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The Antrim Iron Company was an iron works that operated in Mancelona, Michigan from 1886 to 1945. The site of the iron works was south of Mancelona, between U.S. Route 131 and the railroad tracks.
In 1882, an organization by the name of "John Otis & Company" built a large charcoal furnace on the site. The company also platted a town around the furnace, naming it "Furnaceville". Soon after this, the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad built a station at the town. The furnace flourished, and in 1886 a group of businessmen from Grand Rapids bought out the company, and renamed the company Antrim Iron Works and the town Antrim. A large blast furnace and iron works was built on the site, and the new company began doing business.
In the beginning of the corporation, timber was hauled in from various lumber camps around Northern Michigan to be harvested for iron products at the plant. After many years of buying material to create the iron with, the company decided to obtain its own timber, and in 1894 built a small railroad branch (named the Mancelona North Western Railroad) [1] heading 2 miles west from the company site. With this spur line, the company logged its own lumber and hauled it in on its own railroad, proving to be quite self-sufficient. This lasted until 1907 [1] when the lumber ran out and other ways were developed to obtain the iron.
During World War II the company became extremely busy. With the vast need for materials for the war effort, the factory was working around the clock trying to produce enough products for the orders they were getting. This held true throughout most of the war.
After the war ended, the company quickly slowed down, and closed in 1945. The factory stood abandoned for over forty years, until it was torn down in the mid-1980s. Today all that is left of the old furnace consists of a few foundations, a small outbuilding, and a former railroad siding. The company dumped its waste in a pond behind the building, which years later led to water contamination in the town. The pond, called "Tar Lake", was cleaned up in the mid to late 1990s.
Antrim County is a county located in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, the population was 23,431. The county seat is Bellaire. The name is taken from County Antrim in Northern Ireland.
Mancelona is a village in the Northern Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. Part of Mancelona Township, the village is located within Antrim County. Its population was 1,344 at the 2020 census.
Mancelona Township is a civil township of Antrim County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 4,311 at the 2020 census.
Wisconsin Rapids is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, Wisconsin, United States, along the Wisconsin River. The population was 18,877 at the 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Marshfield–Wisconsin Rapids micropolitan statistical area, which includes all of Wood County and had a population of 74,207 in 2020.
Ephraim Shay was an American merchant, entrepreneur and self-taught railroad engineer who worked in the state of Michigan. He designed the first Shay locomotive and patented the type. He licensed it for manufacture through what became known as Lima Locomotive Works in Ohio; from 1882 to 1892 some 300 locomotives of this type were sold.
The Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad at its height provided passenger and freight railroad services between Cincinnati, Ohio, and the Straits of Mackinac in Michigan, USA. The company was formed on January 18, 1854.
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Tahawus was a village in the Town of Newcomb, Essex County, New York, United States. It is now a ghost town situated in the Adirondack Park. Tahawus is located in Essex County within the unpopulated northern area designated to the town of Newcomb. Tahawus was the site of major mining and iron smelting operations in the 19th century. Although standing as recently as 2005, the last mining facilities have since been demolished and removed.
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The Mont Alto Rail Road was a railroad in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, originally built to connect the blast furnaces of the Mont Alto Iron Company to the Cumberland Valley Railroad. It was later extended south to reach Waynesboro.
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The Duluth Works was an industrial steel and cement manufacturing complex located in Duluth, Minnesota, United States, in operation from 1916 to 1981. The complex was operated by the U.S. Steel. Officially, the plant's purpose was to supply the growing Midwest with steel finished products. Unofficially, they were built as part of a "gentleman's agreement" between U.S. Steel and the State of Minnesota to not impose hefty iron ore taxes on U.S. Steel in exchange for a fully integrated steel plant within Minnesota, whose mines furnished 80% of the ore to U.S. Steel. The combined works of the steel and cement plant were the largest employers in Duluth and the fourth largest industrial complex in Minnesota.
The Buffalo and Susquehanna Railroad was a railroad company that formerly operated in western and north central Pennsylvania and western New York. It was created in 1893 by the merger and consolidation of several smaller logging railroads. It operated independently until 1929, when a majority of its capital stock was purchased by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. At the same time, the B&O also purchased control of the neighboring Buffalo, Rochester, and Pittsburgh Railway. The Baltimore and Ohio officially took over operations of both roads in 1932.
Hermansville is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Meyer Township of Menominee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. As of the 2020 census, it had a population of 509. The community formed around the defunct Wisconsin Land & Lumber Company as a company town. The company's former headquarters is open as the IXL Historical Museum. US Highway 2 (US 2) passes through the north edge of the community.
EJ Group, formerly East Jordan Iron Works, is an American manufacturer of iron products, headquartered in East Jordan, Michigan. The company manufactures and distributes iron construction castings, fabricated products, composite products, water distribution solutions, and other infrastructure access products for water, sewer, drainage, telecommunications, and utility networks worldwide.
March Rapids is an unincorporated community located in the town of Eau Pleine, Marathon County, Wisconsin, United States.
The Detroit and Charlevoix Railroad is a defunct railroad that was located in Northern Lower Michigan. It was created to haul finished lumber from timber lands to market. It was acquired by the Michigan Central Railroad.
The Missouri Lumber and Mining Company (MLM) was a large timber corporation with headquarters and primary operations in southeast Missouri. The company was formed by Pennsylvania lumbermen who were eager to exploit the untapped timber resources of the Missouri Ozarks to supply lumber, primarily used in construction, to meet the demand of U.S. westward expansion. Its primary operations were centered in Grandin, a company town it built starting c. 1888. The lumber mill there grew to be the largest in the country at the turn of the century and Grandin's population peaked around 2,500 to 3,000. As the timber resources were exhausted, the company had to abandon Grandin around 1910. It continued timber harvesting in other parts of Missouri for another decade. While some of the buildings in Grandin were relocated, many of the remaining buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980 as part of the state's historic preservation plan which considered the MLM a significant technological and economic contributor to Missouri.