AK Steel/Armco Works

(AK Steel web site)
When I saw a huge steel works in Middletown, OH, that was not near a river or a lake, I dug into the history to learn why it would be built where it could not use modern water transportation for the raw materials such as iron ore and possibly coal. (I added the adjective "modern" because the land was on the Miami and Erie Canal.)

George M. Verity owned the American Steel Roofing Company in Cincinnati that made the steel sheets used to build roofs. To solve his supply problem for rolled steel, he formed the American Rolling Mill Co. in 1899. The community of Middletown offered money and land to Verity to build his new rolled steel plant in Middletown in 1900 [video].

Verity soon quit the roofing product business and concentrated on meeting customer demand for rolled steel created by automobile and appliance manufactures. In addition to expanding the facilities in Middletown in 1911, he bought plants in Zanesville, OH  and  Ashland, KY and merged with Columbus Iron and Steel, which supplied a large amount of pig iron. They also expanded their product line to include stainless steel and a variety of galvanized steel products (thus the metalZinc label).

The following showed how steel was rolled into sheets until the 1924 perfection of continuous roll stands and coiling.

Inside Middletown Armco factory, photo from "Armco in Pictures and Fact," published by the American Rolling Mill Co., 1921, from armcosteel-home

Each stand rolled a slab down to a sheet by passing the steel back and forth by reversing the rotation of the rollers. For each pass, the rolls would be screwed closer together to reduce the thickness of the steel.

In 1904, John B. Tytus applied for a job with the American Rolling Mill Co., hoping to work in a steel plant to understand the mechanics of industry. Verity gave him the difficult job as a spare hand, dragging heavy steel sheets to the shears. “When I first visited the steel mill,” he was recorded saying, “I counted sheets being handled 22 different times. Right then and there I figured that a business, which had so much lost motion, had plenty of future for a young man.”
Tytus began studying the flat metal rolling process, analyzing various blueprints, including a process developed by Leonardo Da Vinci. In 1919, he presented his first continuous rolling mill blueprints to Verity, and Verity subsequently appointed a committee to consider the installation of Tytus’s new mill.
About $10 million dollars was needed to invest in the new machine – an amount that could destroy the company if the idea failed. Still, when Armco acquired a plant in Ashland, Verity took the opportunity to attempt to build Tytus’s continuous rolling mill.
“In all, 14 stands of rolls were envisioned in a straight line, which would reduce red-hot five inch thick slabs into thin steel sheets. Five factors controlling process were essential: temperature of rolls, composition and springiness of rolls, the screw pressure applied to roll necks; and the shape, composition and temperature of the piece.”
In 1924, after years of fixing problems and struggling with the machine, it was in full operation. In the first full month of operation, the continuous rolling mill produced 9,000 tons of sheet steel. Three years later it was producing 40,000 (the original steel mills only produced 130-135 tons a week).
All other major steel companies quickly adopted the invention and between 1927 and 1940, 26 continuous rolling mills were built.
Source:George C. Crout and Wilfred D. Vorhis, “John Butler Tytus: Inventor of the Continuous Steel Mill,” p. 132-145. From Ohio History V. 76. Copyring 1967 by Cincinnati Historical Society. [armcosteel-home]

In 1989, Armco entered into a limited partnership with the Kawasaki Steel Corporation of Japan. That is why the name became AK Steel in 1994 during another reorganization using the first letter of each former company. The company had over a $1 billion of revenue, but it had very little profit because of high operating expenses. So it persuaded Tom Graham to come out of retirement at age 65 to lead the redirection efforts. Erlier Armco had participated in the diversification fad that caused companies to acquire other companies that had little or nothing to do with their core business. So the first thing Graham did was divest more than ten of the company's subsidiaries and operating divisions. Another change was the replacement of 75 of the company's top executives and managers! Then he worked on improving its operations and service. [encyclopedia]

Just as Verity risked the company's survival by investing $10 million on Tytus' design of a continuous roll mill, Graham risked the company by investing $1.1 billion on a greenfield, start of the art steel production facility in Rockport, IN. Graham insisted that the increased efficiency and lower energy consumption would lower their operating costs. And it would produce 80-inch rolls instead of the then maximum 72-inch rolls. [encyclopedia] The new plant focused on cold-rolled steel, and its efficiency helped the company survive the price crash of hot-rolled steel caused by a global oversupply. (That is, China dumping steel on America because its economy went into a slump.)  [I can't find where I read this :-(] 80-inch rolls has become the industries standard for the maximum width.

Safety

Every web page for one of their locations that I checked (e.g. Rockport, IN) makes a big deal about safety:

Safety First and First in Safety

Our safety programs are the most comprehensive in the steel industry. In fact, AK Steel leads the industry in safety.

This is because they had some serious safety issues that they finally addressed. (Too bad British Petroleum still refuses to address its safety issues.)

The company had one of the worst safety records in the U.S. industry in 1996 with ten fatalities since 1993 and nearly $2 million in fines paid out to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
By 1998, however, management was able to turn the safety issues around by focusing on eliminating workplace injuries, revamping its safety and health programs, and getting employees as well as contractors involved in safety awareness. Its positive safety performance was rated by OSHA and the American Iron and Steel Institute, and the company claimed that it had the best performance out of the eight largest integrated steel firms in the United States. [encyclopedia]

Pollution 

AK Steel was listed #1 on the Mother Jones Top 20 polluters of 2010; dumping over 12,000 tons of toxic chemicals into Ohio waterways. 

In early 2015, the EPA listed the Ohio River as the most contaminated body of water in the U.S. According to the EPA's Annual Toxics Release Inventory, of the 23 million pounds of chemicals discharged into the river in 2013, more than 70 percent came from AK Steel. [Wikipedia]

Considering how polluted the Chicago river is, the Ohio River being worse is a rather scary thought. The Tribune had built their new printing plant by the river so that they could continue to receive rolls of newsprint from big boats. But they were told the river could not be dredged down to the needed draft because it would stir up the pollutants in the river's bottom. I wonder if this pollution issue is why they shut down the blast furnace at Ashland, KY in 2015.

LS&BC: LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Overview

LaSalle County Historical Society Museum posted

I include the posted text because I'm not confident the link in the caption is permanent.

~The LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company~
"The LS&BC served mines in the LaSalle area of northern Illinois"
"The LaSalle and Bureau County Railroad Company operated 15 miles of track in north central Illinois. The "Bee" (as it was called locally) was founded in 1892 (The LS&BC was incorporated in 1892 in the state of Illinois and opened for service in October 1893. )to provide a connection for the zinc mines of LaSalle, IL to the neighboring railroads.
In LaSalle, the LS&BC connected with the Illinois Central's "Gruber Line" at Midway. The line then went west to a wye (called Hegeler), where it connected with the Streator-Zearing branch of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, along with the DeKalb-Spring Valley branch of the Chicago and North Western. The LS&BC then had to complete a "flatland switchback" in order to gain access to the New York Central's Illinois Division track (at Churchill), which provided the LS&BC with access to Ladd, IL.
After the Rock Island folded in the early 1980s, the LS&BC took over some of the switching operations on the south side of Chicago. The LS&BC also operated some former Milwaukee Road trackage around Mendota after Milwaukee's retrenchment, but that service was eventually taken over by the Burlington Northern.
Operations at LaSalle lasted until 1986, at which time the ICG abandoned the Gruber Line, stranding the LS&BC. The last day of operation was March 25, 1986.
Besides having a purple Baldwin switcher, the LS&BC was also famous for being involved in a boxcar theft scandal from the Penn Central Railroad in the early 1970s. Apparently, the LS&BC purchased some boxcars from the Penn Central to refurbish and put into service to earn "per diem" charges. The PC delivered the boxcars, but more and more boxcars kept showing up until the LS&BC was literally plugged with them. The PC accused the LS&BC of stealing them, but the LS&BC wondered how they could steal things that were given to them. A series of articles in THE NEW YORK TIMES from March 19, March 20, and June 17, 1971, state that the boxcars were purchased by an outside company and the LS&BC was contracted to repair the boxcars.
A somewhat different explanation is told in The Wreck of the Penn Central by Joseph Daughen. The book indicates that the PC had such bad records and control of its own equipment that they (Penn Central) had no idea where their rolling stock was at."
http://www.trainweb.org/lsbc/

The "trainweb" link indicates that after the ICG isolated the western operations, the south Chicago operations became the Chicago Rail Link.

Of particular interest to me is that the LS&BC served zinc mines. There were also coal mines in the area, but evidently the Class I railroads served those mines. I was curious where Illinois Zinc and Maze Nails got their zinc.

David Hahn posted
Map credit to the trainweb.org site.

This railroad is not on the 1928 RR Atlas. That does not surprise me because the scale of those maps is one state per page. It is on the SPV Map, just not labeled. Google Maps doesn't have a "Midway, IL" and Bing maps shows it is south of Danville, IL. Then it occurred to me to check TrainWeb for a map. It turns out, Midway is around where I-80 crosses Raccuglia Drive and the LS&BC curves away from the IC. The land scars of both railroads are still quite evident on satellite images.

Since LS&BC had a connection to IR/CB&Q, they could have stayed in business after the IC abandonment. But like many railroads in the 1980s, the LS&BC probably wanted any excuse to abandon their operations. It appears a remnant east of the IR/CB&Q was retained to allow IR to serve a relatively new industrial park north of I-80.

Satellite

I wonder if this land scar is the "Matthiessen-Hegeler Zinc Mill (Carus Chemical)" facility indicated on the above referenced map. I suspect that the "white line" on the right is the old IC RoW and the tree line on the left is the old LS&BC RoW.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

I believe this old aerial photo confirms my analysis of the satellite image.

Update:

Steven J. Brown shared
LaSalle & Bureau County GP7 100 (built 1953 as UP 700 to UP 100 to Texas North Western 100, became Kiamichi 701 then Transglobal 701) northbound on the former Rock Island main at 95th Street in Chicago, Illinois - March 1982.
Michael Riha Looks like the ex-Rock Island main north of Blue Island. LS&BC took over that stretch after shutdown and soon renamed themselves Chicago RailLink.
[It will probably turn East at 91st. The LS&BC went to the CRL/LSBC/RI Port Yard].

Steven J. Brown posted
Paul F Bishop "Let's Steal Box Cars". Lol

Steven J. Brown shared
Rick Powell There was an investigation but none of the LSBC employees were charged in the LSBC-Penn Central case. From what I read elsewhere, the deal was with a broker who was supposed to rehab 150 cars and the PC kept on sending them where he wound up with over 300. They were stenciled LSBC and earned demurrage for the broker, who supposedly provided a cut to the LSBC. There was a thread in Train Orders about it that had some detail.
Rick Powell After the Rock Island bankruptcy, the LSBC started serving some of the industries in Blue Island/southwest Chicago area along the RI. The EJ&E served everything from Joliet to Bureau for a short time until CSX leased the line. Apparently, a few months of operation didn’t enthuse the J enough to buy or lease the line (or they deemed the price to be too high). The IC was also interested in Joliet to Morris but was outbid by the CSX (IIRC). The LSBC Chicago operation was later renamed Chicago Rail Link around the time the original LSBC trackage in La Salle-Peru was abandoned as a result of its losing connections due to the IC Gruber Line abandonment. CRL had the same blue and white color scheme.
[There are some comments as to why the plant for the CN to buy the EJ&E looked good on the $20 million consultant's paper, but turned out to be bad in practice.]

William Wozniak posted
March 1986,LaSalle and Bureau County #8 sitting on the siding on The Rock island, waiting pickup from The Cat for tow back to Chicago as LS&BC folded up operations after the ICG abandoned The Amboy District in 1985. Rock Island Freight House in the background.....(D. Woz photo)
Daniel Gless Baldwin.William Wozniak Yes Carus was in operation then, and still is to this day in operation. They toyed with the idea of resuming rail service, but never resurrected. Peru bought the LS&BC for future service, which is now Illinois Railway and connects into the OLE BN Zearing-Streator branch. LaSalle should have kept their portion of the line. They tore out the track in 1988.

NewsTrib
[The federal grant would help pay for improvements of the IR route along Water Street in Peru as well as help build Pisces II.]

Mark Baker's album of 1978 maps showing old rr branches & spurs. (Permlink of posting)

John Purvis shared this article.

Joe Bartoli uploaded a July 1972 article about the LS&BC.

6 railfan photos from 1986

1920 Vilter 250 HP Tandem Compound Steam Engine

20160811 4237

Most of the Founder's Building at the 2016 Sycamore Steam Show is used to replace the "Ladies Tent" with a building, but one end of the building is a permanent home for their 40-ton steam engine and ammonia compressor that was built for the refrigeration plant of the United States Glue Company, Corrollville, WI. (So now I have the question: why does glue manufacturing require a lot of cooling?)

In this view we see the high pressure piston on the right, the 8-ton flywheel in the back center, the two balls of the governor to the right of the flywheel, and the ammonia compressor on the left behind a small engine that is on display.

The plaque on the top of the high-pressure piston cover has the text shown on the right. Looking at the specs for the engine, 12HP24LP36STROKE means the high-pressure piston has a diameter of one foot, the low-pressure piston has a diameter of two feet, and both pistons have a stroke of three feet. The engine was running at an idle speed, but you could still hear the Corliss intake valves snap shut. The long rods that go down to the "red cylinders" are shock absorbers to gently stop the valves at the end of their closing. Closing an intake valve earlier is how you slow the crankshaft down. Allowing it to stay open longer provides more power to maintain the speed when the load is increased.

When it was in service, it operated at 80 rpm.

The good news is that it is in a building so it will be easily preserved. The bad news is that it is in a building so it is hard to take photos of it. Fortunately, they had two doors and both were open and modern digital DSLRs get good results with relatively high ISO settings. This view shows the high-pressure piston connected to the low-pressure piston and then the crank guide. You can see the top of the piston rod peaking out behind the foreground cylinder connector.

The "silver" container on top of the steam intake pipe for the high-pressure piston removes any water that might be left in the steam. Inside the container, near the top, is an umbrella shaped plate. The outlet pipe sticks up under the "umbrella." Any water in the steam will condense on the plate and drip off the edge of the umbrella and only dry steam will go back up under the umbrella to enter the outlet pipe.

This is the view of the other end that shows the crank for the power pistons.

On the left is the crank guide for the compressor and on the right is the double-acting compressor piston. I'm surprised this picture came out as well as it did given that the open door in the background makes this view badly backlit.

Obviously, this is the primary operator's position since it has all of the gauges. Unfortunately, the text on each gauge is the manufacture's name rather than what it is measuring. But it is still interesting to zoom in because you can read the scale of the gauges. Note that some of scales start below zero (are negative).

• 0 to 200
• -20 (I estimate, bad glare) to 80
• -30 to 140
• 0 to 30
• -30 to 300

b-40c40

Update:
A video of another big (1000 HP) Corliss steam engine that is preserved Silver Creek Museum, Freeport, IL.

Screenshot

Maze Nails

Bird's Eye View

I went west on Water Street, Peru, IL, trying to follow the IR/.../CB&Q/IV&N tracks to see where they go. Unfortunately, Water Street rather quickly deadended. As I took side streets trying to get back to the tracks, I noticed a big industrial building with a sign of Maze Nails. Since it was a rainy day, I did not bother to take any pictures. Fortunately, the Bird's Eye View gives us a feel for what the building looks like. It looks modern enough that I would not expect to find it in a 1939 aerial photo, which is true. But we shall see there was an older plant off of Church Street.

20150808,09 3784

I knew Maze had a lumber yard down by the river because I took a picture to document their abandoned industrial spur. Did Maze make their own nails? Yes! They started the lumber business in 1848 and started making nails in 1886. In 1886, they made their cedar shingle nails from pure zinc rather than steel so that they would not rust and allow the singles to blow away. Their supply chain was short because Illinois Zinc was a few blocks east on Water Street and M&H Zinc was in the adjacent town of La Salle. (History)

1916 Sanborn Map, Sheet 7

In 1916, West Street went south across the Rock Island tracks to Water Street and W. H. Maze Co. had a plant just south of the tracks on the east side of that street that made shingle nails and glaziers points. Unfortunately, the scanning resolution of the map does not allow one to read much else.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

In 1922 they moved to a plant off Church Street. (History) I suspect that this 1939 image is of that plant. It has been replaced by the much larger plant pictured at the top of the post.

Nail manufacturing started out as a free inducement to buy cedar shingles and all of the other supplies needed for a job. But their zinc nails quickly grew into a separate business as other lumberyards took advantage of their access to the I&M Canal, riverboats, and two railroads to buy their nails. In 1914 they produced their first hot-dipped nails branded ZINCLAD. That is, they dipped a steel nail into molten zinc because the cost of zinc was skyrocketing. Not only did hot-dipping reduce their material costs, it made it easier to drive the nails because they had a strong steel core. In 1955 their engineers developed an automated nail dipping line to keep up with the demand. The line double dipped the nails to create their improved STORMGUARD nails. They added additional hot-dipping lines in 1972, 1988, 2006, and 2011. They have had several other innovations such as packaging nails in 50- and 5-pound boxes instead of 100-pound kegs and spiral shank nails.

They bought Independent Nail in 1990 and, according to their web site, are America's premier specialty nail company. According to Wikipedia, they are the only American nail company.

Update: A video of a machine that cuts nails.

Illinois Zinc and ACME Scales in Peru, IL

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

While researching a building that looked like it might have been a freight house, I learned that the industrial area between Water/Brunner Street and the IR/.../CB&Q/IV&N railroad was occupied by the Illinois Zinc Company in 1916. By 1939, much of the smelting operation had been torn down. But the rolling mill still looked operational.

I have not been able to find any additional info on Illinois Zinc. When I Google it, I get results for the other zinc smelting plant in La Salle, Matthiessen and Hegeler Zinc Company.


Michael Nieslawski posted three photos with the comment: "Few Zinc Works Shots."

1

2

3

I analyzed Sanborn Maps from 1888, 1897, 1906, 1916, and 1926. The apex of the plant was reached by 1916 and that configuration remained until 1926. The following two sheets are from 1926.

Peru, 1926 Feb., Sheet 011

Peru, 1926 Feb., Sheet 012

Comparing the 1909 and 1916 maps shows Kiln 4 and Furnace 1 were built during that interval. And the Oxide Storage building was added on the north side of the Acid Building.

There were significant changes between 1888 and 1889 and between 1889 and 1906 so I include both of the 1800s maps. Unfortunately, the clockwise rotation that I did on the screen is not reflected in the TIFF file that I downloaded. Also note on the 1888-06 and 1897-10 Sheets the "Chas. Brunner's Peru Foundry & Machine Shop M'rs of the ACME Scale." Obviously, the street along the river was named for Charles Brunner. I remember that the scale that was in the IC Freight House in Mattoon, IL, was an ACME Scale.

Peru, 1888 Oct., Sheet 006

Peru, 1897 Dec., Sheet 006

Peru, 1897 Dec., Sheet 010

Update:

Roger Kujawa posted
Illinois Zinc company Peru, Illinois early 1900's. Probably Rock Island or Burlington served industry.
David Lucas I'm glad I wasn't living downwind from that plant.
Harold J. Krewer This wasn't even the only zinc mill in the neighborhood...The Mathiessen & Hegeler Zinc Mill right next door in LaSalle was even bigger. Served by the LaSalle & Bureau County. There was also New Jersey Zinc down the river a ways in DePue.

Patrick McNamara commented on the above posting
The 1898 Rand McNally Railroad Map of Illinois shows Peru on the Illinois Central Main Line. http://www.idaillinois.org/.../collection/p16614coll7/id/17

Allied Metal Company

While researching some abandoned track near Canal Street Bridge, I discovered a building with an
Allied Metal Co. sign. That building has been torn down. The question is why. Was it relocated and the jobs were moved or did it go out of business and the jobs were lost? It appears that it has moved to a more industry friendly neighborhood along the Belt Railway Co. of Chicago.

Satellite

Satellite

To the right is an image of their old building at the same scale. Even if they don't own all of the above buildings, their new location is definitely bigger.

Their web site indicates they have been in business since 1953. But the core of their original building was built long before that. While researching the track servicing that building, I found it in a 1938 aerial photo and in a 1915 map. Unfortunately the resolution of the 1915 eBook is not good enough to read the label on the building.

pdf copy from 1915 Smoke Abatement Report, p. 344

IHLAP

Since the new location is close to the BRC, I had assumed it had rail service. But when I inspected a satellite image for tracks, I could not find any. But one of the bullet items for their Chicago facility is "Indoor rail siding."

Bird's Eye View

But even if I go back to the Bird's Eye View time frame, I can't find tracks connecting the building to the BRC. I can find where the rail siding was. But it looks like it now uses trucks.

The curve along the north side of the building in the middle indicates that there used to be a rail siding all along the north side of the eastern buildings.

Bird's Eye View

Bing Streetview

Zaky Joseph posted
With all the renewed interest of the Illinois Central and the IC sd70s making a comeback to our area, I thought it would be nice to go back in time when the IC used to switch by Allied Metal with gp38s and street running across Canal street. Chicago, Illinois. October 1997.
Dennis DeBruler The marina that now owns that land left some of the rail exposed near the sidewalk. I assume it was a deliberate recognition of the history of the area rather than a paving mistake. It caused me to do some research as to whose track that was and where did it run from? Seeing a photo of that branch being used is really informative. http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../the-abandoned...

Aruto Gross Flickr 2000 Photo of LLPS 2217 and 2216 pulling boxcars from Allied Metal. (source)
Two more Flickr photos of that movement: 1 2

1995 Flickr of two BN boxcars spotted at Allied Metal. Both have high-mounted brakewheels.