Tubal Furnace Archaeological Site

Spotswood's furnace, built around 1717 on what became Spotsylvania County land, was an early eighteenth-century iron furnace in Virginia. The colonial Lieutenant Governor put enslaved workers — skilled ones — at the center of a complex technological operation. The operation ran into the early nineteenth century.

The site was listed on the National Register in 1982. What remains is archaeological — furnace structure, waterworks, the physical record of an industry that ran for generations. The significance isn't scenic. It's what happened here: enslaved people working blast furnaces, making iron, building the infrastructure that opened the Piedmont.