Appalachian Odyssey

Trough Creek State Park

Entriken, PA

Tucked away in the southern Allegheny region of the Appalachian in Pa lies one of the best kept secrets of the PA State Park System. Known as Trough Creek today, a stream previously cut its way through what is now known as Terrace Mountain. While most streams in the area created broad flatlands, the Great Trough Creek cut a gorge through many layers of shale, sandstone and conglomerate.

Into this gorge many thousands of years ago native Americans found a - peaceful place to live and hunt which they did well into the 1700's.

Four years after the US declared it's independence from England, Nicholas Crum became the first known European to settle in the area where he built a wooden tub gristmill, which is a basic turbine driven gristmill.

Ten years later in 1790 a bloomery was built. A bloomery is a furnace and forge in which wrought iron blooms are made. Now a bloom is a bar of iron or steel hammered or rolled from an ingot. This bloomery managed to produce about 100 pounds of iron a day.

A gentleman by the name of Rueben Trexler constructed a furnace in 1827, named Paradise Furnace, that produced 12 Tons of cast iron a day - a significant increase over the original bloomery. Following that in 1832 a forge was built to turn the cast iron into wrought iron. The forge was named Savage Forge. The forward thinking owners built a small park known as old forge camp for the workers.