IRONTON — Officials with the Furnace Festival at Lake Vesuvius announced this week that the annual event celebrating the pig iron industry would not be rescheduled after being washed out last weekend.

Bob Culp, chemistry instructor at Ohio University Southern, said organizers for the annual event would begin planning for 2010 and would not reschedule the 2009 event, now in its fourth year.

The festival had been scheduled for Sept. 25-26 at Lake Vesuvius, but saw its entire Saturday event schedule wiped out following hard, steady rains that brought nearly two inches of precipitation to Lawrence County during a 36-hour period.

Each year the event features a different pig iron furnace and spotlights its history along with presentations and reenactments at the OUS Nature Center.

For 2009, the Lagrange Furnace was to be featured.