Continental Steel Corporation

The Continental Steel Corporation was United States steel producer from 1927 until 1986. The company was created on June 21, 1927 through the merger of the Kokomo Steel and Wire Company (founded in Kokomo, Indiana in 1901) with the Superior Sheet Steel Company of Canton, Ohio, and the Chapman Price Steel Company of Indianapolis. Among the original eleven directors was John E. Fredrick, who had been an organizer of the Kokomo Fence Machine Company in 1896 and had served on the board of directors of the Kokomo Steel and Wire Company. Fredrick served as first Chairman of the Board of Continental Steel, whose headquarters were established in Kokomo. The Kokomo operations of this corporation, however, continued to employ the Kokomo Steel and Wire name until 1944. Continental Steel was dissolved in 1986, due to bankruptcy.

Within a year of its founding, the various plants of Continental Steel employed 2288 individuals, a new bar mill was in operation, and the firm was preparing to produce its first steel. Continental Steel would become at one time the largest employer in Kokomo, with a workforce approximating 3000 at its peak. In 1929 the construction of a sheet rolling plant and sheet galvanizing units at Kokomo were authorized, with production in the sheet mill beginning that summer. Continental was able to surmount the rigors of the great depression of the 1930s, and in 1936 its stocks, listed on the since 1929, were admitted on the . Its earnings for 1935 had reached over one million dollars, with total assets valued at more than $18,000,000. During the Second World War Continental produced large tonnages of barbed wire, nails and sheet steel for military use, and it provided material for products manufactured by defense industries. These included aerial bombs, fuel containers and landing mats for air strips.

In 1946 and 1947 Continental Steel sold off its Canton, Ohio and Indianapolis sheet mill facilities, having decided to focus on the manufacture of finished products at Kokomo. The 1950s witnessed considerable expansion: a new continuous rod mill started operations in 1953, in 1955 a welded fabric department was housed in a new facility; the mail mill was modernized and a new nail warehouse was built in 1957; 1959 saw the production of a new item, high carbon wire. By 1963 Continental Steel's open hearth capacity had grown to 420,000 net tons through the enlargement of existing furnaces. The prospering company was producing a wide range of products including fences, gates, posts, welded wire fabric, nails, a variety of wires, clothes lines rivets, and copper steel (Konik) sheets.

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