Sunday, September 2, 2007

Grace Blast Furnace Remains



On Saturday Chris Hockett, Ken Izzo and myself visited the site of the YS&T Brier Hill blast furnace plant and discovered the mortal remains of the Grace blast furnace. Here is the hearth cooling jacket, iron columns and bedplate for the blast furnace. City Concrete, which now operates a ready mixed concrete facility at the site, excavated the furnace remains recently.

According to YS&T drawing 105367 dated November 15, 1917 there are twelve sections of the hearth jacketing. Each piece is 8' 10" tall and 5" thick of cast iron and weighing 10,800 lbs. Drawing 100769 dated Sept. 19, 1907 (almost 100 years ago exactly) shows the base plate ring upon which the six columns rested.

Finding the remains of Grace furnace is extraordinary and hopefully some way can be found to preserve all or part of these historic pieces.

1 comment:

Joe Lowry said...

Interesting note: September 19, 1907 is exactly 70 years to the date before which Youngstown Sheet and Tube announced the closing of its Campbell Works.