Bessemer City: Iron Ore, a British Inventor, and a Forgotten Furnace

This town is named for Sir Henry Bessemer, the British inventor who perfected the steel-making process that industrialized the world. The name tells you what people hoped this place would become.

The iron story here actually goes back to seventeen fifty-four, when King George the Second granted two thousand acres to James Ormand, who dug ore and built the Washington Furnace by seventeen eighty-six. Settlers arrived in seventeen fifty-six. By eighteen ninety-three local residents petitioned the legislature to incorporate, and on March sixth of that year Bessemer City got its charter, betting that a name tied to steel would attract industry. The Bessemer process ironically made old-style iron furnaces like this one obsolete, so the city pivoted to textiles and mining instead. The ambitions were bigger than the outcome, but the name stuck.