This plant, along with Granite City and Great Lakes Steel, were National Steel until USS bought National Steel in 2003.
Friends of Indiana Dunes, Inc. posted ten images with the comment:
WAY BACK WEDNESDAY: (Steel Mills Part 4) Although not an integrated mill, Portage’s Midwest Steel once had plans to be a fully integrated mill with a steel city attached. The economy and the decline in American-made steel put an end to those plans. Twice.In 1929, National Steel began buying land around Burns Ditch with plans to build a new mill in the dunes. Samuel Insull’s company was tasked with finding and purchasing the land for National Steel, including land owned by Consumers Co. for sand mining.In January 1930, the company announced that within the next three years, they would build a new mill costing upwards of $50,000,000 as well as a town and harbor. The new town would be called Port Williams, after the president of National Steel. The Vidette-Messenger reported that the company envisioned using Burns Ditch as a “natural harbor,” but other evidence shows that the company planned to build a harbor to the east.At the time, the steel industry in the Region was booming. Construction in the Midwest was high. There were signs of recovery in the stock market, and the Gary Works was running at 90%. The Great Depression had not yet made its impact on Region steel.In June 1930, the company announced the creation of a new subsidiary, Midwest Steel. The entire project was expected to be completed by the end of 1933 and would require moving the Indiana Harbor Belt Line tracks that ran through the property.These plans did not last very long. Within a year, the economy was collapsing. The plans for Midwest Steel were put on hold.The New Deal gave some hope for American industry. One public works project was the plan to develop a port in Northwest Indiana. National Steel committed to building a mill if the port was approved, but there was a back-and-forth regarding federal approval for the port.In May 1936, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers rejected the port proposal saying that the benefits did not outweigh the $3 million cost. Throughout the latter ½ of the 1930s, the Army Corps of Engineers would conduct multiple assessments of the value in a port. Some politicians got involved too, saying that the port would benefit one single company, National Steel. Therefore, the use of public funds was not appropriate.Throughout the 1940s, although industry had a lot of work to do, there was no focus on building new mills. But in the 1950s, with the expansion of housing, auto industry, roadways, and the economy, steel was once again in demand.With a strong economy and steel in demand, National Steel took up the project again, this time without plans for a city and with the intent of having public funds pay for a port. Construction began in 1959. As with many industrial areas, the construction of the mill resulted in the organization of a town. Portage incorporated as a town in 1959 and would incorporate as a city when Bethlehem Steel arrived (see next week’s post). Operations at the $103 million mill began in 1961.In 1974, the company announced plans to build an integrated mill at Midwest Steel. The plant would cost $1 billion and employ another 2,300 people. It was a big announcement in a big steel industry. Unfortunately, an economic recession in 1975 and the increase in foreign steel delayed the plans and then put them on hold indefinitely.A huge Thank You to Serena Ard, Curator/Historian – Westchester Township History Museum for her authorship of this week’s Way Back Wednesday and we look forward to next week’s final post in this series.Please check out the new “Steel: The Region’s Legacy Industry” exhibit on display through the end of the year at Westchester Township History Museum (https://www.facebook.com/WestchesterPublicLibrary) located at 700 West Porter Avenue in Chesterton.
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| Mark Wolfe posted National Steel Midwest Div. , now USS. Michael Matisko: Brian Gill is it still running on the M-G sets in the background, or has it been upgraded with solid-state motor drives? (Ex-Alcoa EE here; motor-generator sets look like nothing else). Mark Wolfe: Michael Matisko sets. Michael Matisko: Mark Wolfe Cool! Wonder who has the expertise to maintain them these days. At Alcoa Warrick we had a 44" 5-stand Blaw-Knox cold mill that had a 12400 hp 15kV synchronous motor driving the generators for the mill stands, but we idled it in the late 1980s. Noel Tengdin: 52 was awesome the 80" on the other hand.....lol. Mark Wolfe: Noel Tengdin big difference. Mesta/ United. |
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| David McGowan posted The Temper Mill, Midwest Steel, Portage Indiana, c. 1970. The man in the middle of the photo is George Kevich, Boss Roller and our neighbor. My dad was one of the foremen. Two doors down from our house was another foreman, Dutch Schuster. Steel would race through the rollers at 60 mph to stretch the crystals in order to temper it. Sometimes the rolls would explode under the pressure. As a kid, I thought my dad worked in the Temper Mill because he had a temper. I worked in the Batch Anneal next to the Temper Mill. Batch Anneal was like a bakery. We put the coils into ovens for several hours then sent them to the Temper Mill. It was a sleepy department compared to the Temper Mill. A vivid memory for me was standing with Ed Marciniak as he calmly smoked his pipe and we watched the furious activity of the Temper Mill. Dale Wolak: Still there, hardly ever runs. Art Wright: Hello Dale, when USS bought Midwest they shipped the orders to Gary. They keep the STM to run when the Gary line is on an outage or behind on orders. |
Allen Sydow posted two photos with the comment: "USS Midwest plant."
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From their web site:
The Midwest Plant, a finishing facility that operates as part of Gary Works, is situated about 10 miles east of Gary in Portage, Indiana. Principal products include tin mill products and hot-dip galvanized, cold-rolled and electrical lamination steels that are used by customers in the automotive, construction, container and electrical markets.
United States Steel Corporation
Gary Works Midwest Plant
U.S. Highway 12
Portage, IN 46368
(219) 762-3131
PRODUCTION FACILITIES
- 80" Pickle line
- 52" and 80" 5-Stand Tandem Cold reduction mills
- Electrolytic cleaning line
- Batch annealing facilities
- 43" Continuous annealing line
- 54" and 80" Temper mills
- 54" Double cold reduction mill
- 48" and 72" Hot-dip galvanizing lines
- 42" Electrolytic tinning line
- 38" Tin-free steel line
I presume this National plant was the same one.
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| Earl Horecky posted Former National Steel Midwest plant Portage, Indiana (now USS) #3 galvanize startup April 1998. This was one of the first all AC driven process lines in USA. Left to right: John Vogt (ret) Rick Jaeger USS Gary Tin George Munoz whereabouts unknown Mary Ellen Jefferson (ret) The late Wayne Schuetz Writer (ret) |
Note how dirty their discharge into the lake is compared with Burns Harbor to the east.
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The day I posted these notes, I came across the following.
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| Timeless Aerial Photography, LLC. posted Update Sept 27 2021 4pm On Indiana Dunes National Park shutting down its beaches and a northwest Indiana water utility shut down an intake facility after an orange substance apparently spilled from a U.S. Steel plant into a Lake Michigan. This is just an update from yesterday the orange cloud is gone now. Full 4K Video: https://youtu.be/jESwdci2CDU Drone - https://amzn.to/2G5iBGl Russell Hedgepeth: They just got fined a month ago for a million for a leak in 2017. And had six or seven spills since then. I for one I'm tired of big corporations having control of our lake fronts....These are only ones that are known. No telling what else these mills are putting in there.Susan Urena: Russell Hedgepeth our water intake is there and they always wait a few hours/days to alert the water company. Plus the treatment doesn’t remove metals etc. only biological crap. Ed Stojancevich: Getting ridiculous. Imagine all of the [stuff] we DON'T know about. Thomas Labus: Matt Vdhd yup. And I'm sure it is less than it would cost to properly dispose of it, so they intentionally chose this way instead. $600k is nothing to them. Scott Duszynski: WGN Morning News reported this morning that this is the 25th spill from the mills since 2018 and they've been fined every time. Apparently that isn't working out too well. Norah SCylla: Likely hex chromium out of the tin division...again!! Tyler Grzesik: Was there yesterday it was bright orange. Gal Logan: Where's the booms Andy Saboski shared Laurence Cox USS/Midwest Plant recently had to pony up $1.2MM for a discharge of hexavalent chromium. https://www.nbcchicago.com/.../us-steel-halts.../2623127/ [They need to put the plant manager and a USS vice president in jail for 5-10 years.] |
Two photos by Danny Lunn that shows the discharge orange.
Kevin Studley: An orange color suggests a possible leak of hexavalent chromium -- a highly toxic carcinogen, and one of the more toxic chemicals used in the steel mills.
I know. I used to work around hexavalent chromium and one or more foreman sought to fire me for complaining about mishandling this chemical. I stood my ground. They lost, we won -- but apparently those lessons have been forgotten. There was another hexavalent chromium spill about 4 years ago.
Somebody stand up and prove I did not risk my job for nothing -- that clean drinking water still matters.
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| One of five photos posted by Mike Lorber Portage IND: Lake Michigan beaches nearby are closed due to a large chemical discharge into the water by US Steel Plant #NBCSky5 @nbcchicago Kyle Duke shared |
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| John Bogordos posted National Steel (Midwest ) construction. |
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