engineering

Oregon Iron Company Furnace

Oregon Iron Company Furnace is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Oregon Iron Company Furnace rather than just read about it. In short: The Oregon Iron Company Furnace, or Oswego Iron Furnace, is an iron furnace used by the Oregon Iron Company, in Lake Oswego, Oregon's George Rogers Park, in the United States. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and underwent a major renovation in 2010.

Key takeaways

Oregon Iron Company Furnace belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Oregon Iron Company Furnace to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Oregon Iron Company Furnace from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Oregon Iron Company Furnace, or Oswego Iron Furnace, is an iron furnace used by the Oregon Iron Company, in Lake Oswego, Oregon's George Rogers Park, in the United States. The structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and underwent a major renovation in 2010. The current furnace is the only structure that remains of the original iron company, and is the oldest industrial landmark in the state of Oregon.

History Before 1862, the majority of Oregon's iron came from the East Coast of the United States. Due to the long and difficult journey, these imported iron products from the East were sold up for up to ten times what they originally cost. Aaron K. Olds, a blacksmith who worked with the first iron on Lake Superior, also created the first iron from Oswego ore in 1862 in his iron forge, despite iron ore being discovered there as early as 1841 by Robert Moore, founder of Linn City. According to his daughter Ellenette Olds Booth, Olds had started the forge with intention to smelt the iron ore. Smelting the ore is an important step that would allow Olds to separate the iron from the raw ore, but the ore proved refractory, and Olds was unable to smelt down the iron. However, Olds and his business partner H.S. Jacobs, eventually turned a significant profit from creating horseshoe nails and miner's picks that were displayed in Jacobs' wagon shop window on Portland's Front Street. With Olds' profits, a group of investors from Portland saw the economic opportunity that was now available in forming an iron company based in Oregon. The project was, in part, spearheaded by Olds' competitor Henry D. Green, who had purchased the water rights to Sucker Creek and a few acres of land above Oswego Landing in 1862. Water rights were important to hold within the industry, as it would provide the steam power necessary to fuel the engines of the furnaces and work the iron. The area that he purchased is present-day George Rogers Park, and would later also be used as the site of the Oregon Iron Company. Henry, along with his brother John and H.C. Leonard, were influential investors as they also owned the Portland Water Company at the time. As they were stakeholders in the water industry, they also hoped to have a hand in production of iron in the west, rather than pay high prices for iron in iron water pipes imported from the East or other competitors. After the foundation of the Oregon Iron Company in 1865, William S. Ladd was elected president of the company. H.C. Leonard became the vice-president and the first plant superintendent, and Henry D. Green became the secretary and company director. Twenty stockholders had invested a total of $500,000 in the company by February 1865, with some stockholders being from New York and San Francisco. Water disputes and Eastern competitors suspended the company several times before finally operations shut down indefinitely in 1894.

Construction and renovation George D. Wilbur from Connecticut supervised the construction of the furnaces which began in 1866, including the one that remains standing today. Wilbur modeled all the stone furnaces after the furnaces of the Barnum Richardson Company in Lime Rock, Connecticut. The furnaces are 32 feet tall with gothic-style arches lining the walls, 34 feet square at the base, and 26 feet square at the roof. These furnaces were constructed from material from various places. For instance, basalt from the north side of Lake Oswego was used in stonework. Firebrick was imported from Great Britain, and used in the shafts, chimneys and heat exchangers of the furnaces. In order to melt down and refine the iron ore into workable metal iron, the stone walls of the furnaces were constructed to withstand temperatures of up to 2,800°F. Ultimately, the cost of construction was $126,000. In July 2009, work on the deteriorating arches of the Oregon Iron Company Furnace began. However, after the discovery of more deterioration than previously expected, more materials were necessary and extended the completion by three months. Ultimately, it took nine months and $918,000 for the crews to complete the renovation before its completion in March 2010.

See also National Register of Historic Places listings in Clackamas County, Oregon National Register of Historic Places listings in Oregon Blast furnace Oswego Lake

References

External links Media related to Oregon Iron Company Furnace at Wikimedia Commons "Oswego Iron Furnace". The Oregon Encyclopedia. Ann Fulton, "Oregon Iron & Steel Company." The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-01. "Iron Industry History." Lake Oswego Preservation Society. Retrieved 2021-06-01. Jewel Lansing, "William S. Ladd (1826-1893)." The Oregon Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-06-01,

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Oregon Iron Company Furnace

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Oregon Iron Company Furnace claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Oregon Iron Company Furnace before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Oregon Iron Company Furnace ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Oregon Iron Company Furnace

In research: Oregon Iron Company Furnace appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Oregon Iron Company Furnace in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Oregon Iron Company Furnace is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1866 establishments in Oregon, Buildings and structures in Lake Oswego, Oregon, Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Oregon, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Oregon Iron Company Furnace outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Oregon Iron Company Furnace in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Oregon Iron Company Furnace means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Oregon Iron Company Furnace out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Oregon Iron Company Furnace in simple terms?

Why does Oregon Iron Company Furnace matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Oregon Iron Company Furnace?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Oregon Iron Company Furnace.