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The Maryland Iron Festival
May 20 @ 10:00 am - May 21 @ 4:00 pm
The Catoctin Furnace Historical Society, Inc. will present the fifth annual Maryland Iron Festival during the weekend of May 20 & 21, 2023 in partnership with Cunningham Falls State Park, Catoctin Mountain Park, Frederick County Public Libraries, Visit Frederick and Harriet Chapel. The free festival will commemorate the state as a center for the craft of ironmaking and feature traditional blacksmithing, period music, food trucks, feats of strength, an artisan and makers market, garden and trail tours, artisan demonstrations, children’s activities, fascinating archaeology talks about the amazing discoveries at Catoctin Furnace, and more.
Visitors can also walk the Catoctin Furnace African American Cemetery Interpretive Trail. read the wayside panels and visit the Museum of the Ironworker.
During the Maryland Iron Festival, Catoctin Furnace Road will be closed at 9:00 AM each morning from Blacks Mill road on the south and Kellys store road on the north.
Festival goers must park at the Manor Area Campground 6709 Cunningham Falls Park Road Thurmont, MD 21788 (rangers will direct you to the parking in the lots). We have a festival shuttle service from the Cunningham Falls parking lot beginning at 9:30 AM each day ending at 7:30 PM on Saturday, and at 4:30 PM on Sunday.
If you would like to walk to the festival from the Cunningham Falls parking lot, please be advised that the trail is not ADA accessible and requires climbing up and down steep stairs.
The walk takes around fifteen to twenty minutes.
Once you get off the shuttle please proceed to the information desk to pick up a map and sign in.