Iron and Steel Manufacture at Chicago. [Volume: 8, Issue: 6, 1890, pp. 336-338]

336

UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION OF

[VOL. 8,

per day, an advance more marked by its regularity than by its
rapidity-the increased product per furnace per day being 15 per
cent. greater in 1888 than it was in 1882.
For the last column, viz., percentage of increase or decrease, 1888
over 1887, we are responsible. EDITOR.
Iron and Steel Manufacture at Chicago.
THE following extracts are taken from an article in the Age of
Steel on " The Growth of the Iron and Steel Industry in the West,"
by Mr. E. C. Potter:
" The birth of the iron and steel industry in the West dates from
the establishment, in 1855, of an iron rolling-mill, with two small
charcoal blast-furnaces at Wyandotte, Mich., a suburb of the city of
Detroit, by Capt. E. B. Ward, of that city, and the subsequent extension of this enterprise by the construction of a similar mill, in
1857, on the north branch of the Chicago River, by the same
parties. The Union iron-mill was built on the south branch of the
Chicago River in 1863. The Milwaukee Iron Company was built
in Milwaukee by Capt. Ward in 1868.
" The first heat of Bessemer steel ever made in America was blown
at an experimental plant at the Wyandotte mill in 1865, and the
ingots were sent to Chicago, and rolled at the North Chicago mill,
into rails, that same year.
"The first Bessemer plant in the West was built at the Union
works; the first blow being made in 1871. Closely upon this followed a similar Bessemer plant built at the North Chicago works,
the first blow being made in 1872.
"In 1869 Capt. Ward's mills in Chicago were incorporated under
the name of the North Chicago Rolling-Mill Company, and that
same year two blast-furnaces were built at these works, which, at that
time, were among the largest and best-appointed furnaces in
America, producing at that date 250 tons of iron per week, each.
" In 1870 the Joliet Iron and Steel Company built and operated
an iron rolling-mill in the city of Joliet, Will County, Illinois;
and in 1873 a Bessemer steel plant similar in size and construction