Location: Douglass Township, Berks County

Dates of Operation: 1716 to 1840s

Owners: Thomas Rutter; Thomas Potts; Potts Family

Historical Significance: Rutter’s Bloomery was Pennsylvania’s first iron works. The works was a bloomery forge, where workers heated iron ore and hammered it into iron blooms. After Rutter died in 1730, the Potts family purchased shares and renamed the site Pine Forge. The forge operated into the 1840s, when it was torn down and was replaced by a rolling and slitting mill.