{"nrhp_refnum":"95000898","name":"Longdale Furnace Historic District","other_names":["VDHR File No. 03-338"],"category":"district","location":{"address":"Roughly, along Longdale Furnace Rd., Iron Ore Ln., Church Rd. and Conner Ln.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Clifton Forge","county":"Alleghany County","state":"VA","lat":37.81148185200007,"lon":-79.68202216412759,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1995-08-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Industry","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A roughly fifty-acre historic district at the village of Longdale in northeast Alleghany County, Virginia, covering the industrial and company-town center of the former Lucy Selina Furnace-Longdale Iron Company property. It includes furnace-era industrial remains and a company village built from the 1870s to 1911.","why_significant":"The district preserves the industrial and residential core of an iron-making community that operated for nearly 100 years. Lucy Selina Furnace was converted to coke fuel in 1874, the first pig iron furnace in Virginia to do so, and the company later brought Alleghany County to the forefront of Virginia iron production. The surviving buildings, chimneys, archaeological sites and landscape reflect the company's operations and the lives of its workers, managers and directors.","narrative":"Longdale Furnace is a former iron-making village in northeast Alleghany County, Virginia, set in a narrow valley along Simpson Creek. The district covers about fifty acres of the old Lucy Selina Furnace-Longdale Iron Company property, including its manufacturing, shipping, commercial and residential center. A stone furnace stack was built in 1827, and in 1874 the furnace was converted to coke fuel, the first pig iron furnace in Virginia to make that change. Iron production ended in 1911, and most equipment and buildings were later removed. Surviving features include a brick machine shop, two 106-foot brick exhaust chimneys, a log office and laboratory, the graded beds of the company's narrow-gauge railroad, and archaeological sites. The company village still holds the large Firmstone-Johnson House built for the directors, a Queen Anne-style assistant manager's house, workers' dwellings, a carriage barn and a doctor's office. Together they document how the iron industry shaped both the landscape and daily life here.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Late Victorian: Queen Anne; Early Republic: Federal; No Style","criteria":[],"status_note":"Iron production ceased in 1911 and most industrial buildings and machinery were dismantled. The village buildings have since been adapted as single-family dwellings, and the district has 38 contributing and 5 noncontributing resources.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:01.010635-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/94/6794/41679494/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/95000898.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41679494","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longdale_Furnace_Historic_District","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712742"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/alleghany-county/longdale-furnace-historic-district-95000898/"}