Richmond Furnace Historical and Archeological District

Richmond Furnace is a 290-acre district in southwestern Berkshire County, Massachusetts, centered on the remains of an iron-making complex that used charcoal to produce pig iron. The Richmond Iron Works blast furnace, built about 1829 and altered in 1905, is the focal point. Its squat, battered stack of Stockbridge marble stands 34 feet high and has pointed Gothic arches typical of furnaces built by the I.N. Bartram Company. Around it lie the traces of the whole production process: open-pit and shaft iron mines, ore crusher foundations, brick charcoal kilns, limestone flux quarries, dams, ponds and a headrace that supplied water power. Earlier sawmill and gristmill sites from the 18th century are also included. The district contains 28 contributing buildings, among them ironworker houses from about 1840 and 1873 on State Road, Furnace Lane and Furnace Road. Together, these resources record a long-running industrial community, and its payroll approached 700 workers in the late nineteenth century.