The first lime kiln in Eagle Rock began operation in 1847. Limestone is loaded into the top of the kiln and heated to 2200 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce the limestone to powdered lime. Lime was used in agriculture, in whitewash and masonry mortar and in iron furnaces where the lime bonded with impurities in the ore to form slag, which could be separated from the iron. The limestone was quarried nearby and transported to the kilns by a system of cables over the James River until 1880, when a bridge was built across the river. The kilns in Eagle Rock ceased operation in 1954.
Eagle Rock is included in the book Lost Communities of Virginia by Terri Fisher and Kirsten Sparenborg. (Virginia Tech, 2011).
Must have been sight--those pieces of limestone winging their way across the James.
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