Federal Steel Company

The Illinois Steel Company was an American steel producer with five plants in Illinois and Wisconsin. Founded through a consolidation in 1889, Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel producer in the United States. In 1898, several other steel and transportation companies were merged into it to form the Federal Steel Company, itself merged into U.S. Steel in 1904.

The first mill associated with the Illinois Steel Company was the North Chicago Rolling Mill, founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1857 as a mill to re-roll iron rails. In 1865, this mill was converted into a steel mill, shortly after the Bessemer process was introduced. The Illinois Steel Company was founded in 1899 following the consolidation of three companies. The North Chicago Rolling Mill Company had plants in Chicago, South Chicago, Chicago (1880), and Milwaukee, Wisconsin (1868). The Union Iron Company (1863) of Chicago and the Joliet Steel Company (1870) were also involved in the merge. The company was based in the Rookery Building in downtown Chicago. Branch offices operated in the Empire Building in New York, New York; the Pioneer Press Building in Saint Paul, Minnesota; the Cuyahoga Building in Cleveland, Ohio; the Security Building in St. Louis, Missouri; and an office in Denver, Colorado.

The Illinois Steel Company became the largest steel company in the state. The company also owned a controlling interest in the Chicago, Lake Shore and Eastern Railway, coal mines in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, iron mines in Michigan and Wisconsin, and limestone mines in Indiana. Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel and iron producer in the country by the late 1880s, producing over 1.1 million tons of pig iron and about one million tons of steel. The company specialized in rail track (including rail, fastenings, and ties), steel bars, steel plates, mineral wool, wire, pig iron, and hydraulic Portland cement. Railroads using Illinois Steel products included the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, Wabash, Chicago & Alton, and Baltimore & Ohio. Pig iron operations were handled in conjunction with Pickands, Brown & Company.

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