Katahdin Iron Works.

The Katahdin Iron Works was incorporated in 1846 by David Pingree of Salem, Massachusetts, and Samuel E. Coues, Charles H. Ladd, John L. Hayes, and Alexander H. Ladd, all of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Pingree ran the company until his death.The blast furnace ran only between 1846 and 1856, when operation of the iron works became uneconomical and it was shut down. From 1857 until Pingree died in 1863, the iron works was unoccupied. After Pingree's death the executors of his estate sold the property which was reincorporated into the Piscataquis Iron Works.

The Piscataquis Iron Works was incorporated in 1868 by Thomas Egery of Bangor, Maine; E. P. Cutler, a Boston iron broker; and Frederick F. French. In 1876 Owen W. Davis and four others incorporated as the Katahdin Iron Company, leased the land from Piscataquis and took over operation of the company. A fire destroyed much of the plant in 1883, but it was rebuilt in 1885 when the Katahdin Charcoal Iron Company was organized in Bangor with enough capital to re-build the works. By 1890 the management of the Katahdin Charcoal Iron Company, faced with competition from the steel plants in Pennsylvania as well as rising costs and falling prices, was forced to give up the business.

In 1927 the General Chemical Division of Allied Chemical Company of New York leased the land of the Iron Works and in 1952 purchased it. The timberland management firm of Prentiss & Carlisle of Bangor served as the company's agent in managing the land, which was used primarily for lumbering. General Chemical later donated the land containing the blast furnace and remaining charcoal kiln to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Recreation which has operated it as an historic site since 1965.