Lucy Selina Furnace, built in 1827 on Simpson’s Creek by Col. John Jordan and John Irvine and named for their wives, Lucy Jordan and Selina Irvine, was a charcoal-fired, cold-blast furnace that later supplied the Confederacy with pig iron for cannons, munitions, and rails during the Civil War. It operated until 1852, when hot-blast furnace technology and the high cost of charcoal compared with bituminous coal made it uneconomical. After Northern iron supplies were cut off during the war, the furnace reopened in 1863 and sold pig iron to the Confederate States Nitre and Mining Bureau, with its output also supplying Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works. Union raiders threatened the Alleghany furnaces in 1862 and 1864, but Lucy Selina escaped destruction. As many white ironworkers left for Confederate military service, enslaved labor kept the furnace operating under extremely arduous conditions and scarce food supplies that led many slaves to flee. Production never met expectations. After the war, William Firmstone bought Lucy Selina in May 1870 and converted it into a coke furnace as part of the Longdale Furnace Company, and although nothing remains of Lucy Selina Furnace, the ruins of Longdale Furnace still stand a few hundred yards to the west.