IRONDALE, WASHINGTON AND THE GROWTH OF AN IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY IN THE FAR WEST.

摘要

Irondale, a quiet residential area located ten miles south of Port Townsend on the northeast corner of Washington's Olympic Peninsula, was once the site of a major iron and steel industry. The Puget Sound Iron Company opened the first blast furnace there in 1881 and produced pig iron through 1889. Pacific Steel Company restored the furnace in 1901 and ran it until 1904. The Irondale Furnace Company purchased the property in 1906 and later, as Western Steel Corporation, added a steel plant. Irondale's most ambitious era culminated in 1910 when it was the only plant west of Pueblo, Colorado to produce steel from its own raw materials. After Western Steel's financial failure in 1911 the new owners, Pacific Coast Steel Company, dismantled and removed the steel making machinery. The iron plant remained idle until it reopened between 1917 and 1919 as an emergency war measure, and was then torn down and sold as scrap.; Irondale's fate closely paralleled that of that plant. In 1910 it contained 1,400 people, 400 of whom worked for Western Steel. Facilities included a post office, telephone and telegraph service, graded streets, electric lights, a newspaper, a school, a hospital, a complete water system, and six store and office blocks. When the steel plant went bankrupt, people drifted away and in 1914 a fire swept through the virtual "ghost-town." The population fell to 200 and only ruins remained of the dream for a "steel city of the Northwest."; Several factors explain the failure of a steel industry at Irondale: the poor quality and short supply of iron ore; fuel problems; inadequate capital; high labor costs; and a limited market. Despite these disadvantages, Irondale symbolized a desire in the West for self-sufficiency and encouraged the inauguration of other iron and steel producing plants there. The Irondale study provides local and national insights into the factors that determined the success or failure of such a critical industry.