Staff report
PEDRO — The fourth annual Vesuvius Iron Furnace Festival, “Blast from the Past,” will take place at Lake Vesuvius In Wayne National Forest from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Each year the festival features a different furnace in the Hanging Rock Iron Furnace Region and has previously featured Vesuvius, Olive and Center furnaces. This year the festival is featuring La Grange furnace.
The event kicks off at 5:30 p.m. Friday at the Nature Center amphitheater with music of Kelley’s Bridge (Bruce Brown, Hub Rose and Christine Hunt). Then, General Sherman arrives at 6:30 p.m. to discuss the Battle of Atlanta and the march to the sea.
Festivities officially begin at the OUS Nature Center Amphitheater at 9 a.m. Saturday and will include portrayals of a typical ironworker, ironmaster and Ironton founder John Campbell, ironmaster Nannie Kelly Wright, Chief Logan and Mark Twain. Music will include Home-Grown Country, the OU Activity Band and the Huntington Harmonica Club.
Exhibitors and demonstrators will include the 1st Ohio Light Artillery cannon, spinners from the Good News Llamas, a quilt exhibit by Pieces of Love Quilts, a blacksmith and free face painting for kids.
Educational exhibits include iron furnace replicas, the Lawrence County Genealogical Society, Historic Jail Preservation Corp. and Lawrence County Historical Society. Ohio University Southern departments will have exhibits of education, nursing and the Underground Railroad.
There will be a book sale by the American Association of University Women. Lori Shafer will be available to sign her first book “Iron Furnaces of Lawrence County, Ohio.”
Symmes Creek Restoration Committee, Reid Apiary and Iron Furnace Cooperative Weed Management Area will participate. Also, the Nature Center’s Larry Cartmill will present a snake program with a timber rattler, copperhead and many nonpoisonous snakes.
Horse drawn wagon trips will be available to the Vesuvius Cemetery. Debbie Rogers and a cast of historical portrayers will tell tales of the people buried there.
The Historical Society will be selling sandwiches, pop and beans and cornbread.
Smokey the Bear will make an appearance at the festival.
The festival is sponsored by the Lawrence County Historical Society, Ohio University Southern and the U.S. Forest Service Department of Agriculture. For more information, Bob Culp at (740) 533-4563 or e-mail culpr@ohio.edu.
