Steelworks Center of the West

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Steelworks Museum

The Steelworks Center of the West, is a non-profit organization focused on preserving the history of the coal and steel industry in the Western United States. Based in Pueblo, Colorado and formerly known as the Bessemer Historical Society, which took its name from the community of Bessemer, site of the Colorado Coal and Iron Bessemer Works which was named after the Bessemer process for making steel invented by Henry Bessemer. [1]

Pueblo, Colorado City in Colorado, United States

Pueblo is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The population was 106,595 in 2010 census, making it the 267th most populous city in the United States and the 9th largest in Colorado. Pueblo is the heart of the Pueblo Metropolitan Statistical Area, totaling over 160,000 people and an important part of the Front Range Urban Corridor. As of 2014, Pueblo is the primary city of the Pueblo–Cañon City combined statistical area (CSA) totaling approximately 208,000 people, making it the 134th largest in the nation.

Bessemer (Pueblo) Neighborhood and former city in Pueblo, Colorado, United States

Bessemer, Colorado was a city in Colorado that was incorporated in 1886. The community was named after Henry Bessemer, an English inventor. It was one of four adjacent towns settled after the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859. The communities of South Pueblo, Central Pueblo, Pueblo, and Bessemer were later merged to create the modern City of Pueblo, Colorado. Bessemer was an independent city until 1894 and was the last city to join Pueblo. The former community of Bessemer is sometimes now referred to as the Bessemer neighborhood. Its also known as the Bessemer area. The Bessemer area is home to both Bessemer Academy and Bessemer park.

Colorado Coal and Iron Company was formed in 1880 when three Denver and Rio Grande subsidiaries controlled by William J. Palmer merged. These were the Colorado Coal and Steel Works Company, the Central Colorado Improvement Company, and the Southern Colorado Coal and Town Company. In 1890 the company appointed Henry S. Grove President. Grove, a recognized "Captain of Industry" would eventually merge the company with the Colorado Fuel Company to form the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, which for many years was Colorado's largest employer and dominated industry around the state for decades.

Colorado Coal and Iron Company merged with the Colorado Fuel Company to form Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) in 1892. [1] [2]

Colorado Fuel and Iron

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel concentration. By 1903, it was mainly owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs. While it came to control many plants throughout the country, its main plant was a steel mill on the south side of Pueblo, Colorado and was the city's main industry for most of its history. From 1901 to 1912, Colorado Fuel and Iron was one of the Dow Jones Industrials. The steel-market crash of 1982 lead to the decline of the company. After going through several bankruptcies, the company was acquired by Oregon Steel Mills in 1993, and changed its name to Rocky Mountain Steel Mills. In January 2007, along with the rest of Oregon Steel's holdings, was acquired by EVRAZ Group, a Russian steel corporation, for $2.3 billion.

The Steelworks Center of the West owns and operates the Steelworks Museum, the Steelworks Archives (formerly the CF&I Archives), and the Steelworks Park that is currently under construction in Pueblo. They provide continuing education of the steel industry's impact on the region through the preservation of historic archives, artifacts, and buildings of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and through related activities leading to the industrialization of the Western US. They collect, preserve, and exhibit documents and artifacts from the steel and mining industry, Pueblo’s Bessemer neighborhood, and from the employees and families of employees who have worked either at the steel mill or in the coal and iron mines of Southern Colorado.

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References

  1. 1 2 Wyckoff, William (1999). Creating Colorado: The Making of a Western American Landscape, 1860-1940. p. 147.
  2. Whiteside, James (1990). Regulating danger: the struggle for mine safety in the Rocky Mountain coal Industry. University of Nebraska Press. p. 8.

Coordinates: 38°14′16″N104°36′45″W / 38.23787°N 104.6124°W / 38.23787; -104.6124

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.