The complex of buildings, structures, and sites making up the Alleghany County village of Longdale Furnace are the tangible remains of an extensive mining and manufacturing operation. Industrial activity began here in 1827 when Lexington builder and entrepreneur John Jordan and his partner John Irvine built a coal-blast iron furnace here which they named Lucy Selina Furnace after their respective wives. The operation was continued by Jordan’s sons but was purchased in 1869 by William Firmstone and his partner Ario Pardee. They redeveloped the site as Virginia’s foremost hot-blast coke-fired furnace named the Longdale Iron Company. A community of workers’ dwellings, managers’ houses, and related buildings sprang up to service the activity. The company was dissolved in 1914. Many of the buildings disappeared but the Longdale Furnace Historic District still maintains a vestige of its former character.