Ore, Water, Stone, and Wood: Historical and Architectural Investigations of Donaldson's Iron Furnace, Cherokee County, Georgia

Architectural and historical investigations of an iron furnace located on Shoal Creek in Cherokee County, Georgia, were conducted from December through February of 1986-1987. The products of this research included measured drawings of all four furnace facades, prepared for the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS); 4" x 5" format HABS standards photography of the facades and significant construction details; measured site plan and contour maps; site specific historical research to identify the site's owner and builder; and general historical research to place this site specific history within the context of the iron industry in the Etowah Valley. Both the architectural and historical evidence indicate that this furnace was never completed. The furnace was apparently owned and built by Judge Joseph Donaldson, a wealthy Cherokee County planter and industrialist. It appears likely that the furnace was built during the Civil War, with the war's outcome responsible for its abandonment. The furnace architecture suggests that the builder was a novice at first at furnace construction, and several aspects of the construction vary from the best practice of the period. Observation of the remnant furnace architecture in the Etowah Valley indicates that the knowledge of architectural principles existed at three levels: a formal knowledge of furnace dimensions extracted from nineteenth-century texts; an informal, regional tradition, exemplified by the incorporation of natural topography as loading platforms and the use of rubble-filled walls; and the individual expertise of each architect and builder.