Fitchburg Furnace operated as part of a self-contained iron plantation directed by an iron master, usually the owner, with miners digging iron ore from local sandstone formations, limestone quarried from nearby outcrops, and charcoal produced from abundant timber to supply the furnace. At the furnace, smelters cased the iron, potters made small castings after the molten iron ran out, guttermen managed the sand moulds, and fillers, often slaves, carried or wheeled heavy baskets of ore, limestone, and charcoal to the furnace top. Before production began, a large wood fire dried out and heated the stack and hearth for the first charge. The furnaces in this area were steam-operated quarter furnaces using a cold blast, and pig iron was hauled by tramroad to the Kentucky River for shipment by flatboats to iron manufacturing plants at Cincinnati and elsewhere. Most of the iron from this furnace, like that from others in the area, went into railroad car wheels and rails as railroads expanded across the country, but over-speculation and new ore beds in Alabama brought Kentucky's iron industry to a standstill, and after about one and a half million dollars had been invested in lands, furnaces, buildings, dwelling houses, tramways, roads, and other improvements, the property passed into other hands with a clear loss of over one million dollars to the stockholders.