 Continued demand for pig iron to be transported westward provided an additional competitive advantage to plantations in these states.The iron industry shifted to one largely determined by the production of steel during the British Industrial Revolution and in the later half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.As such, blast furnaces, steam and electric power, and coke fuel replaced the largely land- and labor-intensive practices of iron making on plantations dependent on large tracts of land to produce charcoal and additional labor to sustain both the iron making operations and the community at large.