Etelka is the iron heart of Gemer. The blast furnace was built in 1867 by Count Emanuel Andrássy, who named it after his mother. Thanks to the steelworks, iron production was re-established in the 1860s. In times of greatest boom, Etelka was a large and prosperous enterprise. To date, a dense blast furnace building has been preserved.

Etelka Smelting Plant is one of the most beautiful furnaces in Slovakia. The Etelka blast furnace had a height of 11 meters, a volume of 60 m3, a pillar structure and an open chest. The plant worked actively until 1907. Some efforts to use the building were made in 1910, when the mill was converted into a wet gravity treatment plant for ore, but it did not work.

Today it is a technical monument, which, however, gradually fell into the hands of private owners. In particular, the non-profit organization Barbora, which plans to reconstruct it in cooperation with the Association of Mining Societies and Guilds of Slovakia, is taking steps to restore it.