The Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company (originally the Des Moines Bridge and Iron Company), and often referred to as Pitt-Des Moines Steel or PDM was an American steel fabrication company. It operated from 1892 until approximately 2002 when its assets were sold to other companies, including Chicago Bridge & Iron Company. [1] [2] [3] The company began as a builder of steel water tanks and bridges. It also later fabricated the "forked" columns for the World Trade Center in the 1960s, [1] and was the steel fabricator and erector for the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. [4] [5] A number of its works are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [6] [7]
The company was founded in 1892 by two graduates of Iowa State College, William H. Jackson and Berkeley M. Moss. [8] The partners initially contracted to have their steel tanks fabricated by Keystone Bridge Company of Pittsburgh, but soon took on a third partner, Edward W. Crellin, who was operating a small fabricating shop in Des Moines, Iowa. It was at this point that the Des Moines Bridge and Iron Company was formed. The company would ship steel stock from Pittsburgh for the manufacture of a range of engineered products including water towers, bridges, water works and electric plants. Moss left the company around 1905, after a new fabricating plant had been opened in Warren, Pennsylvania, in 1900.
In 1916, the name of the company was changed to Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company, and a new headquarters was opened in Pittsburgh. The partnership remained until 1956, when the company was incorporated. [9] It later became Pittsburgh-Des Moines Corporation in 1980, which was later shortened to Pitt-Des Moines, Inc. in 1985. It had also had registered "PDM" as a trademark as early as 1930. [10]
In July 1993, the original site and fabrication works in Des Moines, Iowa (by then called the Des Moines Heavy Bridge Division) was damaged beyond salvage due to flooding from the Raccoon River, causing the site to be permanently closed, [11] and later sold.
In 2001, the company was acquired by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company. The Warren plant was closed in early 2009 by CB&I. [12] Also in 2001, the company's steel distribution unit was acquired by Reliance Steel & Aluminum Co. [13]
In 2016, PDM relocated its headquarters to the city of Elk Grove, California, where it remains today. [14]
Works include (with variations in attribution so noted):
The Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation, also known as J&L Steel or simply as J&L, was an American steel and iron manufacturer that operated from 1852 until 1968. The enterprise began as the American Iron Company, founded in 1852 by Bernard Lauth and Benjamin Franklin Jones, about 2.5 mi (4.0 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James Laughlin. The first firm to bear the name of Jones and Laughlin was organized in 1861, and headquartered at Third & Ross in downtown Pittsburgh.
James Barney Marsh was an American engineer and bridge designer. He patented a new design for arch bridges. Marsh gave Archie Alexander, the first African-American to graduate as an engineer from Iowa State University, his first job. Marsh worked in the bridge building business for over 50 years, and several of his bridges are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
The Wisconsin Bridge and Iron Company (WB&I) was a fabricator and erector of iron and steel bridges and other large structures.
CB&I, originally known as Chicago Bridge & Iron Co, is a global engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm that specializes in providing comprehensive storage solutions for infrastructure and industrial projects. Founded in 1889 and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas, CB&I has established itself as a leader in the design, fabrication and installation of storage tanks and terminals, along with a range of other industrial structures.
The King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company was a late-19th-century bridge building company located in Cleveland, Ohio. It was founded by Zenas King (1818–1892) in 1858 and subsequently managed by his sons, James A. King and Harry W. King and then his grandson, Norman C. King, until the mid-1920s. Many of the bridges built by the company were used during America's expansion west in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and some of these bridges are still standing today.
The Marsh Engineering Company was a company that designed many significant bridges in the United States, including a number that survive and are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was located at 206 Masonic Temple in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Central Design Office, Ames was a design office at Iowa State, in Ames, Iowa that designed public works, many built under the Civilian Conservation Corps program. It designed many that are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Co., also known as Missouri Valley Bridge Company, was an engineering, construction, and steel fabrication firm that operated through the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. It was based in Leavenworth, Kansas, with a WWII facility in Evansville, Indiana.
The Jefferson Street Viaduct is a historic structure located in Ottumwa, Iowa, United States. The riveted Warren deck truss bridge was completed in 1936. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 as a part of the Highway Bridges of Iowa MPS.
Clinton Bridge and Iron Works was a significant company in Clinton, Iowa.
Frank E. Wetherell was an American architect in the Midwest U.S. state of Iowa who was active from 1892 to 1931. Frank Wetherell was educated in the Oskaloosa, Iowa schools, and went on to Iowa City where he first studied civil engineering at the State University of Iowa, then changed to the field of architecture. It appears that he began his professional career in Oskaloosa in 1892, at the age of twenty-two. Following his marriage in 1894 to Amy Loosley, the couple moved to Peoria, Illinois, where Frank practiced for four years there before returning to Oskaloosa. The earliest architectural Frank Wetherell commission known in Oskaloosa is the renovation of the N.B. Weeks residence at 407 A Avenue East in 1894. Frank Wetherell founded the second oldest architectural firm in the state in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1905. He worked with Roland Harrison in partnership Wetherell & Harrison. The firm designed numerous Masonic buildings.
Waddell & Harrington was an American engineering company that designed bridges from 1907 to 1915. It was formed in 1907 as a partnership of John Alexander Low Waddell (1854–1938) and John Lyle Harrington (1868–1942) and was based in Kansas City, Missouri, but had offices in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, British Columbia. The company designed more than 30 vertical-lift bridges for highways and railroads.
H. Gene McKeown & Assoc. is an architecture, engineering and construction services firm in Iowa, United States.
The Illinois Steel Company was an American steel producer with five plants in Illinois and Wisconsin. Founded through a consolidation in 1889, Illinois Steel grew to become the largest steel producer in the United States. In 1898, several other steel and transportation companies were merged into it to form the Federal Steel Company, itself merged into U.S. Steel in 1901.
The Hampton Waterworks is a historic site located in Hampton, Arkansas. Completed in 1937, it is the only surviving example of a Public Works Administration-built waterworks in Calhoun County. The site contains a good example of a 1930s-era elevated steel water tower, built by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company. The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.
The Cotter water tower is a historic elevated steel water tower located in Cotter, Arkansas. It was constructed in 1935 by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company, as part of the development of the local water supply system by the Public Works Administration. The tower was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, as part of a multiple-property listing that included numerous other PWA-era projects in Arkansas, under the heading “An Ambition to Be Preferred: New Deal Recovery Efforts and Architecture in Arkansas, 1933-1943.”
The Cotton Plant water tower is a historic elevated steel water tower located in Cotton Plant, Arkansas. It was built in 1935 by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company in conjunction with the Public Works Administration as part of a project to improve the area's water supply. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2008, as part of a multiple-property listing that included numerous other New Deal-era projects throughout Arkansas.
The Mineral Springs Waterworks is a historic site located in Mineral Springs, Arkansas. It contains a good example of a 1930s-era elevated steel water tower, built in 1936 by the Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Company in conjunction with the Public Works Administration as part of a project to improve the town's water supply. The tower was built to store water obtained from a nearby well. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, as part of a multiple-property listing that included numerous other New Deal-era projects throughout Arkansas. A new water well was drilled nearby in 1985; however, the original water tower still stands. The Mineral Springs Waterworks remains in operation.
The Illinois Steel Bridge Company was an American manufacturer of bridges based in Jacksonville, Illinois. It is credited as builder of a number of bridges and other structures that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Nishnabotna River Bridge is located southwest of Manilla, Iowa, United States. It carries traffic on 310th Street over the Nishnabotna River. Steel was in short supply during World War II as a part of the war effort. Many bridges built across the state were built in this era with timber, especially small-scale bridges. Heavy flooding washed out 27 bridges and culverts in Crawford County in May 1945. The county board of supervisors used emergency funds to build new bridges. They bought several steel superstructures from the Des Moines Steel Company to replace the wash-out spans. The bowstring arch-truss structures appear to have been designed by H. Gene McKeown, a civil engineer from Council Bluffs. This bridge is one several similar structures built in the county, and one of five that still remain. The bridge was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
…it took five years to construct the 1.6-mile-long bridge… Pittsburgh-Des Moines Steel Co., which had operations on Neville Island, fabricated steel for the massive span… was a general contractor… After the $60.3 million bridge opened on March 23, 1977, it was recognized the following year by the Chicago-based American Institute of Steel Construction as a top design among U.S. bridges of more than 400 feet in length… Engineering News-Record magazine reported in 1972 that Pittsburgh-Des Moines submitted a low bid of $30.7 million for the superstructure on all of the bridge's spans…