Longdale Furnace Historic District

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.