OLINDA

NAME: OLINDA COUNTY: ONTARIO ROADS: 2WD GRID: CLIMATE: Snow in winter BEST TIME TO VISIT: Spring summer or fall

COMMENTS: REMAINS: Today a pile of rocks in a peach orchard where the furnace once operated is the only reminder of the forgotten iron-making town.

Olinda was an ore town located where there was no ore. In the early days of Ontario, iron implements were manufactured from bog ore. The raw material was hauled by horse from a swamp about a mile away to the furnaces where it was burned off to make iron. Up to five hundred bushels a day were processed to make implements necessary to Ontario’s early pioneers. The operation employed as many as a hundred men. In 1848 the operations ceased. By the 1850s the technology was outdated in favor of blast furnaces.

BACK