Pine Grove Furnace State Park

I somewhat took Pine Grove Furnace state park for granted till recently because I traveled that road so much over the years.  My parents helped start a church near Pond Bank Pa in the early 1950’s and I traveled that road so many times it was passé.  Later I met and dated a wonderful woman who lived near Fayetteville and for just over a year I traveled it many times.  I joke that I was dating a hot blond at the other end of the road which is probably not far from the truth.  We married in 1967 and she passed away in 2007.  But that road has many memories and there are times I come up with a reason to drive it to bring them back.  There is a beautiful S curve through an area of pines that always brings back memories of the Christmas Eve when we were dating.  I don’t recommend driving this in a snowstorm but we did and the area was so beautiful that night with the pines laden with snow.  We talked about that many times and it is one of those memories.  Some time it is snowing I will try to get there at night and take a picture.

But back to PGFSP.  The park is centered about an 1800’s ironworks set in a large grove of pines which gives the name.  I haven’t gone into the historic study of this area like I have some others but maybe someone else will.  The park office is located at the Y intersection of Pine Grove Road and Route 233 (40° 1′59.58″N  77°18′14.94″W).  The furnace is still there and accessible.  The ironmasters home, the paymasters building and some others also are standing.  The state has done a good job of combining history with recreation.  Nearby is Fuller Lake which was one of the holes that were dug taking out the ore to produce iron. It is now a lake for recreation.  Unlike the ore that is being dug today in the US that is generally less than ten percent iron, the ore here was very high grade, well over seventy percent.  The accessible high grade ore in this area was pretty much exhausted in the late 1800’s and the very large high grade deposits in the central US were pretty much exhausted in the 1940’s making ships, tanks, trucks and shells to defeat Japan and Germany.  I might add that many barrels of our oil went to that same cause.  Now we buy from Arabs because we can’t drill here.