HOWARD — On June 11, Eagle Ironworks and Furnace at Curtin Village held an open house to acquaint the public with some of the updates and changes being completed at the site.
“With some of the upgrades, they will be able to offer more in the way of group events, etc.,” said Jeanne Newlin, secretary and member of the Roland Curtin Foundation. “With the money from a grant, we will be to reopen the kitchen. An individual has donated equipment for it also. We will be able to cook and serve food again, and that will be an added feature to holding programs here.”
Andy Rupert, director of marketing for the Central Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau, said, “The has been hours and hours of work put in to improve the site. The exterior has been painted and bathrooms repaired. There will be availability to hold more events here. The grant through the Pennsylvania Convention and Visitors Bureau has provided for upgrading the kitchen.”
The kitchen is in a separate building near the outdoor pavilion so it is easy to see the possibilities for groups to rent the facilities in the future.
The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission owns the historical site, which is open Saturdays and Sundays through the last weekend in October. Saturday hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday hours are from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Roland Curtin Foundation manages it. Roland Curtin and his family owned and operated the iron plantation from 1810 until 1921. The family mansion was built in 1930 and has been preserved for the purpose of showing life as it was in a company town in the 1800s.
The mansion has three floors and visitors may tour two of them. The home is in the federal style and has original floors, woodwork and staircase. There are 15 rooms containing antiques of the period, including a cradle that was made in Curtin Village.
Kate Curtin Gauche’s mother, in 1914, became the last member of the family to be born in the mansion. “I remember playing in the house on the third floor. Although the house was empty at that time, we followed the orders to ‘only play on the third floor,’” said Gauche, who lives in Bellefonte. She said there was furniture in the house still, although it had been vacant for 20 years. Gauche’s grandmother would open it in the summer for a few years after moving out and family would visit.
Slated for flooding with the Howard Dam project, community members took the initiative to try to preserve it as treasure of the iron ore history in Centre County. Centre County is fortunate to have this site of the last working waterwheel-powered cold blast charcoal furnace in the United States.
The estate covered 30,000 acres and included the Curtin Ironworks and Furnace, farmlands and forest acreage that was used for lumber and charcoal production. Ironworkers made the charcoal, iron ore and limestone into pig iron and wrought iron after the materials were hauled from pit mines to the forge.
The furnace was the last last of its kind still operating in the United States when it burned in 1921. Reconstruction was not begun until the 1970s.
The tour includes all the buildings involved in the pig iron processing. There is the furnace, the blast house, casting house, charging house, bridge house and the tuyere shed, all of which the tour guides explain thoroughly as to visitors touring the grounds. The foundation has also assembled a display of tools and machinery from the 19th century for visitors to view.
During the open house, Newlin, explained that the upstairs rooms contained Empire-style furniture from the 1800s, glassware and a piano. Roland Curtin’s son, Andrew, became the first Republican governor of Pennsylvania and was the governor in power during the Civil War. “You can see his carriage in the carriage house at the furnace. It is an original piece from the Curtin family,” said Newlin.
Newlin said the new state-instituted board was formed in December 2015 and has been very active since. Board members want to ensure that this piece of Pennsylvania history is kept alive for future generations.
