Étueffont Forge Museum

Étueffont is a small village on the River Lamadeleine near Belfort in France-Comté within the Ballon des Vosges Regional Natural Park. The museum commemorate the Petitjean family, four generations of whom worked as artisan blacksmiths in the village. Like craftsmen in many parts of Europe they combined farming with working iron.

Visitors to the museum see first a film entitled Camille le Forgeron (Camille the blacksmith) which shows the techniques used in a forge and something of the way of life of a blacksmith. They then visit the forge where the bellows blow the hearth into life, and where smiths still work metal on anvils with hammers. After the smithy they pass to the family home and the farmstead with all its implements. In the nineteenth century the Petitjean family made edge tools as well as shoeing horses and repairing agricultural implements. The museum holds collections of tools, especially hammers, and of anvils of different sizes for various purposes. There are also displays illustrating the work of other village craftsmen.