We now enter the Sloss Furnaces complex, and walk around the public path on the southeast portion of the grounds. Above is a photograph of the furnaces before the 1930s refitting.

We walked by a tunnel that was unfortunately flooded the day we visited, but much of the material in the smelting process moved back and forth below.

We also walked by the southern furnace.

The circular towers below are blast stoves, where the air was superheated to break the ore apart, separating the iron from the slag.

Here’s a clearer photograph of those hot blast stoves, as they’re called.

Here at the northern blast furnace, we can see the pipes that lead from the stoves.

The structure below seems to be boilers where the coke was burned.

As a bit of a tangent, I would be remiss to not talk about the use of child labor at many of these industrial sites, such as the Avondale Mills, seen below.