The warm spring weather of April 2022 was perfect for a hike along the former South Side Branch of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway.
Tag: Industry
Many of the abandoned “beehive” coke ovens of the Davis Coal & Coke Company are still visible today in the company town of Coketon, West Virginia.
The O.H. Hutchings Electric Generating Station, located in Ohio, was once a prominent example of the United States’ reliance on coal power plants.
Last month, news emerged about the planned transformation of the closed Merchants Ice and Cold Storage tower in Louisville, Kentucky, into an office building.
Sherman Cahal and Adam Paris, authors of the newly released book Abandoned Kentucky, recently visited the former Old Taylor Distillery complex near Frankfort, Kentucky, to compile a series of before-and-after photos. Colonel Edmund H. Taylor acquired property along Glenn’s Creek and Versailles Pike and established Old Taylor Distillery in 1887. It was intended to be different from the distilleries of that era which had little confidence from consumers due to product quality. From its iteration, Old Taylor was designed to be a showcase for bourbon. Drawing heavily from his travels through Scotland, England, Ireland, and elsewhere, Taylor designed his distillery complex with buildings that sported thick walls composed of local limestone from Tyrone, battlements at the roof line, and round corner towers. Inside the plant’s walls were gardens and rooms where Taylor entertained guests, state officials, and dignitaries. The passage of prohibition, a nationwide constitutional law that strictly prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages, caused Old Taylor Distillery to close in 1920. National Distillers, formed out of a merger in 1924, acquired the mothballed complex in 1935 and operated the distillery under the Old Taylor name until 1972. In 1987, National Distillers sold the plant to American Brands, and James B. Beam Distillery, part of American Brands, used Old Taylor’s warehouses for storage. A portion of the Old Taylor campus, including the bottling plant and some warehouses, was declared surplus and abandoned. American Brands then sold the Old Taylor brand to Sazerac in 2009. What followed…
There was no better way than spending autumn driving the backroads and camping in the Potomac Highlands region of West Virginia, photographing forlorn houses, historic sites, covered bridges, and vast landscapes against a backdrop of golden hues.
The abandoned lime kilns at Eagle Rock, Virginia are all that remain of an operation that was operated by a series of entities between 1878 and 1954.
Revisiting the Lonaconing Silk Mill, a rare surviving industrial landmark in Maryland now facing a new chapter of preservation after decades of decline.
Located along the Kentucky River Palisades is a unique but abandoned fluorspar mine turned speakeasy.
Snaking through the southern reaches of Floyd County, Kentucky is the remains of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Long Fork Subdivision that connected to some of the most prosperous coal mines in the state.
This guide explains how nitrocellulose (smokeless powder) and black powder was produced at Indiana Army Ammunition Plant in Charlestown, Indiana.
The Amanda Furnace and BOF at the former Armco/AK Steel Ashland Works were simultaneously imploded at 8:30 AM this morning. Steelmaking operations were idled on December 15, 2015, and the plant was closed for good by November 2019. The Hanging Rock Iron Region in southern Ohio, northeastern Kentucky, and western West Virginia produced iron between 1818 and 1916, which helped build armaments for the Civil War, hulls for the Monitor and Merrimac ships, kettles and pots, tools, and wagon wheels. It was predicted that iron ore in the Hanging Rock Iron Region would last for 2,700 years but most of the iron seams had been depleted by the 1900s. Traditional blast furnaces, a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce pig iron, continued to be built until 1963 when the Amanda opened at Armco’s Ashland Works. The crown jewel of the steelmaking industry, it was the largest of its type in the world. Ashland Works at its peak was the second-largest facility by Armco. It boasted the world’s first continuous sheet rolling mill, which was later replaced with a hot-strip mill in 1953. A cold reduction mill, strip pickler, light gauge Zincgrip line, and a heavy gauge Zincgrip line were completed in 1954. Armco had developed the Zincgrip process in 1936 by offering the first zinc-coated (and later aluminum-coated) coils that were far superior to older processes. The open-hearth furnaces were shut down in 1969, which coincided with the start-up of the basic oxygen furnace complex (BOF). But…
I’ve always been curious about this cool neon sign on the side of some concrete silos in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
The drive along Zenith Road to the unincorporated community of Zenith, West Virginia is a step back into time.
Charcoal timber, iron ore, and limestone supplied material for numerous furnaces that produced pig iron, munitions, and tools in Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia. One of the most preserved is the Buckeye Furnace near Wellston, Ohio. The Buckeye Furnace was financed by the Newkirk, Daniels & Company and constructed by Thomas Price in 1851. It initially produced 7½ tons of iron per day, operating 42 weeks out of the year. Output was later increased to 12 tons of iron per day. The furnace was sold to H.S. Bundy in 1862, the Perry Austin & Company in 1864, and the Buckeye Furnace Company in 1867 and was operated until 1894.
The introduction of the railroad to West Virginia’s New River Gorge turned the area into a globally significant coal mining region.