Endor Furnace Gets a Makeover

The Endor Iron Furnace has suffered much deterioration since falling out of use around 1870, but most of it has come in the last 30 years or so. The Railroad House Association has a photograph of a nearly intact Endor Iron Furnace from the 1960s. Local historian Edwin Patterson remembers being able to walk into the huge openings of the furnace and look straight up through the stack. Now the stack has caved in toward the center and crumbled toward the outside, leaving only one of the upper corners intact. Though periodic flooding from the nearby Deep River, particularly from hurricanes like Fran and Floyd, has played a role, experts believe that vegetation growth, including vines and trees, has done most of the damage. There had been so much growth on the structure that it had been nearly obscured by vegetation.

Vegetation growth obscured the Endor Iron Furnace in Fall 2001.

The Railroad House Association, which is Sanford and Lee County's historical society, is taking an active role, with TLC's moral support, in restoring the Endor Iron Furnace. The first step in that process was clearing the vegetation that has been tearing the structure apart.

On April 25, 2002, Edwin Patterson (active member and former president of the Railroad House Association) and TLC Stewardship Director Kim Douglass led a group of workers from Lett's Tree Removal Service of Sanford in a clean-up of the Endor Iron Furnace. Lett's performed this service as volunteers, for which TLC and the Railroad House Association are most grateful. In the pictures you can see what lengths they went to in rooting out every root, and how beautiful the Endor Iron Furnace looks in the buff! Thanks Lett's!

Furnace Climbing	Furnace Crawler
Furnace Cleared	Lett's Group with Edwin Patterson

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