Horno3, Museo del Acero

We visited a great museum in Monterrey, the Museum of Steel. It is built in and around an old blast furnace, named Horno Alto #3. It had lots of hands-on exhibits for the kids, a ride up the old rock loading conveyer, and a movie/fire/lights show right at the furnace. I think the furnace functionned for about 80 years, it closed in 1986, and was transformed into a museum several years ago. Monterrey is a very industrial city, and it was cool to get a taste of the pride the people have in that heritage.

This is the furnace that the museum is built around. This theater shows a movie that explains how the steel is made--they filled the furnace with rock rich in iron ore, heated it with coal fires, drilled a hole at the bottom to let out the heavy iron, then sealed the hole up again--and different parts light up to show the process. The movie also has footage of past workers sharing their feelings about working there. After the movie and the demonstration, there is a crazy fire and lights show to music. Unexpected and cool. After the show, we walked around inside the furnace too.
We all had fun playing with the exhibits...







This is the ride up to the top of the refinery. We were locked up in a cage and pulled(backwards)up the old track to the top. This is the track that would carry the rock up to dump into the furnace.


This is the top of the furnace where the rock would have been dumped in...we are outside on top of the same furnace where we watched the movie and fire/lights show.

The views from the top of the factory were great in every direction. You might recognize Chipinque(the "W" mountain). We live over the hill from this part of Monterrey.


We can see this factory whenever we are driving around Monterrey, so it was great to finally go inside and see it!