Pioneer Furnace was the southernmost blast furnace in the Hanging Rock Iron Region. Built in 1881, four and a half miles south, by Jay H. Northup, George C. Peck, and Thomas Cummings, it was a stone stack 18 feet high with a maximum inner diameter of four and a half feet. It began operations in 1882, using locally mined ore and charcoal fuel made nearby, and production had ceased by 1884. Kentucky had been a major iron producer since 1791, ranking third in the U.S. in the 1830s and eleventh in 1965. Charcoal timber, native ore, and limestone supplied material for numerous furnaces making pig iron, utensils, and munitions in the Hanging Rock, Red River, Between Rivers, Rolling Fork, and Green River regions. The charcoal-furnace era ended in the 1880s with depletion of ore and timber and the use of modern methods.