century Most of the early settlers were subsistence farmers who relied heavily upon hunting to supplement their tables. Grist mills and saw mills were among the first local industries, but the production of iron soon became the biggest industry for the area. By 1810, Lincoln County boasted six ironmaking operations, including Vesuvius, Mt. Welcome, Mount Tirzah, Mount Carmel, High Shoals, and Madison. A number of individuals and partners took the lead in establishing ironworks in eastern Lincoln County, most just to the west of present-day Denver, near Pumpkin Center and in the direction of Iron Station. The partnership of Peter Forney, Joseph Graham, John Davidson, and Alexander Brevard was responsible for the construction of Vesuvius Furnace in 1795. Peter Forney built Madison Iron Furnace along Leeper's Creek in 1809. These two sites, like other local ironworks, changed hands at various points. Other individuals involved in the development of the iron industry in Lincoln County include Turner Abernethy, John Fulenwider, Dr. William Johnston, Jonas W. Derr, and J.F. Reinhardt. James Madison Smith later erected Stonewall Furnace in 1862 to help meet the demand for iron brought on by the Civil War. Operations at Rehoboth (begun in the 1820s) and Madison furnaces also resumed during the turbulent years from 1862 to 1865 to supply much-needed iron for the Southern war effort. Dry Pond There was a Dry Pond Post Office beginning right before the Civil War, although it moved across the line to Catawba County near what is now Kiestler's Store Road in December 1868. In 1873, in an attempt to attract a railroad spur and thinking that the moniker "Dry Pond" didn't present a nice enough image for the railroad planners, headmaster of the local Rock Springs Academy, D. Matt Thompson, led the effort to have Dry Pond renamed for the capital of Colorado, which was just then petitioning for statehood. In the years before the Civil War, North Carolina's wealthy class in need of a break from the summer heat, could escape to Lincoln County's Catawba Springs resort. The popular antebellum destination, named for the Catawba people formerly living in the area, was built amidst seven mineral springs near Denver. Guests vacationed there as early as the 1790s. In 1824, geology professor Denison Olmstead recommended the waters of the springs for complaints concerning the liver and weakness. There is little evidence that healing actually occurred; nonetheless Catawba Springs became a