Katahdin Iron Works Records

The collection contains records of the Katahdin Iron Works, an iron producing company located near Brownville Junction, Maine. It also includes records of Piscataquis Iron Works, a successor to Katahdin, and records generated by Prentiss and Carlisle Company of Bangor while managing the timberland on the Iron Works property.

The Katahdin Iron Works was incorporated in 1846 by David Pingree of Salem, Massachusetts, and Samuel E. Coues, Charles H. Ladd, John L. Hayes, and Alexander H. Ladd, all of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The site had been known as an ore deposit since the early 1800s, with Moses Greenleaf credited with first discovering iron ore there. In 1836 the Pleasant River Iron and Steel Company was incorporated to use the ore deposit. There was little result from this effort until 1841, when Samuel Smith of Newmarket, New Hampshire, and his son, Edward, of Bangor, along with Dominious Parker and Simon Greene, formed the Maine Iron Company. The Smiths also purchased most of the land in the township and began construction of a road, sawmill, brick kilns, a charcoal blast furnace, and other buildings on the site. A ready supply of wood furnished the charcoal for the furnace. However, the Smiths never began production and in 1845 sold the furnace and other buildings to David Pingree and his associates.

Pingree as the principal stockholder and president ran the company until his death. Hayes acted as agent, with Jefferson Lake and Royal Quimby succeeding him as agents. The remote location, transportation difficulties and changing technology made operation of the company difficult. The blast furnace ran only between 1846 and 1856, when operation of the iron works became uneconomical and it was shut down. From 1857 until Pingree died in 1863, the iron works was unoccupied. After Pingree's death, the executors of his estate sold the iron works to Edward G. Tileston and Company, bankers and steamship agents in Boston and New York. Plans to re-open it were later abandoned and a controlling interest in the company was obtained in 1868 by Thomas Egery of Bangor and E.P. Cutler, a Boston iron broker. Egery, Cutler, and Frederick F. French incorporated the Piscataquis Iron Works in 1868.

In 1876 Owen W. Davis and four others incorporated as the Katahdin Iron Company, leased the land from Piscataquis and took over operation of the company. The facilities were modernized and the capacity of the blast furnace increased. Woodcutters were employed year round to cut the wood needed to produce charcoal for the furnace. At its height the village grew to include homes for 200 workers. The 1880s also saw the beginning of a summer tourist business with a boarding house originally constructed for workers becoming the Silver Lake Hotel. Tourists arrived at the iron works to enjoy its remote location, the hunting and fishing it offered, and the mineral springs in the area.

A fire destroyed much of the plant in 1883, but it was rebuilt in 1885 when the Katahdin Charcoal Iron Company was organized in Bangor with enough capital to re-build the works. However the 1880s were also a time when charcoal furnaces were becoming obsolete, being replaced by anthracite and coke furnaces, and large deposits of ore were being developed more successfully in other parts of the country. By 1890, the management of the Katahdin Charcoal Iron Company, faced with competition from the steel plants in Pennsylvania as well as rising costs and falling prices, was forced to give up the business. The tourist business at the hotel was maintained, reaching its peak during the 1890s and continuing until the hotel burned in 1913.

In 1927 the demand for sulphur, found in the ore at the site, caused the General Chemical Division of Allied Chemical Company of New York to lease the ore deposit for a reserve supply. General Chemical purchased the ore body and the land in 1952 although the sulphur business was never developed. The timberland management firm of Prentiss and Carlisle of Bangor served as the company's agent in managing the land, which was used primarily for lumbering.

General Chemical later donated the land containing the blast furnace and remaining charcoal kiln to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Recreation which has operated it as an historic site since 1965.