PITTSBURGH — The Steel City: it’s the moniker Pittsburgh is best known by and pays homage to the industry that was born on the banks of the three rivers.
Steel production, as we know it, began in Braddock in 1875 in the form of Andrew Carnegie’s Edgar Thomson plant.
“That’s when you see for the first time steel being made not by the pound but by the ton,” Ron Baraff told Channel 11. He’s the Vice President of Historic Resources and Facilities at Rivers of Steel. It’s an organization dedicated to education and the preservation of steel sites in the region.
As Carnegie’s operation grew, competition boomed. Soon, plants were all over the region.
“The wealth that was accumulating in this region was only surpassed by New York and London. There was more capital here than anywhere else,” Baraff said.
Mass-produced steel became a hallmark of America’s Second Industrial Revolution and was used in everything from train tracks to skyscrapers.
“The steel from this region allows for the opening of the world,” Baraff said.
He says major investments in our region’s steel manufacturing were made during and just after WWII.
“The moniker of ‘arsenal of democracy’ has been applied to Pittsburgh and it’s not hyperbole. The steel that came out of this region won the war,” he said.
Production hit its peak in the late 1940s and 50s. At that time, plants were employing as many as 17,000 people.
A decade later, things started to change. That’s about the time Keith Clouse, known by his fellow steelworkers as “Choo Choo,” signed on as a laborer at the Edgar Thomson plant.
“I had come straight out of the army and into the mills. The camaraderie was very similar. You had to have faith in the guys you work with,” he said.
Clouse worked at the plant from 1968 to 1972 and told us veteran workers warned him right from the start that change was coming.
“Some of the older guys said, ‘You better get out of here. This isn’t lasting. They’re not sticking money back here,’” he said.
It was that lack of reinvestment plus changing environmental laws, new technology, labor issues and foreign competition that Baraff says created a perfect storm.
By the mid-80s, more than 150 thousand jobs were lost, and communities were decimated.
“Devastating. Absolutely devastating, I watched my community, my neighborhood, my city wither,” Clouse said.
“To the public and even the people who were working in these plants, it felt like it was happening all at once,” Baraff said.
Four decades later, Pittsburgh is an example of resilience, surviving and thriving in industries like tech, medicine and education.
Steel is still here, but not on the same scale.
New technology allows hundreds to do the jobs of thousands.
Despite the change, the legacy of those early years lives on in our institutions and through our people.
“What was left behind by people like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick with Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh helped to diversify what was happening here,” Baraff said.
“I’ve got to admit I’m still surprised and proud of how this city bounced back. We were down on our knees and got up and made it a hell of a place to live,” Clouse said.
“This is who we are. It’s not just who we were; it’s who we are. It defined this region. This industry created a sense of Pittsburgh, that strength we have,” Baraff said.
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