The iron city

The Foundry

For three years the works at Trade and College made ordnance; now the war is over and the same hammers are yours. In this arcade version you run the converted arsenal as a working foundry: choose an order each shift — mining machinery, rail parts, mill gearing — then keep the forge, rolling mill, lathe and casting floor moving before the pieces spoil. Three shifts make the day, and the pay you bank is the score. The ghosts of what the machines used to make are posted right on the orders board.

Banked: $0Shift: 1/3Best: $0

The Foundry

The arsenal is yours now, and it runs on orders. Pieces come due at the forge, the rolling mill, the lathe and the casting floor — work each one (tap it, or press its number, 1-9) before it spoils. Three spoiled pieces ship the order short. Pick an order each shift; three shifts make the day, and the pay you bank is the score.From the guide's timeline: In May 1862 the Confederacy relocated its principal naval ordnance works from the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk/Portsmouth, Virginia to Charlotte, North Carolina, after the loss of the CSS Virginia (Merrimac) and the threatened Union capture of Norfolk made continued operation there unsafe.

Controls: tap a glowing station, or press its number (1-9) on a keyboard.

The true story under the game

In May 1862, after the loss of the CSS Virginia and the threatened capture of Norfolk, the Confederacy relocated its principal naval ordnance works to Charlotte — the only Confederate navy yard ever built more than 100 miles from navigable water. By 1862 it employed roughly 1,500 men and boys; its forge shop housed the largest steam hammer in the South, and its buildings turned out marine engines, propeller shafting, anchors, shot and shell. Federal troops formally seized the abandoned site on May 7, 1865. Then the swords became plowshares: John Wilkes ran the property as an iron works — the Mecklenburg Iron Works — until moving operations to West Trade Street in 1875. The state's marker dates his reclaiming of the land to 1865; the Charlotte Museum of History says he repurchased it in December 1866. The guide keeps both dates rather than resolving them, and so does the game.

The war and Navy Yard era, year by year

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