{"nrhp_refnum":"90000403","name":"Paradise Furnace","other_names":["Trough Creek State Park","Mary Anne Furnace"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"5 mi. SE of Entriken in Trough Creek State Park","address_restricted":false,"city":"Entriken","county":"Huntingdon County","state":"PA","lat":40.31101047350003,"lon":-78.12572319617803,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1990-03-20","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Paradise Furnace is a historic district in Trough Creek State Park along the Raystown Lake Recreation Area in south-central Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, comprising a furnace stack, an ironmaster's mansion and a log worker's house that survive from the site's iron production.","why_significant":"The district is nominated under Criterion A for its role in the county's iron industry. It is described as the first site in Huntingdon County to fuel a furnace with coke made from Broad Top coal, and as one of the few remaining examples of an once extensive industry. Its surviving buildings are presented as good representatives of the iron plantation type.","narrative":"Paradise Furnace is an iron-making site in Trough Creek State Park, in south-central Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Iron interests began there around 1798, when a bloomery was established near the mouth of Trough Creek, and the site operated intermittently until 1867 under several owners, including Reuben Trexler and Horatio Trexler & Co. In the 1840s the furnace was renamed from Mary Ann to Paradise Furnace under manager P.P. Dewees. The surviving buildings are a coursed rubble stone furnace stack from the 1830s, a Georgian plan stone ironmaster's mansion built in the 1830s, and a two-story hewn log house dating to the late 1700s that served as worker housing. The district is significant for its industrial history: it was the first furnace in the county to use coke made from Broad Top coal, and its remaining buildings represent the iron plantation type. Its later use by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s shaped the site's present form.","period_of_significance":"1798-1867","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Georgian","criteria":["A"],"status_note":"The ironmaster's mansion is presently empty; the log house was converted to a park visitors center/museum in 1982.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:36.216792-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_PA/90000403.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000403/579932037c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/90000403/579932037c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Generic1139","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paradise_Furnace_west_side.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Generic1139</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paradise_Furnace_west_side.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71993041","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Furnace","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7134275"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/pennsylvania/huntingdon-county/paradise-furnace-90000403/"}