Buckeye Furnace, built along Raccoon Creek in 1851 by Thomas Price and financed by Newkirk, Daniels, and Company under the name of Buckeye Furnace Company, was the second charcoal-fueled iron furnace constructed there. In its early years, during a forty two-week blast period, it produced an average of 7.3 tons of iron daily, and later construction increased the height of its stone stack and raised output to twelve tons per day. In 1862 the company was sold to H. S. Bundy, who operated it for two years before selling it to Terry, Auston, and Company, and in 1867 a group of Welshmen bought it and ran the furnace until operations ceased in 1894. Opening in 1851 with time-tested methods and technology, it reflected the transformation of the United States from a small agricultural nation to an industrial giant, and it closed in 1894 because it could no longer produce enough iron to remain competitive with coke-fueled furnaces. At full production it employed about 100 men from the eastern United States, England, Wales, and Germany, with forty working near or at the furnace and office and the rest in the surrounding area mining iron ore and limestone, cutting trees, hauling raw materials to the furnace, and carrying finished iron to the railroad. With their families, nearly 500 people lived around the furnace, and their backbreaking labor helped build a prosperous and powerful nation.