TheRustJungle

, , ,

1915-16 Steel strike

, , ,

Campbell, O. On today’s date in 1916, the strike against the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. that began 20 days earlier came to a head. East Youngstown, as Campbell was then known, saw it’s business district along Wilson Avenue burned to the ground.

Youngstown Vindicator

Youngstown Vindicator

The image below shows Wilson Ave lit by flames and engulfed in smoke. I’d assume this was taken from Sheet & Tube property; outside of the strike the vantage point could be reversed and the mill would look like this.

Courtesy Ohio memory collection

Courtesy Ohio memory collection

The labor force at the Youngstown Sheet & Tube mill had gone out on strike due to a 9% wage cut while the company was flush with war work. A description of East Youngstown (Campbell) from Men & Steel: “ In East Youngstown life is scraped down to the bone: there are the mills, there are the workers-and formerly there were the saloons. There is nothing else. Here are no fine houses, only the steel workers' dwellings. Most of them are ugly frame buildings, climbing muddy streets.

In East Youngstown you realize that men are here not to live but to tend the mills. Humanity is dwarfed; the machines which make the industry are exalted. In East Youngstown is nothing but steel; there is a pillar of cloud by day and there is a saffron glare in the sky by night that forever reminds you of this...”

Youngstown Vindicator

Youngstown Vindicator

Some accounts say that J.M. Woltz., safety supervisor of YS&T - also named police chief of East Youngstown, fires the first shot as a “warning”. Three dead as a result. He was also called to testify before Congress for sending spies into the mills and labor meetings ahead of the deadly 1937 steel strike.

A wage increase resulted from this strike, as well as the construction of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company homes and the renaming of East Youngstown to Campbell after James Campbell - president of the Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.

Images of the aftermath below.

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

Courtesy Ohio Memory Collection

, , , , , ,

STEELTON

, , , , , ,

Youngstown, O. - The image below seems to me like two different places and times melted together. The man in the photo is Michael Volinchak who was born in Odessa, Ukraine and came to the US in 1908. The photo was taken at the family home on Broadview Avenue; Mr. Volinchak posing in front of his rows of corn with one of the Carnegie-Illinois/US Steel Ohio Works blast furnaces in the background.

Courtesy “Bubba Poonyuk” via FB

Courtesy “Bubba Poonyuk” via FB

Youngstown was a true melting pot in its heyday. Immigrants flocked to the city from all over Europe, others migrated north from southern states and Puerto Rico for the same reason: good paying jobs in the mills. Men of similar nationalities worked in specific departments, and lived in the same neighborhoods as their countrymen.

The Steelton area of the lower West Side was primarily Eastern European, with the exception of Imperial and Elberne Streets that Italian immigrants called home. According to the 1940 census below Mr. Volinchak lived between the Balinsky [sp] family from Hungary and the Ferrara family from Italy. The patriarchs of those two families worked down the mill at that time. Mr. Volinchak was 66 and likely retired from the same mill.

IMG_7899.jpeg

The homestead pictured was just steps from the AUP (American Ukrainian Progressive) Club. The proprietor, Charles “Gezzy” Hankavich, was known amongst other things for sponsoring Ukrainian immigrants. He let them stay in the apartments above the bar until they could get hired on at the mill across the street. A full post on that social club, which I was lucky enough to photograph, is to come but a few images are below.


Figure 1 is a hat that I came to find out belonged to my buddy’s grandpa and still sat on top of the bar - “Hunky Town U.S.A. Steelton, Ohio”

Figure 2 shows a taste of what records are still in the jukebox - local polkas right next to Sinatra.

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Fig. 2

Fig. 2

, , ,

Youngstown Steel Door

, , ,

Austintown, O. - Founded in 1924, Youngstown Steel Door was primarily known as a builder of boxcar doors and rail car sides. Steel Door converted to a war time manufacturer in the 40s that employed quite a few females according to the photos available on the Ohio Memory collection website.  Rosie the Steelworker built external fuel tanks for some of the most legendary fighter planes of the Second World War. See below for a sampling of those, as well as a photo of their outgoing products from the mid 50s courtesy of Bob Abbatto. Stay tuned for a full post featuring some of the photos Bob took in Youngstown, specifically the West Side, during the industrial heyday of the Valley.

 

 

Details on the fuel tanks built at Steel Door.

Fabricating the tanks featured above.

Below: Steel doors shipping out from Youngstown Steel Door in the mid 50s, on what was then the Erie RR. When I was a kid this line, which ran near my house, was the Youngstown and Austintown RR aka my playground.

, , , ,

Youngstown Sheet and Tube Campbell Works

, , , ,

Campbell, O. - The boys in the Open Hearth department receiving their award for 1,000,000 man hours without a major injury.

My pops made his living, until shortly after Black Monday, hauling hot slag out of the Open Hearth in Campbell. I wonder if he knew these guys. He drove a slag truck for Industrial Mill Service until they shut down the Campbell works. He was working night turn, and after his last shift running to the slag dump he and his coworkers went for a drink to drown their sorrows. He said they went to a "social club" in Struthers called Saint Anthony's that served liquor at 7am on a Sunday, which I'm assuming was against Ohio liquor laws haha. 

A story he told me when I was younger still sticks with me. Apparently a ladle accidentally spilled hot metal on the floor in the mill, and they needed to get it cleaned up in a hurry. They loaded the molten metal into the open top dump trucks they used to haul the slag. It was so hot that the sides of the trailer were glowing red. The Christmas decorations were up in downtown Strudders, you know the wreaths and what not they hang from the streetlights. The decorations were melting off of the poles when he stopped under them, and the people walking down the street were taking cover from the heat radiating from the trailer. 

, , , ,

WILLIAM B. POLLOCK, Co.

, , , ,

Youngstown, O. - "The End of a Long and Proud History" This is a sad one. This company built blast furnaces and hot metal transportation equipment that was not only used in the Steel Valley, but all over the world. They lasted 120 years. The tombstone in the bottom right of the photo reads "Pollock Company 1863 - 1983 Laid to Rest by GATX"  Present in this photo: Front, left to right: Barry Shultz, Bill Kasmer, Tom Hull, Jim Roper, Emily, Joan, Ray, Bob, Bill Hill, John Titak, Bill Deak, Jim Slifka, Mike Kohl, unknown, and Joe Bunosky. To right side of grave marker: Sam Muscatell, unknown, and Dwayne Schonce. Back row: Laddie Bodnor, Roger Powell, and Chester Queen. Images courtesy of Ohio History Connection.

 

The Final Shipment

Here are some images of employees dating back to the early days of the company

1910 -  Cinder Car 

1910 - Fabrication Crew - Could be building Cowper stoves for a blast furnace.

1910 - Showing off new safety goggles.

1940s/50s - Line of Pollock Co. cinder cars with US Steel's Edgar Thompson works in the background.

1960 - Pollock hot metal car at J&L steel Pittsburgh works.

, , , , , ,

Ghost Signs

, , , , , ,

Steel Valley, O. - I was in Youngstown a couple weekends back, and went ghost sign hunting. Found some gems I want people to see so here you go.

 

Youngstown, O. - The William B. Pollock Company.

Never thought I would find something this historically significant. I came across this on accident, was down the bottom of Himrod Avenue looking for this company, but was looking at the wrong building. Gave up and went next door to photgraph the old 10/90 warehouse (a dress factory converted to a semi legal skate park in the 90s), looked up and saw something painted on the wall of the building across the street. Sure and begorrah it was the logo for the William B. Pollock Co. You can barely make out the logo on the wall, but check out the Pollock ad below and compare the two. Founded in 1863, this company built America. They engineered and built blast furnaces and hot metal cars. This plant right at the end of Federal St. had a hand in revolutionizing the steel industry. They were responsible for engineering and building the Trumbull Cliffs furnace, which I believe at that time was the largest blast furnace in the world. This furnace was owned by Republic Steel, WCI Steel, Severstal and RG Steel. She is the last blast furnace in the Steel Valley, and is in the midst of demolition. 

Girard, O. - Youngstown Sheet and Tube Brier Hill Works. 

This is a two for one bonus. Behind the fading "Syro Steel Brier Hill Div" ghost sign, you can see the yellow and black sign they painted over peeking through. The original sign proudly read "Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company". I know this because there was an identical Sheet and Tube sign on the side of the Struthers works that faced the river/Wilson Ave. That building is gone, but I photographed it 15 years ago or so, see bottom photo (old photo, excuse poor quality). If you zoom in on the current photo, you will see the "Syro Steel Entrance" sign on the sloped building that is dwarfed by that roof vent that is sitting on the ground. This was an underground entrance into the mill, and man I want to go down there.  

Niles, O. - Republic Steel 

I took this photo just over 10 years ago. I went back recently to photograph it again with a better camera, only to find they painted it over. Glad I got this when I did.

Youngstown, O. - The Snyder-Bentley Co.

I don't know much about this company, except they are located across the street from what was Carnegie Steel's Upper Union Mills. The were an industrial distributor of some sort formed in the 20's, and they have a cool looking sign.

Youngstown, O.- Brier Hill Slag Co.

This isn't a ghost sign in the traditional sense I suppose, but it's gone so it applies to me. Damn I wish I would have preserved this thing. This sat in front of what was Sheet and Tube Brier Hill works. I took this as they were tearing down the YST office building in the background. I think Youngstown Steel Heritage ( http://www.todengine.org/ ) has the engraved stone sign that was at the top of the building that read "Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company".

Warren, O. - Copperweld Steel Co. 

This isn't a ghost sign either, but my grandpa worked here 33 years so you're going to have to deal with looking at it. Did you know during WWII Copperweld rolled and stretched uranium for the war effort? My grandpa was away fighting ze Germans, but when he came home he worked a rolling mill out there. Wonder if it was one that rolled the radioactive material for the Manhattan Project.

All text and images Copyright Paul Grilli 2021

Cart (0)