Iron and Steel Industry

(click to view larger) Image courtesy of Documenting the American South, UNC Libraries. [6]The search by European settlers for sources of iron in North Carolina began with the earliest explorations. Members of Sir Walter Raleigh [7]'s first expedition to Roanoke Island [8] and the Chowan River Valley in 1585 reported two iron ore discoveries. Over time, three localities with substantial iron ore deposits were to play a modest role in the economic history of the state. These were the Deep River deposits in Chatham County [9], the deposits centered around the Big Ore Bank in Lincoln County [10], and the substantial magnetite ore deposits in Avery County [11]. However, no significant refining in North Carolina was to occur for almost two centuries after the initial sixteenth-century discoveries.