This stately mansion was constructed in 1830-31 for ironmaster Roland Curtin and his family. Its exterior walls are composed of local limestone. The building was designed in the Federal style popular in America during the period 1780-1840. It features 15 rooms of equal dimensions, with five rooms on each floor, connected by a wide central hallway. The mansion was occupied by five generations of the Curtin family from 1831 through 1951. After the last occupants moved out in 1951, the building began to deteriorate. In 1968 it was conveyed to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC). Restoration overseen by the PHMC in 1971-72 returned the mansion to its condition in the 1850s, the heyday of Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village. The mansion has been furnished with mid-nineteenth-century pieces, and is periodically open to the public for guided tours conducted by volunteer docents under the supervision of the non-profit Roland Curtin Foundation. Updates are posted on the Foundation's Facebook home: https://www.facebook.com/CurtinVillage.
Largely constructed in the mid-1970s to meet modern demands for serving visitors; refurbished with generous donor gifts in 2017 to meet code requirements for food service in support of public programing.
Constructed in the 1870s or 80s from materials salvaged from scrapped buildings (possibly abandoned mule barns); sheltered the Curtin family’s horses and carriages through the early twentieth century; restored in the early 2000s.
Stone remnants of a circa-1865 two-story frame building equipped with scales for weighing iron products; office on first floor; clerk’s living quarters on second floor; herb garden established by volunteers in 1983, and re-established in 2018.
Charcoal produced from hardwoods in local forests was stored here under roof until needed for fueling the nearby furnace.
Channeled water from a race (a manmade waterway fed by Nittany Creek) to the water wheel in the blast house; the flume's slight downward gradient induced a suitable flow; the section standing near the blast house is a remnant of a reproduction flume assembled in the 1970s.
Also known as the “Bridge House,” this building enclosed the area where raw materials and fuel were fed into the top of Eagle Furnace, in a process called "charging." The furnace was “in blast” year-round, conditions permitting. It was charged and tapped periodically around the clock, resting only on Sundays. Charging took place every half-hour, with each charge comprising approximately 320 pounds of charcoal (as fuel), 700 pounds of iron ore (containing metallic iron and non-iron “impurities”), and 150 pounds of limestone (whose calcium served as a flux, binding with the impurities to form slag). The furnace was tapped every 12 hours, yielding approximately 1½ tons of pig iron (sixty 50-pound pigs).
Equipped with a water wheel and other machinery that collected and pumped air to the furnace, “blasting” its fire to a smelting temperature of 2800°F; the present house is a reconstruction of the structure erected as part of the furnace complex in 1848.
An antechamber of the casting house; sheltered the juncture of the blast pipe nozzle (tuyere, pronounced "twee-yair") and the furnace stack; also area for light iron work and tool storage.
Iron was separated from ore (smelted) in the furnace through a combination of intense heat and fluxing by calcium carbonate released from limestone; molten iron was then released into sand-and-clay molds on the casting house floor where it cooled and hardened into “pigs” (ingots); pig iron was either shipped to market or transported to neighboring Eagle Forge for further refinement and strengthening into wrought iron; furnace stack rebuilt in 1977.
One of 28 locks on the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation Company’s 25-mile-long canal system, completed between Flemington (Clinton County) and Howard (Centre County) in 1837, then from Howard to Eagle Iron Works in 1839, and finally to Bellefonte in 1848; system destroyed by flooding in 1865, a year after the opening of the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad.
Constructed by Roland Curtin and partner Moses Boggs circa 1810; here pig iron was reheated in small furnaces (“bloomeries”), then pounded with a water-powered trip hammer, removing impurities and forming malleable wrought iron; ceased operating in July 1922, just over a year after fire destroyed the neighboring furnace complex.
Built circa 1850 as dormitory-style accommodations for single male workers.
Roland Curtin erected a four-story stone mill building here in 1830, replacing Philip Antes’ log gristmill and sawmill; water channeled from an adjoining mill pond turned a water wheel powering two runs of millstones that ground grain into grist (flour) for local consumption; milling ceased in 1936; following a roof collapse in the 1940s, the stone walls were razed in the interest of public safety.
Built circa 1850 to accommodate the furnace foreman, affording a clear view of the furnace complex, 50 yards to the northeast.
One of approximately 15 two-story frame dwellings added to Curtin Village when Pleasant Furnace was built in 1848; the relatively refined home of long-time Curtin Village blacksmith Miles Dukeman (1845-1927), wife Mary Ann ("Polly," née Schultz), and their half-dozen children; occupied by others through the mid-1980s.
A 1980s reconstruction of one of approximately 12 log-and-plaster cabins built to house Eagle Forge workers and their families in Curtin Village during the 1820s and 30s; one-story with sleeping loft and large fireplace for heat and cooking; a cabin in this location was home to several generations of Bryans.
One of two public water sources in Curtin Village; a second well was located on the opposite side of the village green, near the gristmill; present well housing was reconstructed in 2024.
Described in 1878 as a “recently erected, modern, two-story house, occupied by a member of the [Curtins & Co.] firm”; home of James B. Curtin (ironmaster, postmaster, grandson of Eagle Iron Works founder Roland Curtin), his wife Virginia Elizabeth (“Jennie”) Holter, and their children until James’ death in 1890; occupied in the mid-twentieth century until July 1986 by the family of Hugh Laird (“Bud”) Curtin Jr., son of Eagle Iron Works' last ironmaster, H.L. Curtin Sr.
Built by the proprietors of Eagle Iron Works shortly after the Bald Eagle Valley Railroad’s opening through Curtin Village in the winter of 1864-65; stocked with general merchandise; a U.S. post office (“Roland, P.O.”) was established here in April 1867; name changed to “Curtin P.O.” in 1907, by which time the company store was known as “the Eagle Emporium”; the post office was discontinued in 1935, and the Emporium was shuttered; the building was converted into residential apartments, and served that purpose until its demolition in 1967.
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20 points of interest on the grounds of Eagle Iron Works and Curtin Village, the only surviving example of a nineteenth-century iron plantation in Pennsylvania's renowned Juniata Iron District.
