{"id":649,"date":"2025-12-23T00:36:59","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T05:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/?p=649"},"modified":"2025-12-23T00:36:59","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T05:36:59","slug":"cardiff-community-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/cardiff-community-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff Community Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

(from the archived RCHC Web site<\/em>)<\/p>\n

ngg_shortcode_0_placeholderIn the Beginning…..<\/p>\n

After the civil war most of the south lay in ruin.  This was a good opportunity for northern industrialists to come in and put the south back to work.  With the building of factories came immigrants to feel the jobs and so was born the industrial revolution.  In 1868 the first blast furnace was built at Rockwood.  This was known as The Roane Iron Company with Ohio Industrialist William O. Rockwood<\/strong> serving as its first president.  Roane Iron produced an iron ingot called pig iron that could be melted down to make iron products.  The two major ingredients for this was iron ore and coke produced from coal.<\/p>\n

Roane County was rich in both minerals, some of which were untapped. In the 1880s gossip was circulating amongst northern industrialists of these large mineral deposits at the foot of Walden<\/strong>‘s Ridge.  Boston industrialist Henry C. Young<\/strong> listened to the gossip and sent geologist to Roane County to investigate.  They pounced on a small farming community just north of Rockwood, at the foot of Walden<\/strong>‘s Ridge called Blue Springs.  Their findings reported to Mr. Young<\/strong> is where our story begins.<\/p>\n

The geologists reported finding a large iron vein, maybe the largest ever found.  Henry Young<\/strong> quickly assembled a group of wealthy northern investors, and the Cardiff Coal and Iron Company was born.  Named after the large mining operation in Cardiff, Wales, Young<\/strong>, too, had plans for making Cardiff into an industrial giant.  He sent agents in to buy up the lands with the major portion being the Joel Dallas Hembree<\/strong> farm.  Meantime, layouts for a town were being made with lots, houses, hotels, homes, schools, businesses, and the worlds largest blast furnace.  This, of course, led many Rockwood folks to fold up and move to Cardiff.  The CARDIFF BOOM was on.<\/p>\n

April 1, 1890, marked the day of the great land sell.  Harriman had its land sale in February, and Rockwood was incorporated that same year.  Thirty-five Pullman cars arrived the first day of the sale, bringing with it many investors from the north.  Some 237 lots were sold on the opening day alone, totaling about $400,000.  Prosperity was short lived.  The company had allowed investors to buy land through exchanging company stock. With a stock market crash in the early 1890s, the Cardiff Coal & Iron Company was forced into bankruptcy by 1893.  The mining rights and property were then purchased by the Roane Iron Company and the Brown Mining Company, who started a mining town just up the valley from Cardiff.<\/p>\n

At the turn of the century, the town of Cardiff had three churches:  the Methodist Episcopal Church – South, the Christian church, and the Baptist church.  Besides the small family graveyards, the Methodist had the only church graveyard in the community.  Cardiff Baptist Church is the only church to survive.  The old clap board building saw two major wars, and many families come and go, before it, too, was taken by fire in 1977.<\/p>\n

[Note: minor edits were made to correct grammar and spelling.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(from the archived RCHC Web site) In the Beginning….. After the civil war most of the south lay in ruin.  This was a good opportunity for northern industrialists to come in and put the south back to work.  With the …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,13,24,12,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-industry","category-communities","category-families-individuals","category-professions-and-professionals","category-religious-group-records"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tngenweb.org\/roane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}