U.S. Steel Homestead Works, Along Monongahela River, north of Eighth Avenue, Homestead, Allegheny County, PA

Significance: Established in 1879, Homestead Works is one of six plants (Homestead, Edgar Thomson, Duquesne, Irvin, National and Clairton) which, until the collapse in 1982, comprised U.S. Steel's Mon Valley works. In 1883, Andrew Carnegie acquired the works and transformed Homestead from a Bessemer rail mill to a highly mechanized, fully integrated heavy products mill. Open Hearth No. 1 was the first facility for large scale commercial production of basic open hearth steel in the country. Homestead rivaled all other mills in structural steel production during the late-nineteenth-century. The armor forging plant at Homestead played a central role in the development of American sea power and the American military-industrial complex. Homestead was a leader in the use of machinery such as hydraulic and electric cranes to reduce labor and increase production tonnage. In 1901, Homestead, along with the rest of Carnegie Steel, was absorbed by the United States Steel Corporation in a consolidation of the steel industry. Expansion to meet the production demands of World War I and World War II generated important periods of change at Homestead. Also, during the 1920s U.S. Steel modernized Homestead's structural mills in an effort to stay competitive with Bethlehem Steel. Postwar technical developments at the Homestead Works included the commercial development of high-strength alloy steel plate. After the Korean War, the forge division tooled up to produce nuclear containment vessels and electric generator shafts. As a group, the structures and steel-making equipment from Homestead Works represented one of the nation's most important steel mills and the Mon Valley's status as the pre-eminent iron and steel center in the United States for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N359
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N761
Survey number: HAER PA-200
Building/structure dates: 1879 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: 1883 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1895- 1899 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1917 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1926 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1941- 1944 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: 1990-1993 Demolished