Cambria Iron Company | |
Location | Johnstown, Pennsylvania |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°20′10″N78°55′23″W / 40.336°N 78.923°W |
Area | 482 acres (195 ha) |
Architect | Cambria Iron Co., et al. |
NRHP reference No. | 89001101 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 22, 1989 [1] |
Designated NHLD | June 22, 1989 [2] |
Designated PHMC | March 04, 1947 [3] |
The Cambria Iron Company of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a major producer of iron and steel that operated independently from 1852 to 1916. The company adopted many innovations in the steelmaking process, including those of William Kelly and Henry Bessemer.
Founded in 1852, the company became the nation's largest steel foundry within two decades. It was reorganized and renamed the Cambria Steel Company in 1898, purchased by Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company in 1916, and sold to the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1923. [4]
The company's facilities, which extend some 12 miles (19 km) along the Conemaugh and Little Conemaugh Rivers, operated until 1992. Today, they are a National Historic Landmark District. Several works by the firm are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1] [5]
The industrial facilities of the Cambria occupied five separate sites in and around Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Its earliest facilities, known as the Lower Works, are located on the east bank of the Conemaugh River, north of downtown Johnstown and the Little Conemaugh River.
The Gautier Plant is just northeast of downtown Johnstown on the south side of the Little Conemaugh. Further up that River is the extensive Franklin Plant and Wheel Plant, while the Rod and Wire Plant is located on the west side of the Conemaugh River, north of the Lower Works. Each of these facilities represents a different phase of development and growth of the steel industry; however, the Lower Works no longer has significant traces of the earliest facilities used in steel manufacturing. All five of these areas comprise the National Historic Landmark District designated in 1989. [6]
The Cambria Iron Company was founded in 1852 to provide iron for the construction of railroads. In 1854, the iron works, which had gone out of the blast, were purchased by a group of Philadelphia merchants led by Matthew Newkirk. After a fire destroyed the main rolling mill in 1857, Newkirk persuaded his co-investors to rebuild it on a larger scale. [7]
The company grew rapidly and was, by the 1870s, a leading producer of steel and an innovator in the advancement of steelmaking technology. It performed early experiments with the Kelly converter, built the first blooming mill, and was one of the first plants to use hydraulics for the movement of ingots. It built one of the first plants to use the Bessemer process for making steel at a large scale. The company's innovations, methods, and processes were widely influential throughout the steel industry. [6]
The company was at its height in the 1870s, under the long-term leadership of general manager Daniel Johnson Morrell, who had overseen the expansion of the works into one of the largest producers of rails in the United States, helping to end dependence on British railroad construction imports. [8] He was a member of the 40th United States Congress and 41st United States Congress.
Morrell became concerned about the South Fork Dam, which formed Lake Conemaugh above Johnstown and Cambria Iron Company's facilities. To monitor the dam, Morrell joined South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, which owned the dam. Morrell campaigned to club officials to improve the dam, which he had inspected by his own engineers and by those of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Morrell even offered to effect repairs, partially at his own expense, but was rejected by club president Benjamin F. Ruff. Morell died in 1885, his warnings unheeded.
On May 31, 1889, the dam failed, unleashing the Johnstown Flood. The flood killed more than 2,200 people—then the largest disaster in U.S. history—and badly damaged the Cambria Iron Company's facilities. The company reopened on June 6, 1889, [8] and continued to operate independently, though eclipsed in size by other producers, following the flood.
Morell's membership in the club was purchased by Cyrus Elder, chief legal counsel for Cambria Iron Company. [9] [10] A former news editor, Elder was the only Johnstown native who was a member of the club and lost his wife and a daughter in the flood. He was and remained a notable civic leader and wrote books and poetry. [11]
In 1916, the company was acquired by Midvale Steel and Ordnance Company. Midvale sold the company to Bethlehem Steel in 1923, [6] and it operated continuously until 1992. [8]
Cambria Steel Company formed a proprietary subsidiary shipping company called Franklin Steamship Company of Cleveland in 1906 and Beaver Steamship Company in 1916. Both companies were sold to Bethlehem Steamship Company in 1924. [12]
Infrastructure whose parts were manufactured by the Cambria Company include (with variations in attribution):
Cambria County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 133,472. Its county seat is Ebensburg. The county was created on March 26, 1804, from parts of Bedford, Huntingdon, and Somerset counties and later organized in 1807. It was named for the nation of Wales, which in Latin is known as "Cambria".
Johnstown is the largest city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 18,411 as of the 2020 census. Located 57 miles (92 km) east of Pittsburgh, it is the principal city of the Johnstown metropolitan area, which is located in Cambria County and had 133,472 residents in 2020. It is also part of the Johnstown–Somerset combined statistical area, which includes both Cambria and Somerset Counties.
The Johnstown Flood, sometimes referred to locally as Great Flood of 1889, occurred on Friday, May 31, 1889, after the catastrophic failure of the South Fork Dam, located on the south fork of the Little Conemaugh River, 14 miles (23 km) upstream of the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, United States. The dam ruptured after several days of extremely heavy rainfall, releasing 14.55 million cubic meters of water. With a volumetric flow rate that temporarily equaled the average flow rate of the Mississippi River, the flood killed 2,208 people and accounted for US$17,000,000 in damage.
The Johnstown Flood National Memorial is a unit of the United States National Park Service. Established in 1964 through legislation signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, it pays tribute to the thousands of victims of the Johnstown Flood, who were injured or killed on May 31, 1889 when the South Fork Dam ruptured.
The Conemaugh River is a 70-mile (110 km) long tributary of the Kiskiminetas River in Westmoreland, Indiana, and Cambria counties in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The name means 'Otter Creek', originating from the Unami-Lenape language word kwənəmuxkw 'otter'.
The Little Conemaugh River is a tributary of the Conemaugh River, approximately 30 miles (48 km) long, in western Pennsylvania in the United States.
The Allegheny Portage Railroad was the first railroad constructed through the Allegheny Mountains in central Pennsylvania. It operated from 1834 to 1854 as the first transportation infrastructure through the gaps of the Allegheny that connected the midwest to the eastern seaboard across the barrier range of the Allegheny Front. Approximately 36 miles (58 km) long overall, both ends connected to the Pennsylvania Canal, and the system was primarily used as a portage railway, hauling river boats and barges over the divide between the Ohio and the Susquehanna Rivers. Today, the remains of the railroad are preserved within the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site operated by the National Park Service.
The South Fork Dam was an earthenwork dam forming Lake Conemaugh, an artificial body of water near South Fork, Pennsylvania, United States. On May 31, 1889, the South Fork Dam failed catastrophically and 20 million tons of water from Lake Conemaugh burst through and raced 14 miles (23 km) downstream, causing the Johnstown Flood.
The Rolling Mill Mine was a drift portal coal mine in operation in Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, operating from approximately 1856 until 1931. It was originally owned by the Cambria Iron Company and was developed in the Westmont hillside across the Conemaugh River from the company's rolling mill. Its portal was near the confluence of the Stonycreek River and Little Conemaugh River. It supplied the bulk of the coal used in the iron and steel making taking place in the city, producing an average of 3,000 tons a day in 1902, and primarily employed recent immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Quemahoning Reservoir, also known to locals as The Dam, is created by the Quemahoning Dam, located on Quemahoning Creek on the border of Quemahoning Township, Conemaugh Township, and Jenner Township in Somerset County, Pennsylvania just south of Hollsopple.
The South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a Pennsylvania corporation that operated an exclusive and secretive retreat at a mountain lake near South Fork, Pennsylvania, for more than 50 extremely wealthy men and their families.
The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, also known as J&L Steel or simply as J&L, was an American steel and iron manufacturer that operated from 1852 until 1968. Beginning as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, a few miles south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James Laughlin. The first firm to bear the name of Jones and Laughlin was organized in 1861, and headquartered at Third & Ross in downtown Pittsburgh.
The Phoenix Iron Works, located in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, was a manufacturer of iron and related products during the 19th century and early 20th century. Phoenix Iron Company was a major producer of cannon for the Union Army during the American Civil War. The company also produced the Phoenix column, an advance in construction material. Company facilities are a core component of the Phoenixville Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places site that was in 2006 recognized as a historic landmark by ASM International.
Daniel Johnson Morrell was a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
The Stone Bridge spans the Conemaugh River in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The bridge is a seven-arch stone railroad bridge located on the Norfolk Southern Railway mainline, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1887–88. Its upstream face was reinforced with concrete in 1929.
The Inclined Plane Bridge is a 237-foot (72 m), Pennsylvania through truss bridge that spans Stonycreek River in Johnstown, Cambria County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It connects the city to the lower station of the Johnstown Inclined Plane. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 and was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) in 1997.
The Champion Bridge Company, formerly known as Champion Iron Bridge and Manufacturing Company, is a steel fabrication business based in Wilmington, Ohio, in the United States. It has been in business since the 1870s, and several of its works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Illinois Steel Company was an American steel producer with five plants in Illinois and Wisconsin. Founded through a consolidation in 1889, Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel producer in the United States. In 1898, several other steel and transportation companies were merged into it to form the Federal Steel Company, itself merged into U.S. Steel in 1901.
The Johnstown flood of 1977 was a major flood which began on the night of July 19, 1977, when heavy rainfall caused widespread flash flooding in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, including the city of Johnstown and the Conemaugh Valley.