Echoes of Pulaski- Dora Furnace Traditional Cache
Echoes of Pulaski- Dora Furnace
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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(micro)
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Dora Furnace – 1890, site approximately one mile east of the former Gem City Junk Company. Site of commissary and jail is located at the corner of Bridge Street and Dora Highway. Company cemetery is located on S. Bridge Street (top of the hill). Dora Furnace was built by industrialists George L. Carter and George J. Mills. Carter was president of the corporation that later merged with the Virginia Iron and Coke Company.
Dora furnace was built by the Reed Island Iron Co., about the year 1890. It had a capacity of approximately 150 tons per day. It was named for the plant construction supervisor's daughter, Miss Dora Mills. In the late 1880s, Pulaski's ironworkers were paid $1.00 and $2.00 a day, depending on their skill. Major D. P. Graham and John W. Robinson, of Wythe county, were also largely interested in this furnace. Shortly after its erection, George I. Carter obtained control of the furnace and ran it for many years. He lived in Pulaski for several years while connected with the enterprise. The late Horace H. Hardaway was also connected with the management of the furnace. The property was acquired after being run a few years under the ownership of Reed Island Company by the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company. This furnace drew its ore supplies from the limonite ores of New river, and Cripple Creek, and mixed these ores with brown hematite mountain ore obtained from Clark's Summit, Peak knob and other nearby points. The furnace continued in operation from the time it was built to about 10 years ago, when the price of pig iron, and the large production of cheap iron in Georgia and the vicinity of Cleveland, O., from lake ore rendered the further manufacture of Virginia iron impracticable. The Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Co., in connection with the furnace, owned considerable land around Dora furnace, and large farms at Barren Springs, Foster Falls and Cripple Creek and Speedwell, in Wythe county. For a long time Dora furnace was one of the principal industries of Pulaski, and a large commissary was run in connection with it, and a great many houses in East Pulaski were built to house its employees. It was the second large blast furnace built in Southwest Virginia, the first one being the Pulaski Iron Co., which was built at Pulaski in 1887. Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Co., built and ran in connection with Dora furnace a furnace at Radford, one at Max Meadows, one at Bristol and one at Big Stone Gap, and the Crozier furnaces at Roanoke. This is a pill container style micro located on a walking trail across the creek from the former Dora Furnace site.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ubyr va gerr.