Photograph ca. 1890. "The foundry floor at the Portland Company, shown here, was a busy place where all the iron and steel castings were poured. Note the furnace in the floor in the right foreground, where the raw metal was melted in crucibles before the molten metal was poured into the molds. Many sand casting flasks are piled around the foundry area. These flasks are where the patterns are imbedded in the casting sand. They are then removed, and molten metal is poured in to make the raw castings." - Fletcher, David H. 'The Portland Company 1846-1982. Charleston, S.C. : Arcadia Pub., 2002. 14.