Balcones Forge Hammers ‘Em in Fredricksburg!

Spring Break Week at the Pioneer Museum in downtown Fredricksburg was a little more interesting this year, thanks to efforts from the members of Balcones Forge.  We brought a real sense of the pioneer blacksmith shop to the museum visitors and enjoyed working at our craft in a fascinating “old time” setting.

The Pioneer Museum is located on Main Street in historic Fredricksburg behind an unassuming white plaster fronted building that is actually a log cabin leading to a large and very interesting museum grounds.  The museum features an old one room schoolhouse, beautifully furnished log dwellings, historic Sunday houses, a large barn with interesting displays on the history of the Fredricksburg area, and, of course, an old time blacksmith shop.  That blacksmith shop was in real need of a working blacksmith for the celebration of Spring Break Week and we were happy to oblige.

The Spring Break celebration featured rope making, delicious chuck wagon cooking from an authentic chuck wagon, soap making, quilting exhibits, a number of friendly barnyard animals, and a chance for the kids to hammer out a real nail in the blacksmith shop.  Involving the kids in anvil work was the inspiration of fearless Balcones member Roy Bellows of Fredricksburg.  (It sounds a little frightening, but it works out well in reality.)  Cranking the blower of the old coal forge and hammering at the anvil brought the same enthusiasm from the kids that we older kids get from those activities!

Special thanks goes to Balcones members (and real old time blacksmiths) Roy Bellows, Gary Hilton, Mary Jo Emrick, David Horsey, John Van Strien, Rick Dawdy, Kamber Sokulsky and her helper, Emma, Gary Evensen, and Charlie Stolte and to our constant helper and Balcones Forge Auxillary, Helen Wise, for taking the extra time to send out the information so we could have Charlie there.

We learned a lot from this demonstration opportunity.  First, I learned to be very grateful for our Balcones Forge internet connection.  This needed to be arranged in a hurry and I needed to quickly assemble lots volunteers and equipment to take us through five days of blacksmithing demos.  The internet allowed us to do that, even though we did not have a newsletter scheduled to go out at the time.  Thanks to member Scott Little for making this connection available and riding herd on our internet presence.  I am sure we will use it more and more in the future.  Secondly, we learned that it’s a lot of work to haul all our equipment (and coal) (and iron) in and out of a demo area.  A lot of our demonstrators discussed setting up a permanent set of tools at the museum for future demos.  This is a very interesting idea and worth exploring further.  The museum is a great venue and we hope to do more there in the future.

The volunteer response to this blacksmithing opportunity was excellent!  I hope that more and more of our members will have the chance to work in the old smithy during future celebrations.

John Crouchet, President

Roy Bellows instructs the next generation of blacksmiths.

Museum visitors crowd the old blacksmith shop for a look at a "real" blacksmith!

Mary Jo Emrick and Gary Hilton fire up the coal forge.

John Crouchet cuts a hook on the old hardy.

Kamber Sokulsky and her helper, Emma, turn out the forgings.