When Metal Was King, Part Three: The Shiffler Bridge Company

This article was written by James Wudarczyk and posted to this site on August 26, 2007.

For the introduction to this series see:
http://www.lhs15201.org/articles_b.asp?ID=41

In late December 1983, U. S. Steel Corporation announced the closing of a number of plants in Western Pennsylvania and curtailing of 5,574 jobs in the district. Included in the announced round of cutbacks, Lawrenceville’s Shiffler Plant was scheduled to close. According to the Pittsburgh Press article of December 28, 1983, “The Shiffler shutdown in Lawrenceville means a loss of 191 jobs, including 97 now working.”

Little information exists on this particular mill. However, Pittsburgh And Environs includes some information on Pittsburgh manufacturers:


The Shiffler Bridge Company, whose main office and works are at Forty-eighth Street and A.V.R.R., have become justly celebrated for reliability and great practical skill as designers and manufacturers of bridges and general structural steel and iron work, also as contractors for building bridges, etc. The business was founded in 1883 by Mr. J. W. Walker, and in 1890 the present company was incorporated, with a capital stock of $300,000. Mr. Walker built the present works, and is still in charge of the enterprise. The plant covers an entire block, and is equipped with every modern appliance and facility for insuring rapid and perfect production, while employment is given to 150 skilled workmen in the works and 100 men outside. The reputation of the company has been secured on the legitimate basis of superior workmanship and substantial elegance. Strictly high-class work is their specialty, and they are recognized as authority upon all matters connected with bridge building and general structural work in iron. They have built many large and important bridges in different parts of the country, notably the bridge over the Mississippi at Minneapolis, and a trestle 220 feet high on the Kentucky Midland Railroad, all of which reflect the highest credit upon the commanding ability of the management. The company is earnest and unremitting in their efforts to afford entire satisfaction to all their patrons, and is actuated in their undertakings by a laudable spirit of enterprise and an ambition to excel. The output of their works aggregates from 8,000 to 10,000 tons of finished material per year, and they are in a position to guarantee the prompt fulfillment of all orders and commissions, and to grant their patrons every possible advantage and benefit as regards both reliability of work and economy of pieces. They also build steel frame work for rolling mills, factories, foundries, etc., which is considered to be unsurpassed for solidity and firmness, and in their special lines they have no superiors.


Apparently the plant was moved in 1911 to a 13-acre site at Fifty-first and Butler Streets in Pittsburgh. It was rearranged and modernized several times: 1922, 1940, 1957, and 1963. According to brief material provided by U. S. Steel Corporation, “The Plant’s production is devoted principally to the fabrication, galvanizing and testing of transmission towers, substations, radio towers and similar structures and corrugated sectional plate drainage structures. It is the largest tower plant in the world.” The same piece identified the principal buildings as being the Office Building and Templet Shop, Receiving and Shipping Yard, Fabricating Shop, Galvanizing Shops, and Corrugated Plate Shop. It also indicated that it received materials by rail and motor trucks.