When Metal Was King: An Introduction

This article was written by James Wudarczyk and was posted here on August 26, 2007.

The Lawrenceville Story will always be told in bits and pieces for the simple reason that it has only been in more recent years that any serious attempt was made to collect the scattered fragments. Most early attempts were very general in nature. Later attempts were more specific in nature, only because the scope of the subject is so vast. While the industrial period of Lawrenceville’s history spanned a little over a century from the end of the American Civil War until the late 1970’s, much of the historical record has been lost.

Rather than lament the loss, it is more important to light the proverbial candle and search out the record of the community’s industrial heritage. Undoubtedly there are many gaps even in this facet of Lawrenceville life, but one must start somewhere.

Today only a few vestiges of the venerable past remain. Long gone are the great mills that belched fire and smoke into the skies. Long gone are the great furnaces whose breath burned with molten metal. And long gone are many of the structures that made Pittsburgh one of the great steel and metal capitals of the world.

Before even the memory of those colossal legends that boasted of winning world wars completely fades in the vast wasteland of lost history, the remnants of its story must be saved. This challenge to gather the scattered fragments becomes a historical mandate.

The story of iron and steel manufacturing, as well as the fabrication of other metals, goes far beyond the over-simplified recollection of long-time area residents, who simply recall a time when “the mills never slept.” The processing of metal meant risks and profits for entrepreneurs; it meant jobs for thousands of laborers; and it meant products for consumers, railroads, and manufacturers. It was not an idle boast that the wealth of the nation was produced by the wealth of the mills.

Although Lawrenceville is only a tiny spec in a vast nation, its mills contributed to the industrial wealth of America. Just as the products that spilled from the mills reached far beyond the neighborhood’s limited borders, so, too, must its story.

Sadly, more than a quarter century has passed since most of the mills have been silenced. Now is the time to shatter that eerie silence of lost yesterdays. Now is the time to tell of men and mills; of fire, smoke, and blazing ingots, and of the shrill sound of whistles beckoning workers to the belly of the great dragon.