Ward Charcoal Ovens are a collection of six 30 feet high, beehive-shaped
charcoal ovens located inside the Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic
Park in the Egan Mountain Range approximately 18 miles south of Ely in
Nevada, in the United States of America. Between 1876 and 1879, the
Charcoal Ovens were built to produce charcoal from pinyon pine and
juniper. After their function as charcoal ovens ended, they served
diverse purposes, such as sheltering stockmen and prospectors during
foul weather and even serving as a hideout for stagecoach bandits. Today
they're the main attraction in Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historic Park.
The ovens take their name from Thomas Ward who founded a local mining
district in 1872. The mine produced go
ld and silver ore that required
high burning temperature that can only be provided by charcoal,
inspiring the construction of the ovens in the mid 1870s. The parabolic
shape of the beehive ovens caused heat to be reflected back to the
center where the wood slowly burned to produce charcoal.
Each of
the six ovens stood thirty feet tall and was twenty-seven feet in
diameter at the base. The walls are 20-inches thick, made from rocks
with three rows of vents. Wood was cut into 5-foot to 6-foot lengths and
stacked inside the ovens vertically using the lower door. The loaded
oven was ignited and the metal door was cemented shut. It took 13 days
to burn and empty a 35-cord (one cord is 4-feet high by 4-feet wide by 8
feet long) kiln.
Eventually, charcoal ovens were phased out by
the discovery of coal, by depleted ore deposits, and by the shortage of
available timber.
The technique of burning wood to produce
charcoal can be traced back to traditional Old World practices.
Centuries ago, woodchoppers found that slowly burning timber in an
oxygen-starved environment produced charcoal, which was easier to
transport and burned at a higher temperature than wood. Charcoal
production was especially common in the Alps, in Scandinavia, and in
Eastern Europe. Charcoal burners traditionally used shallow pits without
the benefit of permanent structures.
Immigrants brought the
technique of charcoal burning to Nevada mining districts where it was
particularly useful when milling stubborn ore bodies that required high
temperatures. The charcoal burners consumed pinyon and juniper, which
was of little use for building or for mine supports. The industry earned
a place in Nevada history with the famed Charcoal Burner's War of 1879,
when Italian and Swiss immigrants fought wealthy mill owners of the
Eureka Mining District to the east of the Ward mines.
After
suffering from vandalism and natural erosions, the long-abandoned ovens
became a state park in 1957. These Ward ovens are the best-preserved of
their kind in Nevada.
