Saturday, January 5, 2013

Cooksville’s Blacksmith Shops By Larry Reed




Besides grocery stores and meat markets, blacksmith shops appear to have been the most popular businesses to inspire the entrepreneurial spirit in 19th century Cooksville.

Indispensable in their time, Cooksville’s many blacksmith shops were operated in various locations and for various lengths of time in the village, although in some cases the records are not clear as to the exact location or duration of the businesses. With their red-hot forges and anvils, blacksmith shops were the all-around manufacturing and repair shops— for farm equipment,  wagons and carriages, for horse shoes and harnesses, for household objects and metal work of every kind—and the shops served their purpose on into the 20th century.
Robertson’s Blacksmith Shop, c.1895