Centre Furnace: Iron from the Revolution

Around seventeen ninety, two veterans of the American Revolution put their wartime connections to peacetime use. John Patton and Samuel Miles erected an iron furnace here in what is now Centre County, Pennsylvania. It was the first charcoal iron furnace built west of the Susquehanna River.

The furnace ran on and off for several decades. Over those decades it helped supply a young nation hungry for iron tools, stoves, and hardware. Its land later became part of what grew into Penn State University.

The old stack still stands in State College, a quiet monument to the industrial ambitions of two officers who fought for independence and then built something lasting with the peace.