Sparrows Point, Maryland | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 39°13′9″N76°28′34″W / 39.21917°N 76.47611°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Maryland |
County | Baltimore |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
ZIP codes | 21219 |
GNIS feature ID | 591325 |
Sparrows Point is an industrial area in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Edgemere. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. [1] The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast of the United States. [2] Today Sparrows Point is home to many distribution centers, fulfillment centers, training lots, storage lots, and the like, including those operated by Under Armour, Amazon, Home Depot, Volkswagen, and McCormick & Company. [3] [4]
Sparrows Point was originally marshland home to Native American tribes until being granted to one Thomas Sparrow Jr. (1620 - 1674) by Cecilius Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, around 1652. His son Solomon Sparrow made a home there, calling it "Sparrow's Nest". [5] In the 1700s the area became home to other families, who farmed and raised crops, building homes and hunting lodges. Among the many wealthy residents of Baltimore who owned property there was Major General George H. Steuart, who hosted the social reformer Dorothea Dix at Sparrows Point. [6] By the 1860s much of the land, about 385 acres (156 ha), was owned by the Fitzell family. [5]
Sparrows Point remained largely rural until 1887, when an engineer named Frederick Wood realized that the marshy inlet would make an excellent deep-water port for the Pennsylvania Steel Company. [7] : 7 The Fitzells were reluctant to part with their peach orchards but were eventually persuaded to sell. [5]
Following World War II, many rural economic migrants settled in Sparrows Point, coming from Southern and Appalachian states. These migrants came to work at the Bethlehem Steel plant. [8] Many of these workers were from rural areas and mining towns of West Virginia and Central Pennsylvania. [9]
Steel was first made at Sparrows Point in 1889 by the Maryland Steel Company, a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Steel Company. [10]
In 1916, Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, purchased the mill. The mill's steel was used as girders in the Golden Gate Bridge and in cables for the George Washington Bridge, and was a vital part of war production during World War I and World War II. [11] The mill was served by four railroads: the Western Maryland, Pennsylvania, Baltimore & Ohio, and the local Patapsco & Back River Railroad, which was responsible for yard work.
In the mid-1950s, the plant operated 10 blast furnaces and had a rated capacity of 8,200,000 short tons (7,321,000 long tons; 7,439,000 t) of ingot steel per year, making the Sparrows Point waterfront plant the largest steel mill in the world at the time, stretching 4 miles (6.4 km) from end to end and employing 30,000 workers. [1] Most of the iron ore consumed at the plant came via ship, imported from mines in South America and Labrador. Limestone and coal was brought in from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and West Virginia via rail. Steel was produced in 35 open hearth furnaces and cast into ingots, which were then reheated in soaking pits to be rolled into blooms or slabs via a large reversing rolling mill. Blooms were then rolled into long products like welded pipe, rebar, wire products, and nails. Slabs were rolled into sheets in a continuous rolling mill and plate in a reversing mill. The facility also featured a 66" cold rolling mill, a galvanizing line, and a tinplating line for sheet products. Additionally, the plant's coke ovens were also set up to capture certain coke byproducts like tar and toluene for resale. [12]
Changes in the steel industry over the following decades, including a rise in imports and a move toward the use of simpler oxygen furnaces and the recycling of scrap, along with the intrinsically time and labor-intensive process of open-hearth steelmaking, led to a decline in the use of the Sparrows Point complex during the 1970s and 1980s.
From 1984 through 1986, an effort to modernize resulted in the successful installation of a basic oxygen furnace (BOF), continuous caster and supporting management information systems. However, this effort to save the plant and Bethlehem Steel was, perhaps, too little too late.
In 2005, the Sparrows Point plant was acquired by Mittal Steel as part of its acquisition of Bethlehem Steel's successor company International Steel Group after Bethlehem Steel's bankruptcy.
In March 2008, Mittal Steel sold the plant to the Russian company Severstal for $810 million. By 2008, the steelmaking capacity at Sparrows Point had dropped to 3.6 million tons per year, and it sold 2.3 millions tons of finished products. [13]
In 2012, the Sparrows Point steel mill was purchased along with other mills in Ohio and West Virginia by Ira Rennert's Renco Group for $1.2 billion. [14] This made Renco the fifth owner in the past ten years. RG Steel, LLC, a unit of Renco, ran the facility until it filed for bankruptcy on May 31, 2012. [15]
The Sparrows Point steel mill was purchased by Hilco Trading during RG Steel's liquidation in August 2012, and the cold mill assets were purchased by Nucor, who in 2012 and 2013 dismantled the cold mill, intending to use its parts to support their existing sheet mills. [16]
In September 2014, the 3,100-acre (1,300 ha) property was purchased by Sparrows Point Terminal, LLC (SPT). [17] SPT entered into agreements with the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and the EPA, under which SPT agreed to develop and execute plans to complete the environmental cleanup of the site. [18] [19]
The agreements require SPT to establish a $43 million trust fund and provide MDE with a $5 million letter of credit to ensure that the cleanup work is completed, but the company remains obligated to complete the remediation work in accordance with those agreements, even if the cost exceeds $48 million. [18] SPT also agreed to provide the EPA with $3 million to perform additional offshore investigation and, if necessary, offshore remediation. [18] Both the purchase of the property by SPT and the company's agreements with MDE and USEPA were hailed by government and business leaders as a positive turning point for Sparrows Point. Maryland's Secretary of the Environment, Robert M. Summers, described the agreements as providing a "clear path to completion" of the environmental cleanup and an "extraordinary level of protection for the environment and public health." [18] Viewing the environmental cleanup as the first step toward major economic revitalization for Sparrows Point and the surrounding region, Baltimore County Executive Kevin B. Kamenetz stated that "the future for returning thousands of family-supporting jobs to Sparrows Point looks brighter than it has in many decades." [20] According to one of SPT's executives, the company's plans for redevelopment include transforming the site into "one of the largest ports on the East Coast". [17]
In September, 2018, Amazon opened a fulfillment center on the property as part of the Tradepoint Atlantic industrial complex. [4] [21] In 2020 it opened a second fulfillment center next door. [22]
In 2023, it was announced that the US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration had allocated $47.4 million to redevelop the site of the former steel mill into an offshore wind turbine fabrication facility called Sparrows Point Steel. [23]
The Sparrows Point Shipyard site was a major center for shipbuilding and ship repair. Maryland Steel Company established the Sparrows Point yard in 1889, and it delivered its first ship in 1891. Bethlehem Steel Corporation acquired the Sparrows Point shipyard in 1917. During the mid-twentieth century, Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding (BethShip)'s Sparrows Point yard was one of the most active shipbuilders in the United States, delivering 116 ships in the seven-year period between 1939 and 1946.
During the 1970s, Bethlehem Steel invested millions of dollars in upgrades and improvements to the Sparrow' Point yard, making it one of the most modern shipbuilding facilities in the country. This included the construction of a large graving dock to allow for the construction of supertankers up to 1,200 feet (370 m) in length and 265,000 short tons (240,000 t) (gross) in size.
Bethlehem Steel lurched from one financial crisis to another throughout the 1980s and 1990s, selling the Sparrows Point yard to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Veritas Capital, in 1997 as part of an unsuccessful restructuring attempt. Baltimore Marine operated the facility as a ship repair and refurbishment yard until 2003, when Baltimore Marine Industries collapsed in bankruptcy.
The Sparrows Point shipyard complex was sold at auction to Barletta Industries Inc. in 2004. Barletta is attempting a redevelopment of the site for use as a business and technology park, and plans to revive shipbuilding on at least part of the site, making use of the modern graving dock added in the 1970s.
In 2007, the international energy company AES Corporation applied to the federal government for a certificate to build and operate a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Sparrows Point. The AES Sparrows Point LNG development would consist of three 160,000-cubic meter storage tanks and vessel offloading systems for LNG tankers. [24] AES would also construct a new natural gas pipeline, the Mid-Atlantic Express, which would run north from Maryland into Pennsylvania, crossing under the Susquehanna River to connect with existing natural gas pipelines. The 33-inch-diameter (840 mm) buried pipeline would be 88 miles (142 km) long. [25] The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the project in January 2009, over the objections of state and county officials in Maryland and Pennsylvania. [26] FERC chairman Jon Wellinghoff cast a dissenting vote, stating that in his opinion the region’s energy needs could be better met without including LNG in the mix. [26] The Maryland Department of the Environment denied Sparrows Point a water-quality permit that would allow the company to dredge in Baltimore Harbor. [27] A citizens' group, the LNG Opposition Group, also opposes the project.
The steelmaking complex included a company town in its midst, initially planned by Frederick Wood and his brother Rufus Wood in the 1890s for Maryland Steel's thousands of workers. It had company stores, churches, and residential streets, with larger homes provided for upper level managers and rowhouses for other employees. [28] [29] By the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, the company town had 9,000 residents. [30] As employment levels grew in the 1910s, workers also commuted to the Sparrows Point industrial complex from communities such as Dundalk and Baltimore City, with the Pennsylvania Railroad operating passenger train service from Baltimore in the early years. Baltimore's United Railways & Electric Company (organized in 1899 and renamed the Baltimore Transit Company in 1935), provided fast, electrified trolley service on its #26 line, which operated over a dedicated, double-track right-of-way for much of its length to the steel mill and shipyard. [31]
Although the company town was demolished in 1973, the nearby Baltimore County unincorporated community and census-designated place of Edgemere includes the Sparrows Point area and Sparrows Point High School, which continues to the present day. [29] [32]
The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Until its closure in 2003, it was one of the world's largest steel-producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its success and productivity, the company was a symbol of American manufacturing leadership in the world, and its decline and ultimate liquidation in the late 20th century is similarly cited as an example of America's diminished manufacturing leadership. From its founding in 1857 through its 2003 dissolution, Bethlehem Steel's headquarters were based in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. Its primary steel mill manufacturing facilities were first located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and later expanded to include a major research laboratory in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and plants in Sparrows Point, Maryland, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Lackawanna, New York, and its final and largest site in Burns Harbor, Indiana.
Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco-based shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited.
Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corporation located on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts. It began operations in 1883 in Braintree, and moved to its final location on Quincy Point in 1901. In 1913, it was purchased by Bethlehem Steel, and later transferred to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. It was sold to General Dynamics in 1963, and closed in 1986. During its operation, yardworkers constructed hundreds of ships, for both military and civilian clients.
An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ironworks is ironworks.
Maryland Steel, in Sparrows Point, Maryland, US, was founded in 1887. It was acquired by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in 1916 and renamed as the Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard. The shipyard was sold in 1997 to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc. In 2012, it was owned by Barletta Industries, which had converted it to the Sparrows Point Shipyard and Industrial Complex. As of 2021, it is owned by Sparrows Point Terminal, LLC and has been renamed Tradepoint Atlantic.
Severstal is a Russian company mainly operating in the steel and mining industry, headquartered in Cherepovets. Severstal is listed on the Moscow Exchange and LSE and is the largest steel company in Russia. The company is majority-owned and controlled by billionaire Alexey Mordashov.
Maryland Route 151 (MD 151) is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. Known for most of its length as North Point Boulevard, the state highway runs 10.80 miles (17.38 km) from 7th Street in Sparrows Point north to U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Baltimore. MD 151 is a four- to six-lane divided highway that connects the communities of Edgemere and Dundalk on the Patapsco River Neck peninsula of southeastern Baltimore County with industrial areas in Sparrows Point and East Baltimore. MD 151 was originally constructed in the early 1920s from Sparrows Point to Edgemere. The highway was connected to Baltimore by the Baltimore County portion of MD 20, a number also assigned to the highway from Rock Hall to Chestertown in Kent County. During World War II, MD 151 was extended north through Dundalk on a new divided highway parallel to MD 20 and through East Baltimore on an expanded Erdman Avenue to connect the Bethlehem Steel complex at Sparrows Point with MD 150 and US 40. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Interstate 695 (I-695) was constructed parallel to MD 151 between Edgemere and MD 157 in Dundalk.
The Emergency Shipbuilding Program was a United States government effort to quickly build simple cargo ships to carry troops and materiel to allies and foreign theatres during World War II. Run by the U.S. Maritime Commission, the program built almost 6,000 ships.
The Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard of Baltimore, Maryland, was a shipyard in the United States from 1941 until 1945. Located on the south shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River which serves as the Baltimore Harbor, it was owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, created by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had operated a major waterfront steel mill outside Baltimore to the southeast at Sparrows Point, Maryland in Baltimore County since the 1880s.
Liberty Fleet Day was first observed on 27 September 1941, the day that 14 merchant ships were launched in shipyards across the United States under the Emergency Shipbuilding program. Among the ships launched was the first Liberty ship, SS Patrick Henry. Some of the merchant ships were subsequently converted to other purposes, including as troop transports and a Royal Navy aircraft carrier. In addition to the merchant ships launched, the US Navy launched two destroyers at the Boston Navy Yard.
Bethlehem Atlantic Works of East Boston, Massachusetts, was a shipyard in the United States from 1853 until 1984. It was owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company. It is located directly to the west of the East Boston Immigration Station. The company's offices were in the Atlantic Works Warehouse, built in 1893.
The Patapsco and Back Rivers Railroad was a Class III switching and terminal railroad, operating in Baltimore County. Owned for the majority of its existence by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, the railroad primarily served Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Terminal area. MCM Management Corporation purchased the PBR, through their purchase of RG Steel corporation, and renamed the railroad the Baltimore Industrial Railroad in 2012. RG Steel, LLC
The Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America (IUMSWA) was an American labor union which existed between 1933 and 1988. The IUMSWA was first organised at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard in Camden, New Jersey after striking in 1934 and 1935. From here it slowly spread to a number of other private shipyards in the Northeast, gaining representation at the Staten Island shipyard in 1936, the Federal Shipyard in 1937, Brooklyn and Hoboken in 1939, Baltimore and Sparrows Point in 1941, as well as a range of other smaller ship repair yards in the New York area. The IUMSWA's industrial coverage of all production workers in the shipbuilding industry brought it into conflict with established craft unions, such as the boilermakers, leading the IUMSWA to be refused an AFL charter in 1933. The IUMSWA later joined the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1936.
Tradepoint Rail, formerly known as the Baltimore Industrial Railroad, is a switching and terminal railroad located on Sparrows Point, Maryland in the industrial sector of Baltimore, Maryland.
The Design 1029 ship was a steel-hulled passenger/cargo ship designed to be converted in times of war to a troopship. design approved for production by the United States Shipping Board's Emergency Fleet Corporation (EFT) in World War I. They were referred to as the 535-type as all the ships were 535 feet overall length. A total of 11 ships were built from 1921 to 1922. Three shipyards built the ships: Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard of Baltimore, Maryland ; Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company of Newport News, Virginia ; and New York Shipbuilding Company of Camden, New Jersey.
Ore Steamship Company and the Ore Navigation Corpoartion were subsidiaries of the Bethlehem Steel Company founded in New York City in 1927. Ore Steamship Company was a proprietary company that was founded so Bethlehem Steel could move goods needed by Bethlehem Steel Company. Ore Steamship Company would transport iron ore to the Bethlehem Steel mills on the Atlantic coast. Some ships took steel and steel products to Bethlehem Shipyards. Port of Baltimore was a major Bethlehem Steel port, the dock was 2,200 feet long in order to load and unload three large, 28,000-ton cargo ships at the same time.
A. H. Bull Steamship Company was a shipping company and passenger liner service founded in New York City in 1902 by Archibald H. Bull (1848-1920). Service started with shipping between New York and Florida. His fleet of ships then added service to other Eastcoast ports. The company is also often called the Bull Lines and the Bull Steamship Line or A. H. Bull & Company. While founded in New York, Bull soon move its headquarter to Peir 5 in Baltimore, Maryland. Bull Lines main Eastcoast ports were: Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia, Tampa and Norfolk, Virginia. Oversea ports: Porto Rico, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Bremen, Copenhagen, and West Africa. Bull Steamship Line supported the US war effort for both World War I and World War II, including the loss of ships.
Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard started as William Skinner & Sons in downtown Baltimore, Maryland in 1815. In 1899 the shipyard was renamed Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Also at the site was Malster & Reanie started in 1870 by William T. Malster (1843–1907). In 1879 Malster partnered with William B. Reaney (1808-1883). In 1880 Malster & Reanie was sold and renamed Columbian Iron Works & Dry Dock Company. Malster & Reanie and Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company merged in 1906, but remained as Skinner Shipbuilding. In 1914 the company was renamed Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company. Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company sold to Bethlehem Steel in 1922, becoming part of Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Bethlehem Steel operated the shipyard for ship repair, conversion and some ship construction. Bethlehem's main ship construction site was across the harbor at Bethlehem Sparrows Point. Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard was known as the Bethlehem Upper Yard located north-east side of Federal Hill. Bethlehem Fort McHenry Shipyard located on the west side of Locust Point peninsula was known as the Lower Yard, near Fort McHenry.
Bethlehem Beaumont Shipyard was a shipyard in Beaumont, Texas that opened in 1948. The yard is located on an island in the Neches River and upstream of the Sabine Pass that grants access to the Gulf of Mexico. The deep-water port shipyard was founded in 1917 as the Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Beaumont Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company started as a World War I Emergency Shipbuilding Program yard.
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