Despite sizable deposits of ore, the McIntyre Iron Works struggled to be productive, as it was so remote, and its ore was transported long distances over primitive roads to Lake Champlain. Though energy from the river diversions of the 1840s and 1850s made more effective blast furnaces to forge the ore on site, the McIntyre Iron Works operation ceased in 1857, leaving impressive ruins of its 1854 blast furnace in the woods.