The Cleveland Rolling Mill Company was a
rolling
Rolling is a Motion (physics)#Types of motion, type of motion that combines rotation (commonly, of an Axial symmetry, axially symmetric object) and Translation (geometry), translation of that object with respect to a surface (either one or the ot ...
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-fini ...
in
Cleveland
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...
, Ohio. It existed as an independent entity from 1863 to 1899.
Origins
The company stemmed from developments initiated in 1857, when John and David I. Jones, along with
Henry Chisholm, established a rolling mill at
Newburgh, incorporated as ''Chisholm, Jones & Company'', to
reroll worn
rails
Rail or rails may refer to:
Rail transport
*Rail transport and related matters
* Railway track or railway lines, the running surface of a railway
Arts and media Film
* ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini
* ''Rail'' (1967 fi ...
.
In 1858,
Andros B. Stone (brother of
Amasa Stone) bought into the firm, which became the ''Stone, Chisholm & Jones Company'', and produced iron rails. The first
blast furnace
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally pig iron, but also others such as lead or copper. ''Blast'' refers to the combustion air being supplied above atmospheric pressure.
In a ...
in Cleveland was built by the firm in 1861. In November 1863, an investment from Stone led to the expansion and reorganization of the company, which then became the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company.
In 1868 the company installed a pair of
Bessemer converters, and started using them to produce steel.
During the 1870s, various types of wire products were produced at the mill.
In 1881 the company built Central Furnaces plant, near the
Cuyahoga River
The Cuyahoga River (see ) is a river located in Northeast Ohio that bisects the City of Cleveland and feeds into Lake Erie.
As Cleveland emerged as a major manufacturing center, the river became heavily affected by industrial pollution, so mu ...
, for the production of pig iron.
Strikes
In May 1882 the mill was faced with a
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
*Strike (surname)
* Hobart Huson, author of several drug related books
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
* Airstrike, ...
from its skilled workers, mostly of British origin, in response to disregard by the company to
union demands. The company recruited Polish and Czech immigrants to replace striking workers, and reopened on 5 June. The company eventually gained the sympathy of the city when the striking workers turned violent on 13 June.
In June 1885 a larger and more violent strike occurred, this time led by Polish and Czech workers in response to wage cuts. The violent tactics used by the strikers made the union unable to sustain support by the English-speaking skilled workers, who eventually returned to work in September. To prevent further riots by the unskilled workers, Mayor George Gardner ordered the company's president (William Chisholm, the oldest son of Henry Chisholm) to revert the wage cuts, which ended the strike, although many of the striking workers were denied their jobs back.
Growth and merger
The company reached its peak in the late 1890s, at which point it had become a major integrated producer of
pig iron
Pig iron, also known as crude iron, is an intermediate good used by the iron industry in the production of steel. It is developed by smelting iron ore in a blast furnace. Pig iron has a high carbon content, typically 3.8–4.7%, along with si ...
,
Bessemer steel, and steel products, employing a
workforce
In macroeconomics, the workforce or labour force is the sum of people either working (i.e., the employed) or looking for work (i.e., the unemployed):
\text = \text + \text
Those neither working in the marketplace nor looking for work are out ...
of over 8,000 people.
In 1899 the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company was absorbed into the
American Steel and Wire Company of New Jersey, which was in turn merged into
J. P. Morgan
John Pierpont Morgan Sr. (April 17, 1837 – March 31, 1913) was an American financier and investment banker who dominated corporate finance on Wall Street throughout the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. As the head of the banking firm that ...
's
U.S. Steel
The United States Steel Corporation is an American steel company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It maintains production facilities at several additional locations in the U.S. and Central Europe.
The company produces and sells steel products, ...
conglomerate two years later.
See also
*
Cleveland railroad history
References
External links
*
{{coord, 41, 27, 19, N, 81, 37, 36, W, type:landmark_region:US-OH, display=title
Defunct companies based in Cleveland
Historic American Engineering Record in Ohio
Ironworks and steel mills in the United States