Encyclopedia of Cleveland History: IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRYIRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY. Location has been Cleveland's potent metallurgical advantage since the mid- 1. Lake Erie at the convergence of numerous railroad lines made it an ideal meeting place for iron ore and coal. In 1. 85. 8 an article in the CLEVELAND LEADER claimed that Cleveland enjoyed advantages even greater than Pittsburgh for the manufacture of iron: . Would it not be wise to start blast furnaces in Cleveland? Twenty years later, the primary iron and steel industry in Cleveland employed almost 3,0. By 1. 90. 0 that number had more than doubled; Cuyahoga County, which produced 9. Allegheny County, PA, Cook County, IL, Mahoning County, OH, and Jefferson County, AL) in iron and steel production. The industry's foothold in Cleveland was assured with the discovery in 1. Lake Superior region of Michigan. Because the Lake Superior ore districts were geographically isolated, without coal or major markets nearby, iron ore could not be smelted to pig or bar iron and sold at a profit. The only profitable way to exploit the ore was to transport it in bulk to distant blast furnaces on the lower Great Lakes- -to places like Cleveland, Chicago, and Ashtabula, OH. The opening of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal in 1. Lake Superior region is carried by rail to the shipping ports, then by ship to lower lake ports, where it is rehandled into railroad cars for the trip to the blast furnace. Clevelander SAMUEL LIVINGSTON MATHER. Mather was the driving force behind the Cleveland Iron Mining Co., one of the most important early mining companies on the Marquette Range and one of two . Cleveland- Cliffs was the leading iron mining company on the Marquette Range when it was incorporated in 1. Mather, together with other Cleveland industrialists at the helm of such companies as M. The CUYAHOGA STEAM FURNACE CO., incorporated in 1. JOSIAH BARBER. Ford established the Lake Erie Iron Works in Ohio City to forge axles for railroad cars and locomotives, and heavy shafts for steamboats. In 1. 85. 3- 5. 4 the Forest City Iron Works erected a rolling mill on the lakeshore at Wason (East 3. St., producing the first . That year, the Railroad Iron Mill Co., established by Albert J.
Throughout the centuries we have built our structures against the elements - wind, rain, sun, and snow - but there is one element we have always taken for granted: the earth. The earth is what we anchor our structures to, but. Since the 1960s, electric arc. Construct A Iron & Steel Timeline. Birmingham Iron and Steel Companies. David Lewis, Auburn University. Colonel Sloss, hoping to lure outside investment to Birmingham's steel industry, sold his interest in the firm for $2 million to investors. Smith in partnership with others, erected a plant in the same location to reroll worn rails. HENRY CHISHOLM. Chisholm, with JOHN AND DAVID JONES. Two years later, taking advantage of new transportation routes, including the Sault Ste. Marie Canal and the Cleveland & Pittsburgh Railroad, the firm invested in a blast furnace, feeding it with Lake Superior iron ore and coal from the Mahoning Valley (later Connellsville coke). Following an infusion of capital from Andros B. Stone, the enterprise expanded rapidly, reorganizing as the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. In 1. 86. 8 the company installed a pair of Bessemer converters, the first such installation west of the Alleghenies and only the third successful one in the nation. Cleveland Rolling Mill became a major integrated producer of pig iron, Bessemer steel, and steel products, employing a work force of more than 8,0. Another important 1. Cleveland steelmaker was CHARLES AUGUSTUS OTIS. Otis, who studied steelmaking in Europe, organized the Otis Iron & Steel Co. Wellman to oversee construction and serve as chief engineer and superintendent of its Lakeside Works on the lakefront at Lawrence (East 3. St. Wellman installed the first commercially successful basic open- hearth furnace in the U. S. Representing a combined capital investment of $2. In addition to 1. By 1. 88. 0 the annual output of the Superior mines had risen to almost 2 million gross tons. Cleveland's strategic position as both a final destination and a transshipment point for iron ore underscored a vexing problem- -how to unload it efficiently- -that was solved by two Cleveland inventors. Until 1. 86. 7 ore was unloaded entirely by hand labor. Between 1. 86. 7 and 1. The Hulett unloader (see HULETT ORE UNLOADERS), consisting of a large- capacity grab bucket suspended from a stiff vertical leg mounted on a walking beam, did away with hand shoveling entirely. It drastically reduced labor costs and unloading times, and led to larger boats especially designed to accommodate the Huletts. By 1. 91. 3 Hulett unloaders dotted Cleveland's river and lakefront and could be found at almost every port on the lower Great Lakes. Signaling the growing dominance of large firms, in 1. Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. Steel substantially augmented its Cleveland facilities in 1. OHIO AND ERIE CANAL south of Harvard Ave. Galvanizing and barbed fence departments were added later, and by 1. Cuyahoga Works was one of the largest wire mills in the country and boasted the world's largest cold- rolling plant. Two new plants established in the early 2. In 1. 90. 9 ore merchant Dalliba, Corrigan & Co. Between 1. 91. 3 and 1. Corrigan, Mc. Kinney built 2 additional furnaces and a steel works for the production of blooms, sheet bars, and billets. The problem of industrywide , integration led the company to add merchant mills for the production of finished steel products in 1. In 1. 93. 5, under the aggressive leadership of chairman TOM M. Republic continuously enlarged the plant, making it the largest of the company's 6 basic steelmaking plants and one of the 1. Otis, meanwhile, greatly expanded its capacity with the construction in 1. Riverside Works on the west bank of the Cuyahoga River. In 1. 94. 2 the Jones & Laughlin Steel Co. J& L invested heavily during the next 2 decades, adding a new blast furnace (. In the 1. 88. 0s the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. In 1. 93. 7 Republic's irascible Tom Girdler proclaimed that he would shut down the company's mills and . The bloody LITTLE STEEL STRIKE that year left 1. Republic plants in Chicago and Youngstown. Not until 1. 94. 2, at the order of the War Labor Board, was the CIO successful in organizing Republic workers. Thanks to pent- up consumer demand, the industry enjoyed a long period of postwar prosperity. But by the early 1. Cleveland's steelmakers, like those nationwide, grappled with the problems of inflation, record imports of foreign steel, increasingly stringent environmental regulations, lagging productivity, and rising labor costs. Steel abandoned its historic Central Furnaces plant, established by the Cleveland Rolling Mill Co. Five years later, the steel giant closed 6 plants, including its Cuyahoga Works in Cuyahoga Heights, after the United Steelworkers of America rejected concessions demanded by the company. The city's two remaining integrated producers, Republic and Jones & Laughlin (the latter a subsidiary of LTV following a 1. In June 1. 98. 4 Jones & Laughlin merged with Republic to form the LTV STEEL, with headquarters in Cleveland. Two years later, LTV had run up losses totaling nearly $1 billion, forcing it to file for reorganization under Chapter 1. Federal Bankruptcy Code. With increased demand for its products, especially flat- rolled steel supplied to the automotive, appliance, and electrical equipment industries, LTV rebounded. Since 1. 98. 4 the company has made more than $1. Cleveland Works. The centerpiece of its modernization efforts is a direct hot- charge complex, completed in 1. LTV to convert molten steel to a coil of hot- rolled steel in a continuous process. In 1. 99. 4, with 2 integrated steel mills (at Cleveland and Indiana Harbor, IN), Cleveland's only remaining integrated producer ranked as the nation's 3rd- largest steelmaker and 2nd- largest producer of flat- rolled steel. Working at 9. 9% capacity, the Cleveland Works in 1. With 7,1. 00 full- time employees, LTV was Cuyahoga County's 2nd- largest nongovernmental employer. Exemplifying the massive changes that have swept the industry in recent years, M. Hanna, an old- line mineral resources company whose history is rooted in iron mining, has transformed itself into a company focused on rubber and plastics. In 1. 98. 6, meanwhile, a new steel fabricating company bought the former Cuyahoga Works of U. S. Steel, along with rights to the historic . A unit of Birmingham Steel Corporation of Birmingham, Alabama, since 1. American Steel & Wire makes rod and wire for sale to the fastener industry. The iron and steel industry continues to be an economic mainstay of Greater Cleveland. In 1. 99. 2, the primary metal industries in Cuyahoga County employed 1. Carol Poh Miller. Paskoff, Paul F., ed., Iron and Steel in the Nineteenth Century, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File, 1. Pendry, William R. Mimeographed. Seely, Bruce E., ed., Iron and Steel in the Twentieth Century, Encyclopedia of American Business History and Biography. New York: Facts on File, 1.
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