Air Reduction Plant		Blast Furnaces
Dedication - Blast Furnace #1	Crucible Rolling Mill	Wartime "E" Flag
Mackintosh-Hempill Finishing Mill	Rem-Cru Titanium Offices

to bring fame and notice and wealth ...

As an agent for the Pittsburghers, he bought the Neel farm for $87,000, the Brucker farm for $37,000. And he bought the Kaine farm and the McCoy farm for his organization which called itself the Midland Steel Company. We have some differences of opinion here as to why they chose he name Midland. Some say that it's pretty 3bvious that our town lies midway between he steel districts of Pittsburgh and Wheelng and that that's why. Others say the name was taken from the famous English steel district known as the Midlands. Maybe they're both right. Anyway Midland it was and Midland it is. That's how our town got its name.

Dan Springer, who lived on the Kaine farm when it was sold, was placed in charge of all the company's farm land, stock and farm work.

Then in July of 1905 the construction began which hasn't stopped since. And the hiring began. Elmer Arbuckle, from across the river in Shippingport, was the first. Using mowing scythes and other farm tools, Elmer and five other men started by clearing the area to make it ready for the construction of a blast furnace, a boiler house, and a machine for casting pig iron. Elmer saw the good future for our town and moved here in September, 1906, into a newly completed home at the corner where Sixth Street now crosses Beaver. Other men came from different parts of the country to be hired by the new company.

Meanwhile our town was being built according to a master plan that's still sound enough to be followed today. The new company needed more men and the men needed houses. The company began building them. First, 20 homes were built on Beaver Avenue between Fourth and Seventh. The first one completed became headquarters for the engineers and draftsmen. That was at Beaver and Seventh.

And then the blast furnace was completed in the fall of 1906 and ready to make iron. Mrs. J. Ramsey Speer lit the furnace at a ceremony that couldn't have been impressive enough for what was to come. In the same year, with T. K. Miller, serving as general manager, the S. Jarvis Adams Company, began construction of an iron foundry on 20 acres of ground in the eastern part of town. The Speer, McKnight, and Fownes families were the interests behind the company, and the first heat from the iron cupola furnace was poured in December, 1907. Then the products began to come-axle boxes for wagons and buggies, brake shoes for railroads and trolleys, ingot molds, bell dies, pipe balls, mine car wheels.

The Pittsburgh interests didn't stop there. The Fownes family had an interest in the Rust Boiler Company, a firm founded in 1901 by E. G. and H. B. Rust. A Midland plant was established in 1906 on a site fronting the river south of the foundry. The Rust boiler, because of its design and adaptability, was soon being used by many large steam users. E. G. and H. B. Rust were brothers of the three men who founded The Rust Engineering Company, a prominent Pittsburgh firm.

The next five years were building years in our town. The Babcock and Wilcox Company bought the Rust Boiler Company and operated it here for a while. In 1909 the Babcock and Wilcox equipment was moved to Barberton, Ohio, and the buildings leased to a new company known as the Treadwell Construction Company. This company headed by Paul W. Webster, M. H. Treadwell, H. N. Daugherty, J. H. Killinger, and R. N. Dorsey, set out to design and manufacture specialized machinery to meet the increasing demands of basic industries for such equipment.

Then in 1911, things began to really pop in our town. Pittsburgh Crucible Steel Company, a subsidiary of Crucible Steel Company of America, the leading producer of specialty steels in the country, bought Midland Steel Company's coke ovens and blast furnace. They bought surrounding land, too, with thoughts to the future. Crucible had iron-hungry plants in and about Pittsburgh and Midland was bought to feed them. Again the river helped sell our town. It provided a means for carrying coal from Crucible's mine up the Monongahela at Crucible, Pa., in Greene County.

A change of ownership in 1912 made the S. Jarvis-Adams Company the Pittsburgh Iron and Steel Foundries Company, and the new owners installed an open hearth furnace which poured its first heat of steel the same year.

Pittsburgh Crucible began construction of additional facilities soon after buying Midland Steel Company which wasn't really a steel company since it produced only iron. In 1913 eight 60-ton open hearth furnaces and a 40-inch blooming mill were built. The mill rolled its first ingot on August 4, 1913, and the future of Midland was assured. Maintenance shops and a 24-inch bar mill were constructed in 1914. Two additional open hearths were installed in 1915. A 28-inch billet mill was added in 1916. In 1917 two more new open hearths brought the total to 12.

Pittsburgh Iron & Steel began construction of their second open hearth in 1914, a furnace that was kept busy turning out a variety of ordnance castings for World War I.

The years 1917 through 1919 saw all three Midland plants working full time to produce materials used to further the war efforts. Crucible alone had 2,700 employees here during the war. Neel's Independent School District had come a long way.

The end of the war didn't mean the end of steel expansion in our town. Crucible built 100 coke ovens with facilities for the recovery of phenol and other by-products. The new ovens did away with the old dirty foul smelling bee-hive ovens. By the time the furnaces were completed in 1920, Crucible had increased steel facilities even more. Large finishing mills were installed as was auxiliary equipment for heat treating, annealing and finishing. A second blast furnace supplemented by a second ore bridge increased iron capacity again.

At about the same time Pittsburgh Iron and Steel Foundry discarded their iron cupola furnace and concentrated on steel castings. Mackintosh-Hemphill, a leader in the development and manufacturing of industrial machinery bought the foundry company in 1922 to serve as its foundry. Crucible increased the capacity of its 60-ton open hearths to 100 tons. Standard Oil began construction of the oil storage tanks on the east part of town in 1929 to better serve the growing needs of our area for petroleum products. And the capacities of the Midland furnaces were again increased, this time to 125 tons each.

In 1935, Crucible installed six single two high hand rolling gap mills and six heating furnaces to supply the needs of the automotive industry. The next year the Company purchased the National Drawn Steel plant in East Liverpool, Ohio, and made it a part of their Midland operations.

The first representative of the Steel Workers Organizing Committee came to Beaver County in July, 1936. Enrollment of steelworkers at Midland into the Union proceeded at a slow but steady pace and finally the first charter meeting was held at the Fifth Street Hall in 1937. Bert Hough was elected the first president.

On May 24, 1937, Crucible and the Union signed their first agreement.

In early 1948~a committee was formed to plan the building of the new home for Local 1212. Ground breaking ceremonies took place on April 18, 1950. The new home, one of the most beautiful buildings in Midland, was dedicated March 30, 1952. Other locals representing labor in Midland use the hall f6r meetings and many clubs in our town make constant use of the hall's facilities. One of the events looked forward to by the children here is the Union's annual Christmas party held. at the hall.

In 1937 the Air Reduction Sales Company, a division of Air Reduction Company, Inc., became part of the Midland scene to facilitate the supplying of local industry with oxygen, nitrogen, and argon. In 1939, the company obtained a borough permit for the erection of a large air liquefaction plant in Midland.

Next the electrics came to Midland. In 1940 two 25-ton electric furnaces were installed by Crucible. The company added two more the following year. Electric-arc melting of steel is celebrating a 50th birthday this year, too. Halcomb Steel Company poured the first heat in America at Syracuse, N. Y., in 1906, shortly after which the company became a part of Crucible.

Then came the bombing at Pearl Harbor and more war years. Midland produced with a new purpose.

In 1942 Air Reduction Sales enlarged its facilities here. At the same time Crucible installed a universal mill and added to its production of flat rolled sheet bar, slabs, and tool steels.

The next year we saw the dedication of the government's Defense Plant Corporation building under Crucible operation for the production of material for use of the Armed Forces.

One thing we've been mighty proud of here was to have seen the Army and Navy "E", the coveted flag, fly over Crucible and Treadwell every year during the war. It meant we were helping. It meant Midland's coming of age in a way.

During 1947 Crucible added another 21 coke ovens to the 100 they already had here. They installed a 24" billet mill, too. They transferred their Agriculture Department here from the famous LaBelle Works in Pittsburgh. The next year they added 63 more ovens and purchased the Defense Plant Corporation from the government.

Air Reduction Company again enlarged its facilities in Midland to let them produce 730,000 cubic feet of nitrogen a day as well as recover considerable quantities of raw argon from the processed air.

In 1949, Crucible's hot and cold strip units were completed and placed into operation. Number 2 blast furnace was redesigned and relined and another modernization program increased the company's open hearth furnaces to 165-ton capacity. Two new electrics, one 15-ton, one 10-ton, were added to the Electric Furnace Department.

Never a year went by without some new addition to our town's industrial scene. In 1950, Crucible, employing 7,200 people, completed a de-phenolizing tower in the local plant so that substantially all phenol wastes would not be dumped into the Ohio. The next year, construction began on a new blast furnace, and a 54" temper mill was put into operation along with a new grinding line and other finishing equipment. The new furnace, incorporating the latest developments in design and automatic controls, was blown in December 12, 1952. It has a rated capacity of 1,000 tons of iron a day. At the same time, the company added 29 more coke ovens. In November a 24" bar mill went into operation.

Still another company appeared in our town in 1951 - Rem-Cru Titanium, Inc. This company is already a national leader in the new titanium industry, producing a metal with the remarkable combination of light weight, strength and resistance to corrosion. Operations were set up here with a task force of 25 men carefully selected from Rem-Cru's parent companies, Remington Arms Company, Inc. and Crucible. Today, the company hires over 450 men and women. Ingot size increased from the first cast weighing just over 50 pounds to 2-ton ingots the following year. Another indication of the company's progress is that its number of active customers for the new metal has more than tripled in five years. In May, 1954, Rem-Cru moved into a new and modern office building on Midland Avenue. Last year the company bought a group of five buildings and ten acres of land including materials handling facilities and pickling equipment. Now over 237,000 square feet are available. The past five years have seen the creation and growth of a new metal industry. This growth will continue and Rem-Cru Titanium, Inc. will continue to represent an important factor in this new industry.

Another interesting development here is the pilot plant built by Crucible to discover ways of using waste sulphuric acid to produce chemicals and compounds while reducing river and stream pollution.

In 1955 Mackintosh-Hemnhill company was purchased by E. W. Bliss Company of Canton, Ohio. With 13 plants in this country and Europe, Bliss ranks as a leader among manufacturers of presses, rolling mills, and metal working machinery.

The progress seems to have no ending. At the beginning of this year, 1956, Crucible announced another $20,000,000 expansion and improvement program with $11,000,000 to be spent at Midland Works to increase the plant's capacity to roll finished stainless sheet and strip by an estimated 70%. A main part of the new expansion is the installation of a new 50" Sendzimir reversing cluster mill, the largest of its kind ever built for cold-rolling stainless and titanium strip to thin gauges.

When you read back over the facts mentioned in this chapter and imagine the things unwritten, it's kind of overwhelming. We said before that "Neel's Independent School District" has come a long way to grow up into our town of today. It sure stands repeating when you think of the impact these companies have and have had on our town. Crucible, for example, pays its employees here over $3,000,000 a month -that's about $36,000,000 a year made available for spending here, for paying rent, for buying houses and cars and refrigerators and television sets, for feeding and clothing families. Well, you can see the importance of the whole picture.

It does something else for us, too. It gives our town a world-wide reputation because the products we turn out here are respected as quality. And this reflects on the people in our town. The skill, the knowledge, the honesty we have, our character and pride are built into those products. They're part of us. It gives us a reputation, all right, and we're able to keep it because the men who operate our industries have seen the constant need for giving us the best and newest to work with.

Think, too, of the contributions to civic growth made by the people brought here by these industries. And think of the benefits we receive because the industries are here-streets, parks, schools and on and on.

They pay a lot of the expense for our town, too. Taxes, for example, Crucible alone contributes about 80% of the total tax duplicate for paying the costs of operating our borough and our schools.

And that brings up another point about our town - schools. We've always recognized the value of learning things. A school helped us get started, you'll remember, and we feel they're mighty important to keep us going. And that's what we're talking about next - schools.