DAPHNE — A business is letting patrons live out their fantasies of a practice that dates back thousands of years through human history.

Jerry Gardner, owner and founder of The Blacksmith Experience, comes from a military and construction management background. He has lived in Daphne for the past 17 years. Gardner recalled he was walking the streets of Oil City, Pennsylvania, where he lived at the time, and saw blacksmiths participating in what's called a "hammer in," where they gather to hammer on steel all day.

"I was so enamored with it," Gardner said. "I decided, like, 'Man, I got to figure out how to do this.'"

That interest led to a couple of blacksmithing lessons, an apprenticeship and eventually a small fabrication shop he ran from 2003 to 2008 where he said he made "every bad business decision under the sun" before returning to construction management.

Despite these hurdles, blacksmithing remained a passion. Around 2017, the idea of teaching blacksmithing lessons really started to come together.

"I just had always thought it'd be really cool just to teach," Gardner said. "We had just bought a house that had a really large shop, so I had the space to do it. I just didn't have the time to do it because I was traveling a lot. I was on the road a lot, and then eventually that settled down. It's just something in me that I always wanted to pass along, and so I started doing lessons and it kept growing and growing and growing from there."

The Blacksmith Experience is in a workshop at 25421 Highway 181 in Daphne. Gardner gives patrons a hands-on teaching experience in crafting things like knives and axes.

The most popular classes, or experiences as they are called, usually last around four hours. However, Gardner also offers more advanced experiences that include forging railroad spikes, hooks, nails and tools, along with more intricate knife and axe forging classes that teach guests the entire process from start to finish. According to Gardner, these can take between six hours to several days, depending on the experience.

He also offers Knife Date Night, in which couples can learn everything about knife crafting, which also comes with a dinner for two.

Alongside his blacksmith classes, Gardner also runs Forging a Difference, a nonprofit offering a blacksmithing outlet for veterans, law enforcement officers and first responders.

Gardner said The Blacksmith Experience holds between 300 to 400 classes a year. He said one of the best parts is seeing family and friends connect through blacksmithing.

"It's where you get an opportunity to see fathers and sons connect outside of playing video games or something," he said. "It's just such a cool thing to offer people, and then just kind of see how those people come back for follow up classes."

Visit www.theblacksmithexperience.com for more information and to book a class.