Hub of Activity

Hub of Activity. . Teeming Ingots , After steel was made in Open Hearth facilities, it was often teemed or formed into columns of steel called ingots. This was done by pouring the molten steel into ingot molds. The ingots would be transported through the Works on an ingot buggy pulled by a railroad engine.

The molds Were removed, or "stripped," and the ingots were reheated in soaking pits. The steel could then be transformed into a variety of products.

Legend has it that when a man was killed in a "heat" (a batch) of steel, an ingot, or portion of the resulting steel, was buried in his memory. The ingots displayed here stand as a symbol of the many men and women who dedicated their lives to the steel industry in the region.

Work And Worship , Between the 1880s and the 1920s, thousands of laborers came to work, not only on this site at the Jones and Laughlin Works, but also in the other mills and foundries that dominated the landscape on Pittsburgh's South Side. The iron, steel, and foundry workers and their families, many of whom were new immigrants, generally settled along ethnic lines, creating a neighborhood that was rich with ethnic customs and traditions. They built houses of worship that reflected their diversity, allowing them to more easily retain their customs, language and religion.

(captions) , St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church, 1938 Library of Congress , Workers leaving mill, c. 1930s Rivers of Steel Archives , Stripped Ingots, c. 1870 Rivers of Steel Archives