Steel Mills

Articles of Incorporation of The Youngstown Iron Sheet and Tube Company were filed with the Secretary of State of Ohio at Columbus on November 23, 1900 and the Company’s existence became effective as of that date. The purpose of the corporation as stated in the Articles of Incorporation was:"Said corporation is formed for the purpose of manufacturing and selling sheet iron and steel and other iron and steel products. The word "Iron" was eliminated from the corporate name in1905.
Fifty years is not long in the history of America or of the iron and steel industry but our fiftieth anniversary seems an appropriate occasion to examine briefly the Company’s record. The changes in its structure from year to year were important but obviously cannot be reported in detail in a brochure of this size. We never shall forget the vision, courage, persistence and hard work of the founders and builders of the Company. The problems of today differ drastically from those of the first quarter of the century but today’s management is struggling with equal determination and persistence to find the answers and overcome the difficulties presently being encountered. The attributes that brought success to the Company’s management in its early days are equally important in today’s management. A study of the Company’s progress may make us realize more fully that free America is the best place in which to work and live. Let us accept with confidence the opportunity and challenge of our own future.

The year 1900 was an active one throughout the country and was a year of high employment, expansion and prosperity. It was particularly an active year in the iron and steel industry because of such combines and mergers already mentioned. Business in the Mahoning Valley with Youngstown as its center was unusually brisk. Several of its pioneer families had sold their holdings to the newly created large steel combines and had surplus funds which they were desirous of putting to work. Following many weeks of discussion and planning, in November 1900 a group of 55 local citizens subscribed $600,000 and the Articles of Incorporation of this Company were signed and duly filed. (In 1950 a total of more than 12,574 persons own the 3,350,016 common shares of the Company issued and outstanding; many hundreds of owners of shares are not included in this figure because they register their shares in the names of brokers or nominees). The first officers of the Company were George D. Wick, president and treasurer, James A. Campbell, vice president and manager, Robert Bentley, secretary, and William C. Reilly, auditor. Land along the Mahoning River was acquired at $100 per acre and the first plant was constructed there; a part of the Campbell plant now occupies this land. The first plant consisted of a puddle mill, a sheet mill and three tube mills

Campbell Works: 306 by-product coke. ovens; one by-product recovery plant; one sintering plant; four blast furnaces; two bessemer converters; twelve open hearth furnaces; one blooming mill; one continuous billet mill; one continuous skelp mill; two merchant bar mills; two track spike machines; one wire rod mill; one wire department; one wire galvanizing department; one 79-inch continuous hot rolled strip and sheet mill; two continuous cold reduction strip mills; six temper mills; two butt weld pipe mills; two seamless pipe mills; one pipe coupling department; one pipe galvanizing department; three electric weld metallic and mechanical tubing units; one rigid conduit department.
Brier Hill Works: 84 by-product coke ovens; one by-product recovery plant; two blast furnaces; twelve open hearth furnaces; one blooming mill; two round mills; one resistance electric weld pipe mill; one cold drawn bar department; one stamping and pressed steel products department (operated by a subsidiary).
Hubbard Works: one blast furnace.

Our Men in Service
This brochure would not be complete and would not properly express the feeling of management, if it did not mention the services of employees in the two world wars. In the first World War, 2,753 employees of "Youngstown" enlisted and served in the armed services. In the second World War, 9,582 employees of the Company and its subsidiaries joined the armed forces; this was a force larger than the entire army of 7,000 men under General Washington when he ended the Revolutionary War at Yorktown. After the first World War, 2,000 employees came back to the Company. After the close of the Second World War, 5,739 former employees returned to the Company, and 19,856 ex-servicemen sought and obtained employment with the Company.
In Memoriam