Robesonia Furnace: Iron Town on a Hill
Near Reading, Pennsylvania
One mile south of here stood an iron furnace that helped build a town. Ironmaster George Ege founded it in seventeen ninety-four as Reading Furnace. About fifty years later, in eighteen forty-five, Henry Robeson expanded the works so significantly that an entire new community grew up around it.
The town was called Robesonia in his honor. At its peak, the furnace was the economic heart of the surrounding countryside, drawing workers, stoking trade, and shaping the land. The furnace itself stopped operating and was demolished in nineteen twenty-seven, but the community it called into existence survived.
The ironmaster's Georgian-style mansion, an Italianate office building, and workers' houses all still stand a mile to the south. Iron is gone from the valley, but the architecture of the iron age remains.
