Cornwall Iron Furnace seeks new site admin after Emery takes larger state role

Cornwall Iron Furnace is seeking applications for site administrator, a job now held by Mike Emery.

Emery, a history grad from Penn State University, began work at the furnace as site administrator in 2018, following years at the Daniel Boone Homestead, Conrad Weiser Homestead, and Landis Valley Museum.

Emery, who has been working for the state Bureau of Historic Sites & Museums full-time for 28 years, became acting chief of the bureau’s eastern division in 2023. In late 2024, he said, he took over the position officially and began looking for his replacement at Cornwall.

The job, he explained, entails overseeing maintenance of the historic site, overseeing collaboration with organizations such as the Friends of the Cornwall Iron Furnace, and providing customer service.

“The position of a site administrator does a lot of things, usually at a smaller site like this one, where there aren’t a lot of staff, that job touches practically everything,” Emery said.

The furnace is a unique site, he said, because in addition to being the first furnace in this area and the largest iron deposit in the eastern United States, Cornwall has the only intact blast iron furnace in North America.

“In many ways, the structures that we have here are our most important artifact that we have,” he said. “Oftentimes as historians, when you look at historic buildings, if there’s something that maybe you’re not quite sure about, you can go look at another old historic house in the area, even those that are fairly unique, and you can see things that are similar between them. But as far as the furnace is concerned, we don’t have another one really to look at because none of the others survived intact.”

Employees of the furnace provide tours of the facility Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays (four per day Friday and Saturday and two on Sunday). The site also hosts lectures by historians, which are posted on YouTube for posterity, and other historic-themed events.

Emery said that this is the second time the commonwealth has sought applicants, explaining that some of the finalists in the first posting accepted other jobs.

He said that, as the administrator position is a state position, the application form is thorough and applications are reviewed and narrowed down by the commonwealth before he interviews candidates.

An ideal applicant, Emery explained, would be a person with a background in history and ideally former museum management experience. That applicant would also be a “people person” able to interface with the public, he said, and savvy with state protocols for museum expenditures.

Emery added that whoever fills the position will start close to the Semiquincentennial celebrations next year, and will be able to oversee education about the furnace’s connection to early American history.

“The person who will be taking over this position will take it over in a very exciting time,” said Emery. “We think that the public will be more engaged, more interested in colonial history.”

The Pennsylvania bureau job listing estimates the salary at an annual $67,736 to $102,905. The job posting will be open until Aug. 13.