Cast Iron Stove

This blog is a collection of thoughts on local history.  I'm not likely reveal a lot of new factual  material in this blog.  The purpose here is to interact with the facts that have already been well documented.   I have titled this blog  Cast Iron Stove,  in recognition of the famous stove which is the subject of this post.   For me local history starts  with the stove.  It is pictured and discussed in  this Wisconsin Historical Museum article.   The thing itself is not what's important here.  If you stop to look at the stove which now sits at the Mayville Limestone School Museum you might not give it much thought.  After all, a parlor stove was a commonplace  item in 1846.   Why name this blog after an ordinary object?  Local history is about finding meaning in the commonplace.  The stove came to life for me after I read this striking description from the Wisconsin curator:  

Objects that document a single moment of transition from "frontier" to "civilization" are rare. The Mayville stove is one such object. Cast in 1846, it is the first stove ever made from iron deposits in Wisconsin, and it marks the birth of an industry in what was then just a fledgling village in Dodge County.

Online curator's  Exhibit description of Mayville Iron Parlor Stove [Museum object #1999.141.1].  This exhibit description has a good history of the stove, and I won't repeat it here.  See also  item 3 of the Mayville references below.

Chester May and his son  Eli May had the stove built,  from iron deposits taken from their land just south of town,  and now the stove serves as a kind of historical sign which "marks the birth" of iron mining and points to the future of iron work in Wisconsin.   The iron works started with the state's first furnace which began smelting iron ore in Mayville in 1848.

Northwestern Iron Works 1916 postcard, Mayville, WI

One way to achieve a connection with a place is to get to know its stories.  That gets back to my thoughts as to the naming of this blog.  The stove takes you back to the birth of Mayville and the great story of of the discovery of iron by Chester and Eli.  (And yes, I know there are some who say it was  the local native Americans who pointed out the iron  - the "red dirt" -   to the Mays.)   Life gets pretty drab without stories, but I don't have to worry about that because this community is full of them. 

And with the closing  of the Mayville  Iron Works  in 1928 leaving the city without its major industry heading into the Great Depression,  the following decade became what we now might call early “rust belt” history, full of struggle, pain and "iron works" talk.    For more on this subject of living in a city shaken  by its  industrial ups and downs see this excellent article  from the Cleveland bloggers at rust belt chic.

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Mayville References and Resources:

1. When Iron was King in Dodge County, Wisconsin, by George G. Fredrick (Mayville, WI, Mayville Historical Society 1993).

2.  Website of Mayville Limestone School Museum ("MLSM"), information on basement gallery where you will find the stove, and the mining, blast furnace and coke plant items:  http://www.mlsm.org/galleriesbasement.htm    

3.    Facebook Spring 2012 post from MLSM: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.295280560554365.69751.100608006688289&type=3which has photos  and a description stating as follows:  "In 1846, iron ore from the old Iron Ridge (Neda) area was sent to the St. Joseph Iron Works in Mishawaka, Indiana, where it was smelted and cast into a parlor stove. This was the first object to be made from Dodge County’s iron ore. The “Mayville Stove” was used in the homes of both Chester May and his son, Eli. In 1909, the May family donated the stove to the Wisconsin State Historical Society. For many years it was on exhibit at the Stonefield Village in Cassville, Wis., and this year at Grohmann Museum in Milwaukee. The MLSM now will put it on display in our own “Iron Country” room beginning May 2012." 

4.    Website of Mayville Historical Society, Inc.:  http://www.mayvillehistoricalsociety.org/