The increase of steel making and decreasing demand for cast iron after the Civil War caused it to become bankrupt gradually and cease operations during the early 20th Century.

[3] Cold Spring was an ideal site: timber for charcoal was abundant, there were many local iron mines, and the nearby Margaret's Brook provided water power to drive machinery.

[3] Artillery was tested by shooting across the Hudson at the desolate slopes of Storm King Mountain (which would later have to be swept for unexploded ordnance as a result after some of it exploded during a 1999 fire).

[5] Besides artillery, the foundry also produced iron fittings for civilian uses, such as pipe for the New York City water system and sugar mills for shipment to the West Indies.

[3] In 1835, Captain Robert Parker Parrott, an 1824-graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, was appointed as an inspector of ordnance at the foundry for the U.S. Army.