Edison's NJ & PA Concentrating Works

Edison's NJ & PA Concentrating Works, Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area (8/15/2009)

While perusing the new hike book Hiking New Jersey: A Guide to 50 of the Garden State's Greatest Hiking Adventures (1st edition), I was intrigued by an entry in the section of the book "Honorable Mentions", where the authors listed (with no description) two dozen places that they couldn't include for lack of space. The entry that caughty my attention was the wordy "Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area and the Edison Ore Concentrating Works site". Edison? Concentrating Works? I did a web search. In no time I learned that Thomas Edison did some serious mining up on Sparta Mountain during the last decade of the 19th century, developing an enormous complex of buildings (some huge) centered around a half dozen or so iron ore mines.

I learned that Rodney P. Johnson recently wrote a 300+ page book on the topic, Thomas Edison's "Ogden Baby": The New Jersey & Pennsylvania Concentrating Works, which tells the history of the complex and describes the area for those wishing to explore it. I ordered the book on Wednesday and received it on Friday, which allowed me time to design a nice hike around the area for the following day. Most of the mines are still open to the air, albeit surrounded by fences. Curiously, though, the fences are all open in parts, allowing access. But caution must obviously be practiced when exploring the area. Also, many of the ruins at this time of year are under thick vegetation, making some of them very difficult to find, so we plan on returning in the winter.

About half the hike was on trails blazed with the NJ Audubon blazes and the other half on unblazed woods roads. My GPS, and Johnson's trail map, were essential companions for the day. Total distance covered today was 6 miles, with lunch at the lovely Edison Pond.

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