Valley Forge to Hopewell Furnace

I used to drag my kids out to every national park site that had a Junior Ranger program, and now I drag myself out to every national park site that has a passport stamp for my book!

Okay, but iron making is randomly really interesting, though?

I honestly did just want to hit up the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site only so I could collect its passport stamp, but also, one cannot simply collect one's passport stamp and leave--instead, one must do and see ALL THE THINGS. 

So we watched the intro film, looked at all the museum exhibits--

--and then walked the grounds and learned about iron making!

Hopewell Furnace is centrally located for all of your iron distribution needs.

Okay, so first you've got to make your own charcoal to fuel the forge, and just like in Stardew Valley, you make it by burning wood:

Then you cart it over to the storeroom--

--which is another short distance away from the top of the furnace where you dump it in:

It's super clever that the forge was built on a hillside, so that you could feed the fire at the top of the hill and collect the molten iron from the hearth at the bottom of the hill:

A giant water wheel powers pistons that force air into the furnace:

Obviously, I would have come to see this place solely for the water wheel!

Because of its rural location and the 12-hour shift length, the furnace site was essentially a company town, although the park information painted it as pretty idyllic, with competitive prices in the company store and a desegregated school. 

My partner poked around all the tenant buildings, but I only wanted to poke around the garden:

There wasn't a ranger around to ask if the residents had a particular need for dye and fiber plants, or if this was just a fun themed garden:

What do we think these orange flowers are? I want some!

This site was actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be! I'm still surprised that they managed to walk me through iron making in a way that I could understand, and I can't believe that all their marketing materials don't just have photos of that giant water wheel.

AND their passport sticker sets were nearly a buck cheaper than the ones at Valley Forge just 25 miles away, grr. Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site is in the 1987 set!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to random little towns, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!