National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior History Program Northeast Region Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site Administrative History HOPEWELL FURNACE NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE Administrative History August 2005 Leah Glaser Northeast Regional Office Organization of National Park Service American Historians U.S. Department of the Interior P.O. Box 5457 Philadelphia and Boston Bloomington, Indiana Table of Contents List of Illustrations .............................................................................................................................v Preface................................................................................................................................................vii I. Introduction ...............................................................................................................................1 II. Conservation and Preservation: The French Creek Recreational Demonstration Area................................................................................................................13 III. The Development and Establishment of a National Historic Site, 1936-1941.................38 IV. WWII Occupation and the Administration of a Multi-use Park, 1942-1947...................72 V. “The Golden Age:” The Restoration of Hopewell Village in the Post-war Era, 1947-65 ....................................................................................................... 113 VI. What Now? Preservation and Celebration in the Post-Restoration Period, 1966-1988 ..............................................................................................................155 VII. Restoration, Religion, Recreation, and Roads: Conflicts in Resource Use...................182 VIII. Preserving the Rural-Industrial Landscape: Natural Resource and Cultural Landscape Management ................................................................................................. 216 IX. Facts and Artifacts: Research and Collections at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site.......................................................................................................................239 X. “From a Village to a Furnace:” Interpretive Programs and Visitor Services at Hopewell .......................................................................................................................256 XI. Conclusion.............................................................................................................................309 Annotated Bibliography .................................................................................................................316 Appendices: Appendix A: Guide to Selected Acronyms .......................................................................324 Appendix B: Permanent/Full-time Employees at Hopewell Village/Hopewell Furnace National Historic Park, 1939 to Present......................................................... 325 Appendix C: Dates of Key Legislation...............................................................................328 Appendix D: Annual Visitation ..........................................................................................329 Appendix E: Appropriations for Hopewell Village/Furnace National Historic Park ....................................................................................................................................330 Appendix F: Era of Significance ......................................................................................... 332 Appendix G: List of Selected Resources and Restoration Dates ...................................334 Appendix H: Maps ............................................................................................................... 335 Index ................................................................................................................................................ 337 List of Illustrations 1.1 Old Cast House, 1889. Stokes Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 1.2 Wheelwright Shop, ca. 1890. Bull Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 1. 3 General View of Village from South, 1920. Stauffer Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 2.1 Old Hopewell Lake with Building 36 in Background, 1920, Stauffer Collection, HOFU Photographic Archives. 2.2 CCC Building RDA Structure, ca. 1936. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.1 Furnace Group-CCC Restoration, 1935. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.2 General View, North, CCC Grading Road Slopes, 1935. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.3 Superintendent Lemuel Garrison, 1940. HOFU Photographic Archives. 3.4 CCC Cleaning Debris from Furnace, 1936, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.1 General View of the Wheel Pit Excavations from Furnace Bank, 1941. HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.2 British Sailors Looking at Anthracite Furnace, 1944. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.3 Naval District, CCC Building, 1943. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.4 Naval Rest Camp, 1943. Photo Book, French Creek RDA, HOFU Photographic Archives. 4.5 Emil Heinrich (back right), Catherine Fritz and Part-time Staff, 1943. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.1 Ranger in Interior of Barn Displaying Model of Furnace and Waterwheel, 1951. 5.2 Cars and People in Village for Dedication of Waterwheel Ceremony, 1952, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.3 Visitors Viewing Waterwheel Operation, 1953, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.4 Seasonal Ranger-Historians Bill Bitler and Bob Franz, 1957, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.5 Excavating with a Front End Loader near the Furnace, 1955, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.6 Charcoal Cooling Shed Reconstruction, 1958, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.7 East End of Dairy Barn, 1958, Photo by Bob Ronsheim. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.8 North View of Dairy Barn, Photo by Bob Ronsheim, 1958. HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.9 Barn Reconstruction, 1959, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.10 Barn Reconstruction, 1959, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.11 Looking North from Bridge at Barn, Office-Store, and “Big House,” 1961, HOFU Photographic Archives. 5.12 Front of Cast House under Construction, 1964, HOFU Photographic Archives. v 5.13 General View of Amish Workers Preparing Beams Prior to the Cast House Reconstruction, 1964. HOFU Photographic Archives. 9.1 Collier’s Hut, 1936, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.1 Establishment Day, George Buck Demonstrating Molding under the Connecting Shed, 1963, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.2 Wagon Rides in front of Cast House, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.3 Charcoal Burn, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.4 Cooking, 1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.5 Parlor of Ironmaster’s House, ca.1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.6 Moulding demonstration in Cast House, ca 1975, HOFU Photographic Archives. 10.7 Gypsey Prince, ca.1942. HOFU Photographic Archives, HOFU Photographic Archives. vi Foreword Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, located in the Schuylkill River Valley watershed in Chester and Berks Counties, Pennsylvania, preserves and interprets one of the finest examples of an early American iron plantation. Founded in 1771 by Ironmaster Mark Bird, the furnace operated intermittently until 1883. Generations of ironmasters, craftsmen, and laborers produced iron goods, primarily bars of pig iron to be processed into finished products elsewhere, and castings such as iron-plate stoves for the domestic trade. Furnace workers, including men and women, slaves and free blacks, immigrants, tradesmen, domestic workers, and their families, formed a community whose lifestyles are as integral to the park story as are the details of iron-making technology. During the Administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the abandoned furnace property and some remaining buildings were still in the ownership of the last ironmaster’s descendants and the extensive lands were mostly in agricultural use. The entire property was purchased by the federal government for the Recreation Demonstration Area program, one of the many New Deal initiatives to help the nation recover from the Great Depression. The Civilian Conservation Corps arrived to convert the lands into a public recreation area and engaged the National Park Service (NPS) to evaluate the furnace ruins found on the property. NPS historians recognized the value of the buildings in preserving the story of iron-making in America and worked tirelessly to restore and conserve the site for future generations. Hopewell thus can be said to be a “historians’” park. In 1938 the property was designated Hopewell Village National Historic Site under the authority of the Historic Sites Act, thereby becoming one of the earliest cultural units of the National Park System. Today, the park is surrounded on three sides by French Creek State Park and Pennsylvania State Gamelands, which preserve the forested lands which historically were mostly owned by Hopewell Furnace to provide the natural resources—iron ore, limestone, timber for charcoal, and water power—needed to produce the iron. The park’s resources include a reconstructed charcoal-fueled furnace complex, the ruins of an anthracite furnace, the ironmaster's mansion, tenant houses, barns, and a mixed industrial, domestic, and agricultural landscape on some 800 mostly wooded acres. Although the park and the state-managed lands still retain their rural character today, rapidly encroaching residential development has greatly changed the character of the surrounding countryside. vii Foreword This study recounts the more than thirty-year effort to define