Iron Making

In 1884, the Fownes brothers began operating the first Carrie Blast Furnace, and several years later added a second, bringing capacity to 18,000 tons of pig iron per month. Because of its proximity to the Homestead Works, Andrew Carnegie bought the Carrie Furnaces in 1898 and over the next decade expanded the complex to a total of seven blast furnaces. The furnaces supplied the Homestead Works with iron until they went offline in 1982. In 1900, Carnegie constructed the Hot Metal Bridge to link the Carrie Furnaces to Homestead's steelmaking facilities across the Monongahela River. One of only seven hot metal bridges in the world, it was the heaviest span ever built at that time. Iron was transferred from the blast furnaces in a molten state to save time cooling and reheating the metal, poured into torpedo and ladle cars, and transported across the river by train. Today, only furnaces #6 and #7 remain to evoke the memory of the Big Steel era. Iron ore is mixed with limestone and coke in a blast furnace to produce pig iron that can later be made into steel.

Munhall, Pennsylvania · United States