Basic Information for Carrie Furnaces
Address: Carrie Furnace Boulevard, Rankin, PA 15104
Phone: (412) 464-0838
Website: https://www.riversofsteel.com/
Admission: Advance* Door*
Child (17 and under) $14.00 $17.00
Student (18+ with college ID) $17.00 $20.00
Senior (62 and above) $17.00 $20.00
General Admission $21.00 $25.00
*Tours are limited to 25 participants. We highly recommend purchasing tickets in advance as we can not guarantee tickets will be available for walk ups.
Prices change with changing programing. Check site for more details.
What to Know Before You Go:
As a former industrial site, there are a few things to keep in mind to ensure an enjoyable visit.
- What to wear: The majority of each tour is outside; please dress for the weather. Additionally, the ground is uneven—sensible shoes are a must. Sneakers or boots are recommended. Open-toed shoes and high heels are prohibited.
- Restrooms & concessions: The rawness of the site is certainly part of its charm. However, that rawness also limits the creature comforts many of us are accustomed to, like running water. Portable bathrooms and wash stations are available. Food amenities are generally not available (with some exceptions, such as food trucks at festivals).
- Photography: Photography is permitted. For safety reasons, videography and drones are prohibited.
- Accessibility: Handicapped parking is available, but the grounds covered during tours are not wheelchair accessible.
- Liability: By purchasing admission tickets, all visitors are required to sign a liability waiver and consent to be photographed.
- Admission: Site access is limited to guided tours, workshops, and events. Unless otherwise noted, all admissions are ticketed.
- Duration: Allow two hours for your tour.
- Children: While kids of all ages are welcome, the tour content is recommended for children ages 8+.
About Carrie Furnaces
The Carrie Blast Furnaces were operational from 1884 until 1982. For every ton of iron that the Carrie Blast Furnaces produced, a four-ton combination of iron ore, coke, and limestone was melted down. To cool down the molten iron, up to five million gallons of water were used daily. Workers had to confront relentless heat and endless layers of filth. They also had to deal with extremely dangerous conditions. With few safety regulations, injury and death were common events at the Carrie Blast Furnaces. The furnaces standing today, Carrie 6 and 7, are the only remaining furnaces of the original site and are the only non-operative blast furnaces left in Pittsburgh.
In 2006, the Carrie Blast Furnaces became a National Historic Landmark, and with the help of the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area, the site now conducts public tours, as well as concerts and other events, on the historic grounds.
As you drive down Carrie Furnace Boulevard, you’ll surely notice the towering, 92-foot-tall stacks and long warehouses. Be prepared for an exciting tour that includes climbing a series of walkways around these industrial ghosts and into the intimidating interior of the furnace. You’ll learn about the harsh conditions a steelworker encountered, as well as lighter stories about the friendships between workers. As you make your way through the site, be sure to pay attention to the things that may seem out of place in a space known for its great industrial achievements- namely, the many art installations. These include a 40’ tall metal sculpture of a deer along with a significant amount of graffiti created by renowned graffiti artists from across the world. You will also walk through a garden and learn how indigenous trees and plants have begun to grow and thrive despite significant soil contamination. The Carrie Blast Furnaces is one of the most unique places to visit in Pittsburgh because of its rich industrial past in addition to incredible artistic and natural features.
Revitalization of the Carrie Blast Furnaces: The Carrie Deer and Graffiti
As I walked in the shadow of the decrepit, abandoned blast furnaces, I noticed a color-splashed wall. It was covered in graffiti ranging from animated popcorn buckets to steelworkers. Later during the tour, I glanced up and noticed a massive deer head rising above a decaying building. This wasn’t just a dead, abandoned industrial site; it was a resurrected, thriving canvas.
Memories of Molten Metal
As an outsider to Pittsburgh and its history of steel, I find the relationship that residents of the city have with the steel industry to be fascinating and perplexing. A combination of pride and guilt is mixed into that relationship and nowhere is this mixture more obvious than in Carrie Furnaces. The road leading to it misleadingly displays a “Road Closed” sign even though the road is passable, a fact that would suggest visitors aren’t welcome, despite the operation of tours. Up close, the site looks abandoned and forgotten – the machinery that was once alive now rusts silently.
The Perpetual Pride
More than a century ago lived an incredible beast with fire spouting out of its heart, roasting and melting everything inside of it. The creature roared its deafening sounds until the day it was put to rest in 1978. Carrie Furnaces was a part of the U.S Steel’s Homestead Works stretched over four hundred acres on both sides of the Monongahela River, employing thousands with the enticement of a steady paycheck. Generations of immigrants and their children plummeted into the heart of the steel industry (Bell). The labor instilled by these blast furnaces physically converted iron oxides to l
The Rusted Monument
The road that takes you down to the Carrie Furnaces is newly built, slipping quietly off of South Braddock Avenue before you get on the Rankin Bridge. This almost mile stretch to the site offers pristine views of the Monongahela River and has been reclaimed by the earth. As you reach the site and park in the lot made out front by chain link fence there’s a silence about the place. The tall red buildings loom over you, a piece of history frozen and decaying. Everywhere that rust has taken apart new plants grow through it.
An Igneous Workplace
In its early years, Carrie Blast Furnace, along with other mills, was home to some of the harshest and most dangerous working conditions, with risk of injury or death everyday due to the lack of safety equipment and laws. Of course in its later years, the safety regulations were stricter after the founding of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971. Before that, the safety of employees was not of much concern to employers, especially in industrial fields.
Reinventing a Derelict Space
Almost weekly, I can be found driving across the Homestead Grays Bridge on my way to the Waterfront, in Homestead, PA (waterfrontpgh.com). The Waterfront has a plethora of stores for general shopping, high-end eateries and fast-food favorites, as well as general-needs stores for groceries and home repair; in a sense, it has it all. It’s no wonder I find myself there too often. As I make my familiar journey across the river, I never used to give much thought to what I was traveling over, or where exactly I was going.