Tredegar Rolling Mills

The Tredegar Iron Works had several rolling mills that produced rails, bars to be made into spikes, connecting plates for rails, merchant bar iron, and plates. The most famous work of the Tredegar rolling mill was the plates made for the ironclad C.S.S. Virginia. Power was transferred from a turbine or waterwheel to a set of gears that drove a series of stands of rolls, and heated metal was elongated and shaped as it passed through each set. The rolls here, called roughing rolls, shaped the metal first. The rolling mills were highly dependent on skilled workers like Edward Wade, shown with his tongs, and his father James Wade, who ran the Tredegar mill during the Civil War.

Richmond, Virginia · United States