Stopped by an old shop in rural Georgia, noticed the anvils were all going quiet

I was down near Macon last weekend visiting a friend and we stopped at this old blacksmith shop that's been sitting there since the 1800s. The owner let us wander around the back, and I saw three anvils sitting outside under a lean-to, all rusted and half buried in leaves. One of them was a 150 pound Peter Wright with the horn still intact. It got me thinking about how many of these old shops just faded away as welding and fabrication shops took over. The guy running the place now mostly does ornamental gates and railings with a mig welder. He told me he hasn't lit his forge in over 6 months because nobody asks for hand forged stuff anymore. Has anyone else come across an old shop like that and wondered what we're losing?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_gonzalez252d ago

Man I found almost the exact same thing up in north Alabama last year, an old shop with a beat up Trenton anvil just sitting in the weeds like nobody cared. It's sad to see those skills just vanish like that.

jesse9941d ago

Ha, yeah because who needs a piece of history when you can have a CNC machine that costs more than my truck and needs a degree to run, right? I bet that anvil would probably have lasted another hundred years too, but sure, let's melt it down for a car bumper. "Progress" I guess, if progress means replacing something that worked with something that needs constant software updates.

emery_lopez1d ago

Those skills just vanish like that" - see, I actually don't think that's a bad thing. People act like every old blacksmith shop is some lost treasure, but let's be real, most of those skills were backbreaking, dangerous work that nobody wanted to do. We've got CNC machines and welding now, stuff that's way safer and more precise. That old Trenton anvil sitting in the weeds? It's just scrap metal waiting to get recycled into something actually useful, not a monument to the good old days that weren't that great for most folks.