Industrial Icons

Industrial Icons. Traditional Iron Ore-making Machinery Becomes Public Art. This ladle, a vessel traditionally used to transport and pour molten iron, was acquired from the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh. Positioned here at the eastern end of Ship Canal Commons, it is located near where the Hanna Furnace Company once had one of its operating ladles. A rail wrench and iron ingots were discovered and salvaged during construction and have been installed near the base of the ladle. , Together, these historic objects stand testiment to the thousands of steel and iron workers employed in Western New York during the 20th century. They commemorate the men and women who dedicated their lives to this difficult and dangerous work that drove the American economy for decades. , Founded in 1899 by William Rogers and Frank and Charles Goodyear, the Buffalo and Susquehanna Iron Company was an industrial pig iron foundry intended to be a source of iron ingots for neighboring Bethlehem Steel and steel production throughout the northeast. , The founders sold the mill to the H.A. Hanna Company of Cleveland, Ohio, a large iron ore broker and shipper. Renamed the Hanna Furnace Company shortly after, the facility began to produce up tp 3,1000 tons of iron ignots daily and at its peak employed over 800 workers. , Pig iron is the intermediate product of steel; the result of smelting iron ore with coke and limestone. The materials combine with intense heat inside a blast furnace to purify the iron ore. The liquid is drained out through the bottom of the furnace and is diverted into a long, runner with many shorter channels or ignots, where the iron cools and hardens. The name "pig iron" comes from the resemblance of the runner to a mother pig, and the ignots to suckling piglets.