The park is on the western edge of the Seven Mountains in northeastern Huntingdon County, an area of rugged beauty, abundant wildlife, breathtaking vistas, and peaceful solitude.

Greenwood Furnace State Park covers 423 acres, including a six-acre lake, campground, hiking trails, and a historic district. The park provides access to backpacking, hiking, mountain biking, hunting, and fishing in the surrounding 80,000-acre Rothrock State Forest.

A walk through historic Greenwood Furnace evokes images of the community that flourished here from 1834 to 1904. Greenwood Furnace was a busy industrial complex, with all the noise and dirt of a 19th century ironmaking community. The village throbbed with life:

The roaring of furnace stacks
The shouts of the workmen
The hissing of the steam engine
The creaking of wagons loaded with charcoal
The cast house whistle signaling another pour of molten iron
The furnaces were hot (3,000 degrees Fahrenheit) and cast clouds of smoke and cinders into the air, which rained down on grass, people, livestock, and buildings; rendering everything sooty and gray. At night, the fire’s red glow lit the sky, probably allowing residents to walk about without lanterns. Greenwood Furnace was a village built around an inferno.

Greenwood Furnace State Park

This 41-acre park is in an isolated area of the Seven Mountains region known as the Stone Creek Kettle. While this Centre County park is small in size, it is surrounded by an 80,000-acre block of Rothrock State Forest.

Penn-Roosevelt is a good base for those seeking low-density recreation on this vast expanse of public land. Popular activities include: hiking on the Mid-State or other State Forest trails, gravel-riding on over 100 miles of Forestry roads, and mountain biking the nearby Cooper’s Gap area, a destination Pennsylvania mountain biking trail system.

State Parks Tagged With: Huntingdon