The South Mountain Partnership Speakers Series will host a “Charcoal Hearths, Collier Huts, and Haul Roads: Traces of the Iron Industry Across South Mountain” presentation on April 16 by Andre Weltman, Chair of the Friends of Pine Grove Furnace State Park.
The event will be held at Dickinson College in Carlisle, in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter Auditorium from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Parking will be available outside of the auditorium.
Weltman will discuss the connection between the 19th century charcoal iron industry in Pennsylvania and today’s South Mountain landscape in Adams, Cumberland, Franklin and York counties.
“When I look at a forest in Pennsylvania, I see industry. I see all the trees having been cut down repeatedly over the past 200 years,” said Weltman. “I’m not talking about commercial logging that is done today, but what was done for the iron industry. Pennsylvania was a leader in the iron making industry for a long time. In this talk I will focus on what took place at Pine Grove Furnace because that’s where I do my research, but it will be applicable to sites across Pennsylvania and much of the country.”
Attendees to this Speakers Series event will learn how modern trails and campsites in Pennsylvania often overlap with still-visible remnants of an important part of iron making: transforming the forests into charcoal fuel for the region’s iron furnaces.
You’ll never look at the forest the same way again!
This South Mountain Speakers Series event is sponsored by the South Mountain Partnership, Dickinson College Department of Chemistry, Dickinson College Department of Anthropology and Archeology, and the Friends of Pine Grove Furnace State Park.
The South Mountain Speakers Series is presented as a revival of the Michaux Lectures, a series of talks given by Joseph Rothrock to build a groundswell of public support for his work to preserve and restore Pennsylvania’s forested landscape.
The late 19th century Michaux Lectures were an educational mission that catalyzed real change in Pennsylvania’s environmental history.
Each event in this modern series highlights a specific topic or challenge central to the Partnership’s mission and goals of protecting and promoting landscape resources. The Series also provides a vehicle for engaging the public in on-going, informed dialogue about conservation challenges facing the South Mountain landscape.
As we face the challenges of the 21st century, the South Mountain Speakers Series is intended to encourage a new generation to find in the past a positive vision for the future of the South Mountain landscape.
Next Program
The next program in this series-- Pollinators And Their Habitat-- will be on May 8 at Messiah College.
Click Here for more information on upcoming programs in the South Mountain Speakers Series.
For more information on programs, initiatives and upcoming events, visit the South Mountain Partnership website.
(Photo: Charcoal making.)
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