Iron plantations were rural localities emergent in the late-18th century and predominant in the early-19th century that specialized in the production of pig iron and bar iron from crude iron ore.   
Such plantations derive their name from two sources. First, because they were nearly self-sufficient communities despite an almost singular focus on the production of iron to be sold on the market, and second, because of the large swaths of forest and land necessary to provide charcoal fuel and ore for their operations. 
The first plantations stretched across the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern United States, "the chief charcoal iron producing states [being] Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky."  Many produced raw materials used in the American Revolution or to be exported to England.  
For the rest of the 19th century, however, only locations that adopted new technologies first introduced by competing coal- and coke-powered smelters in the rapidly industrializing field persisted.