The earliest coke ovens of the Low Moor Iron Company, organized in 1873, converted coal to coke to fuel the company’s blast furnace. The company built more than a hundred such ovens in 1881. By 1923, the Low Moor Iron Company employed 1,600 workers in Virginia and West Virginia, could produce 75 tons of foundry iron a day, and supported the company town of Low Moor. The last survivor among Alleghany County’s once-thriving ironworks, the company closed in 1926.