Ladd, Leonard, and Green  then recruited George D. Wilbur, a furnace builder from Sharon, Connecticut to oversee construction of the blast furnace.
 He modeled it on the furnaces of the Barnum Richardson Company base in Lime Rock, Connecticut.
 The result was a furnace with all the hallmarks of a Connecticut furnace- gothic arches, ashlar masonry of rectangular stone blocks, and a barrel-vaulted flue in back.
 Construction began in 1865 and was completed 10 months later.
 The furnace was blown in on August 24, 1867 amid high hopes that Oswego would become the "Pittsburg of the West."
 When the furnace was finished, newspapers from Portland to San Francisco hailed it as one of the most important undertakings on the Pacific Coast.
 "The success of this enterprise...opens to Oregon a new source of commerce and material wealth which can scarcely be over-estimated- vastly more beneficial and endurable in its results to the State than a mine of precious metals" (Portlands's Weekly Herald, July 28, 1866).

The Oswego Iron Furnace was the first blast furnace on the Pacific Coast and is the only surviving furnace west of the Rocky Mountains.
Ladd, Leonard, and Green  then recruited George D. Wilbur, a furnace builder from Sharon, Connecticut to oversee construction of the blast furnace.  He modeled it on the furnaces of the Barnum Richardson Company base in Lime Rock, Connecticut.  The result was a furnace with all the hallmarks of a Connecticut furnace- gothic arches, ashlar masonry of rectangular stone blocks, and a barrel-vaulted flue in back.  Construction began in 1865 and was completed 10 months later.  The furnace was blown in on August 24, 1867 amid high hopes that Oswego would become the "Pittsburg of the West."  When the furnace was finished, newspapers from Portland to San Francisco hailed it as one of the most important undertakings on the Pacific Coast.  "The success of this enterprise...opens to Oregon a new source of commerce and material wealth which can scarcely be over-estimated- vastly more beneficial and endurable in its results to the State than a mine of precious metals" (Portlands's Weekly Herald, July 28, 1866).
The Oswego Iron Furnace was the first blast furnace on the Pacific Coast and is the only surviving furnace west of the Rocky Mountains.
George Rogers Park