Paradise Furnace, the iron plantation inside Trough Creek State Park

Five miles southeast of Entriken, inside Trough Creek State Park, the National Register nomination counts three survivals from an iron plantation that worked Trough Creek on and off from the 1790s into the 1860s: a stone furnace stack, an ironmaster's mansion and one log house, now the park museum. The nomination, prepared in August 1989, says the works never ran steadily; they went in and out of blast as the economy turned.

The nomination traces the iron interest to about 1798, when George Knoblaugh of Frederick, Maryland, set up a bloomery near the mouth of Trough Creek. It lasted six years. In 1830 Reuben Trexler of Berks County built a furnace on the creek; it ran two years. Between 1835 and 1840 the works were revived as the Savage Iron Works and a forge was added. Then William Firmstone arrived from Shropshire, England, and tried coke made from coal out of a local mine. The nomination, citing Swank, says this was the first site in the county where coke made from Broad Top coal fueled the furnace, though not for long. Trexler had the furnace again in 1841. P.P. Dewees became its manager in 1843, and the name changed from Mary Ann to Paradise Furnace. The forge stopped in 1850 and the furnace in 1852. Horatio Trexler and Company revived the business in the 1860s, with Dewees back as manager, and the nomination's period of significance closes in 1867.

The stack, from the 1830s, is coursed rubble stone, 28 feet square and 15 to 20 feet high; the face left of the casting arch is gone, exposing the lining of the bosh. The mansion, also 1830s, is a Georgian plan house of 50 by 35 feet, five bays, its stone stuccoed and scored to look like brick.

The log house, 25 by 20 feet with inverted v-notch corners, is dated by the nomination to the late 1700s. It became the park visitor center and museum in 1982. The nomination calls it the only survival of worker housing at the site. Shedd's 1991 inventory is more careful: it says the house was moved to where it now stands and may have been a worker's house. The nomination cites a 1910 photograph of it, or one like it, that shows two front doors side by side. Those doors are gone, though the west side still shows where one was closed up.

It was the first site in the county where coke, made from Broad Top coal, was used to fuel the furnace (Swank, p. 367-68). It is also one of the few remaining examples of a once extensive industry.National Register of Historic Places nomination, Paradise Furnace (reference 90000403), Paradise Furnace, section 8, p6 · character 7,091 of the scanned text

Checked 2026-09-05 · National Register of Historic Places nomination, read in full

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