Bessemer, Colorado was a city in Colorado that was incorporated in 1886. The community was named after

Henry Bessemer Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He ...

, an English inventor. It was one of four adjacent towns settled after the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859. The communities of South Pueblo, Central Pueblo, Pueblo, and Bessemer were later merged to create the modern City of

Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...

. Bessemer was an independent city until 1894 and was the last city to join Pueblo. The former community of Bessemer is sometimes now referred to as the Bessemer neighborhood. Its also known as the Bessemer area. The Bessemer area is home to both Bessemer Academy (an elementary school) and Bessemer park.

Geography

The plat for Bessemer was recorded on 20 August 1886 with the Pueblo County Clerk. The town was bounded to the east by the

steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finish ...

, to the west by Prairie and Western avenues (now Pueblo Boulevard), south by Aqua Avenue and what's now called Lake Minnequa, and north by South Pueblo and River Road. Pueblo City planner Wade Broadhead has stated what people call "Greater Bessemer" and what was studied by the ''Bessemer Neighborhood Context Survey'' is roughly bounded by South Pueblo to the north (What is now the neighborhood of Mesa Junction), Russ Avenue and the steel mill to the east, Reno Avenue in the south and Berkley Avenue to the west. Lake Minnequa and Minnequa Heights are both included. The Bessemer Historic Study states Bessemer refers to the area roughly bounded by Washington Street to the north, Berkley Avenue to the west,

Interstate 25 Interstate 25 (I-25) is a major Interstate Highway in the western United States. It is primarily a north–south highway, serving as the main route through New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. I-25 stretches from I-10 at Las Cruces, New Mexic ...

to the east, and Streator Avenue in the south. It notes that Lake Minnequa and the area surrounding the former Edison School and Eilers Smelter site are included. This area was historically known as Laibach (also as Bojon Town) and more recently as Eilers Heights. Parts of Minnequa Heights are also included in the study. Bessemer is almost completely flat with the exception of a slight gain in elevation towards the southern section of the neighborhood. A depression was transformed into a man-made lake, now known as Lake Minnequa. The Laibach Subdivision is situated on a bluff overlooking the Grove neighborhood.

History

In February 1880, men working for the

Colorado Coal and Iron Company Colorado Coal and Iron Company was formed in 1880 when three Denver and Rio Grande subsidiaries controlled by William J. Palmer merged. These were the Colorado Coal and Steel Works Company, the Central Colorado Improvement Company, and the Southe ...

(CC&I) began surveying the land for the company's first plant, the South Pueblo Ironworks. The rapidly expanding plant produced 284 tons of

pig iron Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate product of the iron industry in the production of steel which is obtained by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with silic ...

that year and 6,392 tons the next. Rather than travel back and forth from South Pueblo, workers began to settle around the plant. As the labor force grew, so to did the number of makeshift housing. By 1882 CC&I had surveyed the town of Bessemer, but a plat was not filed until 1886. The 1886 plat was greatly expanded from the unfilled 1882 plat and encircled South Pueblo. The 1886 Pueblo City Directory lists 188 identified residents in Bessemer that year. In 1887 CC&I refiled an amended plat that reduced the size of Bessemer to that of the unfilled 1882 plat. In 1892, CC&I merged with the ''Colorado Fuel Company'' to form the

Colorado Fuel and Iron Company The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892.Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 10 By 1903 it was mainly owned and con ...

(CF&I), and the company and the town were both forced to quickly contend with the

Panic of 1893 The Panic of 1893 was an economic depression in the United States that began in 1893 and ended in 1897. It deeply affected every sector of the economy, and produced political upheaval that led to the political realignment of 1896 and the pres ...

. Between the merger and the year 1899 there were no new subdivisions built in Bessemer. In January 1894, Bessemer citizens petitioned both Bessemer and Pueblo aldermen for annexation, and the Pueblo City Council responded by ordering a special election on March 18, 1894. Pueblo voters approved the annexation 537 to 200 and Bessemer residents approved it 212 to 176, with the annexation being certified on March 21, 1894. The local newspaper, ''The Bessemer Indicator'', began publishing in 1890 (it later became ''The Indicator''), in January 1905 The Indicator reported that Bessemer's population had grown from 4,000 people in 1894 to 15,000 in that year. Bessemer's first city hall was built by the CC&I at the southeast corner of Charles Street (now Abriendo Avenue) and Central Avenue. The second city hall was built in 1890 at 1207 East Evans Avenue, but it was demolished by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

between 1939–1940. Bessemer's growth stalled in the 20s and 30s, when CFI&I's profits were at an ebb. By the 1960s the neighborhood had entered a steep decline. Few buildings were constructed in Bessemer after 1960 due to the financial state of CF&I, with only 112 new buildings erected between 1961–2010. The

collapse Collapse or its variants may refer to: Concepts * Collapse (structural) * Collapse (topology), a mathematical concept * Collapsing manifold * Collapse, the action of collapsing or telescoping objects * Collapsing user interface elements ** ...

of the US steel industry in the 80s hit the already faltering neighborhood especially hard.

References

{{authority control Neighborhoods in Colorado Pueblo, Colorado