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Re: (erielack) Re: Youngstown



All,
 
I'd like to respond to one small part of Rick Rowland's comments on the Jeanette Blast Furnace, served by the EL (list content). 
I've spoken with Rick in the past, and greatly admire his work on the Tod engine.  His comments on the Jeannette furnace are dead on, but the last paragraph might give the wrong impression:
 
"Jeannette was a minor producer in the Youngstown district.  Its  shutdown did 
not cause the massive amounts of job loss.  The major plant  closings at the 
YS&T Campbell Works, US Steel Ohio Works and Brier Hill  Works steel making 
department is where the massive job losses came from."
 
There are two processes used to make steel in the US today.  The older one starts with iron ore, which is refined to pig iron in a blast furnace, then processed into steel, usually by the Basic Oxygen Process (BOP) and then by a continuous casting mill.  This is analagous (although much more modern) than the blast furnace-open hearth-rolling mill process in use during the heyday of big steel in Youngstown, back when iron ore, coal for the mills, steel, and steel products made up much of the Erie and later EL tonnage in the area.  These processes make "ordinary" or "non-specialty" steel in large quantities, and were adequate for most US steel tonnage "back in the day".
 
The other, more modern process melts scrap material in an electric arc, induction, or vacuum furnace.  This is more conducive to the manufacture of high-tech, even exotic specialty steels.  Although scrap can be and was added to open-hearth and later BOP furnaces in great quantities, pig iron from blast furnaces was needed to feed those furnaces voracious appetite.  Arc furnaces are a different sort of game, making a different sort of steel.  And it's not easy to convert from the older, iron-ore and blast furnace based system to the new, scrap and arc-furnace system, as the amount of infrastructure that can no longer be used is enormous.
 
As an example, ALL of the old mills in Youngstown were based on blast furnaces and iron ore.  Of them, to my knowledge, only the old Brier Hill plant (now North Star Steel?  Might have changed name or ownership since I last checked...) has made the conversion.  That's one relatively small part of what was once a vast infrastructure.  The rest is all gone, miles and miles of it.
 
Without blast furnaces, there is no future for BOP furnaces...it is uneconomical to ship the feed materials great distances.  So, often the death knell for the steel industry in a locality is the blowing out of the last blast furnace.  And, although Rick is correct in pointing out that the loss of the Jeanette furnace was relatively small in terms of direct jobs lost to operate that particular furnace, it set in motion a domino effect that also shuttered the mills that used its products.  Actually, the real story is more complex than that...largely, the decision was made to give up on the whole business at once, with different parts being shut down at different times.  But closing a blast furnace is very symbolic...anyone who understands the process knows that the rest of the operation is living on borrowed time.  There's another whole story to the Campbell works of Youngstown Sheet and Tube, which closed the same year as the Brier Hill works.  Campbell was larger, and an even more devastating blow to the local economy.  And (list content again), since so much of the Youngstown-area tonnage on the EL and later Conrail system was steel, and steel products, all this played into just how much of the former EL infrastructure in the area was presevered...or sadly, wasn't.
 
Jeff Larson
ELHS #2683
- -----Original Message-----
From: Smtimko_@_aol.com
To: erielack_@_lists.elhts.org
Sent: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 1:23 PM
Subject: Fwd: (erielack) Re: Youngstown


I referred the posting about the Jeanette Blast Furnace to local  rail/steel 
historian, Rick Rowlands in Youngstown.
 
Here is his response:
 
 
 
 
Steve,
 
Pass this on to the EL List.  As you can tell the whole "Jenny" thing  is a 
bit of a sore subject for me.
 
Rick
 
Good Grief!  Some idiot rock star has managed to rewrite 80 years of  
history.  There never was a blast furnace named "Jenny".  Not here in  the 
Mahoning 
Valley at least.  This fiction has been perpetuated by John  Russo, a so called 
PROFESSOR at Youngstown State University who is riding on  Springsteen's 
coattails by in essence rewriting history by referring to  Jeannette as Jenny in 

his factually inadequate "Steeltown" book. 
 
    I have studied this blast furnace plant for years. I  have most of the 
original engineering drawings for this blast furnace and  nowhere and at any 
time has Jeannette ever been referred to as Jenny. 
 
Here is the real story:
 
On Sept. 20, 1918 the Jeannette blast furnace was blown in at the Brier  Hill 
Steel Company in Youngstown.  The furnace was named after the 4 year  old 
daughter of company president W.A. Thomas, her name was Mary Jeannette. In  1923 

this company became the Brier Hill Works of Youngstown Sheet and  Tube.  The 
plant was served by the Erie whose Brier Hill yard was adjacent  to the 
property.  The PY&A, B&O and LE&E also served the  plant.  Jeannette was blown 
out 
sometime in the late 1970s, possibly  September, 1977 but I don't have data to 
confirm that. That date comes from a  calendar I found hanging in the Jeannette 
stockhouse.
 
Jeannette was a minor producer in the Youngstown district.  Its  shutdown did 
not cause the massive amounts of job loss.  The major plant  closings at the 
YS&T Campbell Works, US Steel Ohio Works and Brier Hill  Works steel making 
department is where the massive job losses came from. 
 
Rick Rowlands
Youngstown, Ohio
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