Jones and Laughlin Steel Company

The earliest foundations of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company were the American Iron Company, founded in 1851 by Bernard Lauth, and the firm of Jones and Lauth, founded in 1852 by B. F. Jones a few miles (c 4km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. [cite journal |title=Family's Fourth |journal=Time |year=1936 |issue=April 13 |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,756010-2,00.html |accessdate=2008-08-09] Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James H. Laughlin. [cite web |title=Jones, Benjamin Franlin |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Suu9yUKdA8IC&pg=PA679&lpg=PA679&dq=%22Jones+and+Lauth%22&source=web&ots=vHRjRLQTGY&sig=g3xXkUqc5bvPuppOz44tsTdw7bE&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA679,M1 |format=book |accessdate=9-30-2008] The first firm to bear the name of Jones and Laughlin was organized in 1861. [cite journal |title=Jones-Laughlin Steel to be Reorganized |journal=New York Times |year=1922 |issue=Aug. 6 |url=http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F04EEDC1F3EEE3ABC4E53DFB4678389639EDE |accessdate=2008-08-09] Originally producing only iron, the enterprise began the production of steel in 1886. Over the ensuing 60 years, the company expanded its facilities and its operations along both sides of the Monongahela river and along the Ohio river. The Hot Metal Bridge across the Monongahela river was built to connect the works on one side of the river with the works on the other side of the river. In 1905, a new plant was begun at Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The company also owned coal mines in western Pennsylvania in its early days, including some reached by an incline in Pittsburgh's South Side which connected to the railroad over the bridge adjacent to the Hot Metal Bridge. Other mines were along the nearby Becks Run, also directly connected by raiload. The incline and mines were gone before 1900, but mining continued in Pennsylvania towns such as Vestaburg and elsewhere.

J & L Steel (known to its employees as simply "J & L") provided the most able competition to the Carnegie Steel Company in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. of Texas offered to purchase 63 percent of J & L Steel in 1968.

In 1981, J & L Steel bought a stainless steel mill from McLouth Steel Products in Detroit, MI, which was probably an attempt to try to get closer to the auto market.

From hot strip to parking lot

Dismantling of the buildings which housed J & L Steel produced an upsurge of building on the tracts of land where the buildings had stood. By September 2005, numerous new structures had been erected on both sides of the Monongahela River. Parking lots have been built at places where steel had been produced. Pennsylvania legislators spurred the construction by enacting a law that prohibits the development of farmlands. Developers have therefore turned their attention towards the development of the tracts of land that had been the sites of steel mills.

References

ee also

*National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation
*Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
* [http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?c=jal&g=imls&page=index Jones and Laughlin Image collection at the Pittsburgh History Center]