produced pig iron which was ferried by mules down to Freeport along what would later become the rail line.

    For a while the town was known as Winfield Furnace before becoming West Winfield. Interestingly, West Winfield sits on the eastern edge of Winfield Township. (There is another Winfield in Pennsylvania, about 50-60 miles north of Harrisburg. It had an iron furnace in it also. Could this be why it is called “West” Winfield?) The town was a “company town”. The houses were for the miners and workers who processed the limestone dug out of the hills around it.

    The town was rather big, it had stores, a school, a Roman Catholic Church, (St. Mary’s) and a Protestant Church, a Post Office and railroad station and of course, lots of jobs. One of the stores was run by the limestone company and you could get your pay there, and have your purchases taken right out of it. Houses and buildings lined the road.

    The town was divided by the railroad tracks, most of the people living above the tracks were of European ancestry while the newer immigrants (?) lived below the tracks. (On the wrong side of the tracks?) Why the town disappeared isn’t known to me, maybe because the jobs were no longer there. The railroad tracks were removed in the early 80’s and the houses were torn down around the same time, give or take a decade or two.

    We started out on the far side of town. We looked along the old RR path looking for anything exciting. We came across an old coupler near where we think an incline might have been. We found a slew of bricks, none of which were interesting to the brick-collector of the bunch.

    In our group, we had one guy looking for old and interesting bricks, another who was photographing the streams, waterfalls and trees and me, who was mostly excited about re-visiting the Winfield Furnace. An odd group but we worked well together!

    We gradually worked our way back into the main section of what used to be the town. A small level spot in the road marks where the tracks used to cross it. Following this track we passed where a train station used to stand. There is nothing to suggest that any buildings ever stood there. It is a short walk to where the stack stands. High tree-like shrubs hide it from view. Piles of asphalt and a few pieces of metal machinery sit in what used to be the rail yard. 

If you are looking for the furnace you’d find it, if you were just walking through, you might pass it without ever realizing it.

    The furnace was built in 1847 and produced iron for 17 years, going out of blast in 1864. The stack is still standing tall but parts of it have collapsed into the center. Some of the stones have cracked and there are plants growing on it but all-in-all, it looks pretty good! There are various things painted on the stones but none are recent and they are slowly eroding away, like the furnace. I’ve said it before, it is sad that we as a people choose to degrade things to enable our being remembered. I’ve never understood the urge to put graffiti on old structures or buildings. (This could be another blog completely!)

    One of the men I was with told me that there was a pit near the furnace in which a railroad turntable had sat. In the picture above which was taken after a flood in 1904, both the furnace and the turntable can be seen. It supposedly spanned 60’. The turntable can also be seen in the first picture in this blog, in the bottom left, right above the word “birdseye”.

    I didn’t remember ever seeing it before and was excited when he pointed out where it was. I needed to work my way through some rather thick brush to get to it and I couldn’t really see it until I was actually inside it. It was filled with dirt and debris on one side and there were lots of things growing in it, obscuring the view. 

    Once I saw the wall, about 2-3 feet high, I could see the radius, the curve of it. Once I had seen that, I could picture it. I had walked over some stones from the wall on my way in and hadn't realized it. I would love to see what it would look like cleared out. Is there a center still in it? I’ll have to bring a small shovel with me on my next visit! 

    I have been to this site at least 12 times now. I took the picture above sometime in the late 70’s, you can see that the railroad was still there. I believe it was my first time to see the furnace. I think I first found out about it while reading A Guide to Historic Western Pennsylvania, a book that is still in my collection and used often.

    We all enjoyed the day and returned with a lot of pictures. Along with pictures I came home with some questions…why did the town disappear? Did the people just drift away as jobs became scarce? Does the cement/limestone company still own the area? Why did they bulldoze all the houses? Were they vandalized or was the company worried about fire or lawsuits? Hardly anything is left. Nature is taking it all back. Luckily, there are some records of the town along with a few pictures.

    West Winfield, stop by and visit it, a bit of Butler County history that is slowly fading away…

A Visit to Mount Vernon

 

With tints of orange and pink decorating the eastern sky I loaded my car and went to pick up Jim. We stopped for Ann Marie and then headed south. It was a beautiful morning and we were hoping for clear skies for our trip.

    We were off to visit Mount Vernon, not the one in Virginia, home to our first president but the one in Bullskin Township, just a little closer. There is a connection to the president though!  Not far from the city of Mount Pleasant in Westmoreland County, just across the Fayette County line, lies what used to be a small community called Mount Vernon.

    With our usual breakfast snacks and cups of coffee we were ready to traverse the countryside. We followed rt.66 south, avoiding the “new” toll section, eventually driving through Greensburg, the county seat of Westmoreland County.

    As you come into the main section of this town, you crest a hill and the dome of the courthouse can be seen ahead. You have to pay attention as you drive through the city, the arrows on the roads change lanes in each block. It is a beautiful town with lots of impressive old buildings. Ann Marie and I will be returning one of these days to do a “walk about”.

    Passing through the town we eventually came to the edge of New Stanton, where rt. 66 intersects with rt.119 and the turnpike. We merged onto 119 and soon were coming into the Mount Pleasant area.

    Driving towards the east the sunshine on the windshield made us turn down the heater. Outside, the temperatures were close to freezing. We drove across hilltops with views of farms stretching out to the hills in the distance. A few animals were in the fields making the scenery even more spectacular, worthy of a calendar! Best thing of all was that there were no other cars on the narrow roads, we could take our time and enjoy the views.

    It didn’t take long to reach Woodsdale and the Mount Vernon Park. The first thing we did was to go outside, braving the cold…to get a couple geocaches. They were quick and easy finds and once found, we could go to what it was that brought us here, the Mount Vernon Iron Furnace.

    Even though this is an extremely old furnace, built in 1798, nearly 229 years ago, it sure doesn’t look like it! It has been re-built at least two times. It’s first re-do was in 1801 after an explosion destroyed part of the furnace, along with killing some of the workers in the process. More recently it was redone in 2006 by the Bullskin Township Historical Society, a process that has taken well over 10 years.

    The furnace worked for 32 years, finally being blown out in 1830. A small town named Mount Vernon surrounded the furnace, containing a schoolhouse, stores and houses for the workers. They are all gone now, all that remains of this community is the stack.

    The man who built it and owned it, Isaac Meason, named it in honor of his friend, George Washington. Meason owned four other furnaces in the area, his house still stands a bit further south in Dunbar Township.

 

    Bullskin Township started cleaning up the furnace and the area around it in 2006, the work continued on through 2016. They have succeeded in making a wonderful exhibit showing what iron furnaces made and how they did it. The destructive trees and plants have been removed from the stones which will help it survive much longer. The area has been cleaned up, a local man made a water wheel to add to the site, a casting shed has been added along with signage that help explain the process of making iron.

    It was definitely worth the time to drive down here to see this! Since we were so near, we decided to visit another Pennsylvania historic site. Just about 8 miles away sits the town of Kecksburg.

    On December 9^th, 1965, reports were made of a mysterious object flashing across the sky. It was seen from 6 states and Canada. In Kecksburg, people reported seeing blue smoke, feeling vibrations and hearing a loud “thump”. Apparently, something had landed in the woods near-by. State police and the Army sealed the area, keeping people away. Some residents said they saw an Army flatbed truck leaving the area with something covered with tarpaulins. Officials said that nothing was found.

    All sorts of tales arose afterwards. Some said it was a Soviet satellite, others said it was an American spy satellite while others think it came from another planet. Years later, NASA supposedly said that pieces picked up at the scene were from a spacecraft originating in Soviet Russia. When asked for documents, they said that the paperwork was surprisingly, missing! 

Witnesses said they saw weird hieroglyphic writing on it and that it looked like an acorn.

    What happened that night is still unknown and is up to speculation. It is up to the individuals reading and hearing the multitude of stories and reports about the incident to decide for themselves. A yearly UFO festival is held in the town. There is a museum and a gift shop across the street from the replica the town mounted on a hillside. Sadly, they weren’t open when we visited.

    All I can say is that here in Kecksburg, less than ten miles away from the now non-existent town of Mount Vernon, history was somehow made back in 1965. With this last bit of history in our minds we turned the car around and returned back to Pittsburgh, happy to have soaked up a little more of what Pennsylvania has to offer.

A Rainy Day Stop

 With the rain coming down steadily, Ann Marie and I took a “small” detour on our way to Beaver Falls to visit relatives. What was it that took us 20 or 30 miles out of our way? It was just a small pile of stones in the north-east corner of Beaver County, not far from Zelienople.

    These stones had been placed there about 210 years ago. While it doesn’t look like much now, this small pile of rocks was once one of only three iron furnaces located in Beaver County. The Bassenheim Furnace is the only one still in existence; the other two disappeared long ago.

    One of the other furnaces, the Homewood Furnace, was located near Elwood City. Back in the 1960’s the furnace site was under the town dump. The furnace, erected in 1858, had been situated along the Beaver Canal. It operated only about ten years.

    The other Beaver County furnace was called The Beaver Falls Furnace, or The Brighton Furnace. This had been built in 1808, the earliest of the three. Operating for about 18 years, it was located near the “middle falls” where Walnut Run enters the Beaver River.

    The pile of stones we visited, The Bassenheim Furnace was built in 1813 by Dr. Detmar Basse, the founder of Zelienople. It produced iron for about 10 years before it shut down. The quality of the iron it produced was good. The near-by forests provided charcoal to fuel it and limestone was procured from a cliff about a mile to the north. The ore came from local sources also.

    Situated along the side of Doe Run or Connoquenessing Creek, a water wheel powered bellows to help intensify the heat of the furnace. A dam was situated across the stream and the water was directed across the wheel to turn it. One of the reasons it closed down was the high cost of transporting the iron after it was made.

    While it was in operation, a small community surrounded it. Housing for workers, sheds to protect the furnace and the tools needed to run it, along with various out buildings such as stables. There were roads leading to and from it, including what I am guessing might have been a road to the top of the furnace where it could be loaded, the path we walked in on.

     The stones are what appear to be field stones, very few of them look as if they have been shaped. There are only a few that show the straightness of the outside wall. The backside has collapsed and is hardly recognizable as a furnace. There are no signs of any other structures in this area.

    A historic marker sits alongside the road, but it isn’t readable to those speeding past in their cars. A larger sign has been erected by the local Kiwanis Club to help bring attention to the site. Most people rushing past this intersection have no idea of the Beaver County history that occurred a couple hundred feet away.

    The rain continued to fall and our jackets and shoes were getting soaked, so we packed up and returned to the heat of the car, with another iron furnace under our belts. Also, there were still a couple geocaches to find before we got to Beaver Falls!