 From its founding in 1839 until the 1890s under the auspices of the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, the Lehigh Crane Iron Company — the first enterprise in North America to successfully achieve anthracite charged iron smelting using the newly patented Scottish hot blast technology to produce a new, plentiful and inexpensive (even revolutionary) product anthracite iron — obtained much of its ore supply from limonite deposits in southern Lehigh County.The ore had to be hauled over rural roads and across Biery's Bridge to reach the company's budding furnace and casting complex at Biery's Port (renamed Catasauqua in 1854), which early on, would have eight of the first ten successful blast furnaces producing anthracite iron in the Lehigh Valley.The wagons used to carry the heavy ore did great damage to the roads, and as the furnaces expanded, the deficiencies of this method of transportation became clear.