The iron industry and Iron Museum of the City of Iron Vallorbe

20 June 2023

Blacksmiths were already utilising iron ore found in the Pied-du-Jura 350 years before Christ. his industry continued until about the 6th century A.D. From the 12th century, a few documents prove that the iron industry revived in the Jura. In Vallorbe, the first factories, the forerunners of the current industries, date from the last quarter of the 13th century.

There was water from the River Orbe to drive the wheels, wood for building and manufacturing charcoal, and iron ore, notably in the Mont d’Orzeires, on the northern side of the Dent de Vaulion.

Between 1280 and 1285, the prior Romainmôtier set up the valley’s first bloomery at la Dernier. A bloomery reduces iron ore into iron that is directly forgeable, as in the primitive furnaces of the Bellaires. At the beginning of the 16th century, Vallorbe was already a steelmaking centre with three bloomeries and several forges.

The technical revolution embodied in the discovery of the blast furnace, in which cast iron is produced in large quantities, gave new impetus to the iron industry. In about 1670, Vallorbe had three blast furnaces, several fire-refining installations and about thirty forges.

By the end of the 17th century, production of cast iron had ceased in Vallorbe. Metalworking had to diversify and become specialised. The Vallorbians bought their iron elsewhere and became locksmiths, gunsmiths, nailsmiths, and farriers.

This boom continued until about 1850 and was sustained thanks to manufacturing files, tools and chains. Les Usines Métallurgiques de Vallorbe, founded in 1899, and specialising in producing precision files and chains for chainsaws, kept up the worldwide reputation of the Cité du Fer (City of Ironworks).

The iron industry also evolved elsewhere in the Jura, leading to the cutting of fine stones, the manufacture of music boxes, razors, chisels, and other precision tools or machines.

The Iron Museum (musée du fer) occupies the buildings of a site in Vallorbe, where ironworking has been carried on since 1495. The museum demonstrates the origins of the iron industry, of its development and of its current applications. The functioning of the canal wheels, the machines, and the forge are the real heart of the Museum.

(Source et plus d’informations: Le Musée du fer)