Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site

Abstract

Nestled within the largest contiguous forest in southeastern Pennsylvania, the restored buildings and structures of the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site commemorate America’s early energy history. The 848-acre park encompasses over 600 acres of woodland and 145 acres of farmland, meadows, and pastures. Today, recreational uses such as hunting, camping, hiking, and fshing have complicated the interpretation of the rural site, but here discerning visitors learn about how industries extracted energy from the natural resources present in the very mountains and forests they have escaped the city to enjoy. Within this idyllic, pastoral landscape, an iron-making operation ran intermittently for over a century (1771–1883)