8-8-18 Fayette State Park

The scenery on the way to Fayette was amazing.

The bell rang with the waves. It gave us a true sense of cruising.

Fayette is the locations of an extremely well restored and preserved Iron Ore smelting town. Yes, much of it still stands as it did back in the mid-1800s. It is amazing how many of the original structures were still intact. The Iron ore smelting furnaces are huge and stand majestically on shore as we pulled into port.

Blast furnace. Majestically still standing today.

The white cliffs we saw upon entering the port were beautiful. It was the source of stone for buildings as well as the raw material in the smelting process. Fun fact; Iron ore was put into a blast furnace along with charcoal and limestone. The limestone bonded with the impurities of the rock which then floated to the top to be removed as slag, the waste product of smelting. The iron is then poured into ingots called pigs.

there were still a few “Pigs” left in the blast furnace building. They are really heavy!

The term “pig iron” dates back to the time when hot metal was cast into ingots before being charged to the steel plant. The moulds were laid out in sand beds such that they could be fed from a common runner. The group of moulds resembled a litter of sucking pigs, the ingots being called “pigs” and the runner the “sow.” www.metalic.org

We also saw a very unique round brick charcoal kiln. There were 80 charcoal kilns in the area to keep up with the demand of heating the iron ore in the smelting process.

We found some trails that went along the cliff still has the drill marks from quarrying the stone.

We could only imagine…. The town started with quarry men, masons and lumbermen to build this large facility, offices and homes. Then it went to work. The plant only operated from 1867 to 1890. Only 23 years. It is reported that 230,000 tons of iron were produced at this plant. The work was sporadic due highs and lows in the demand of iron. It closed because it was no longer a cost-effective way to produce iron. When the work men left, some residence stayed on as farmers and fishermen. It was also a resort town for a while. By 1950 the State of Michigan was granted the property. They are keeping up the buildings in their original state as much possible and are doing a wonderful job.