Columbia Steel Company

The Columbia Steel Company, sometimes shortened to Columbia Steel, is an American steel company headquartered in the state of Oregon. It had its origins in 1901, but did not officially organize under its current name until 1909.^[1]

History

The Columbia Steel Company was organized in 1909 with main offices at 503 Market Street, San Francisco. When formed the company had one plant in Portland, Oregon, established in 1903 and a bigger plant in Pittsburg, California, established in 1909–1910. The company's namesake is the Columbia River. In 1917 the Pittsburg plant (38°01′36″N 121°51′46″W / 38.02664°N 121.86284°W / 38.02664; -121.86284 (Pittsburg steel plant)) had a monthly output of 800 tons open hearth steel and employed 375.^[2]

In February 1920 a new rolling mill was opened at the Pittsburg plant.^[3] Open hearth furnace capacity reached 7000 tons per month.^[4]

From 1918 to 1921 the short-lived Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company ran a shipyard in neighboring Bay Point. Shipbuilding across the country declined rapidly in the early 1920s at the end of the World War I shipbuilding boom.

January 1923, the Columbia Steel Corporation was formed and acquired all property of the Columbia Steel Company. Dated 1 February 1923, $4,000,000 7% 15-year first mortgage bonds were offered to raise capital for the planned expansion of operations into Utah.^[5]

On 1 April 1923, the Torrance, California plant of the Llewellyn Iron Works (33°50′20″N 118°18′57″W / 33.83901°N 118.31586°W / 33.83901; -118.31586 (Torrance steel plant)) was acquired by the Corporation. The Iron Trade Review characterizes it somewhat differently than the Pacific Marine Review had done in 1919.^[6] This may be due to the same plant being operated differently in a market with lower demand.

• 2 35-ton open hearth furnaces
• 1 3-ton Heroult electric furnace
• 37,500 tons annual ingot and castings capacity
• 1 22-inch billet mill
• 1 14-inch intermediate mill
• 1 12-inch and 1 8-inch bar mills

Construction of the blast furnace at Ironton near Provo, Utah (40°12′00″N 111°38′02″W / 40.20004°N 111.63400°W / 40.20004; -111.63400 (Ironton furnace)), began in April 1923 and it became operational on 1 May 1924. The rated capacity was 120,000 tons/year. Coke was baked in 33 Becker-type ovens built by the Koppers Co. of Pittsburgh, Pa., with a capacity for cooking 1000 tons of coal per day and production of 207,300 tons of coke per year. Coal was sourced from Columbia's own mines in Carbon County (39°31′01″N 110°22′51″W / 39.51701°N 110.38092°W / 39.51701; -110.38092 (Carbon County coal mine)). Iron ore and limestone from Columbia-owned mines.^[7] The Carbon Country Railroad Co. subsidiary was established^[8] to build and operate 4.79 miles of track to connect to the coal mine.^[9] Map of this track:^[10]

The blast furnace went into continuous operation until at least 192; its performance can be tracked during that time with available accurate data. Different recipes were tried in four distinct periods of operation. The furnace cycled between producing basic iron and foundry iron on a roughly monthly schedule.^[11]

Period	From	Until	tons basic iron	avg/day	tons foundry iron	avg/day
A	1 May 24	28 Feb 25	45,988	314	43,986	280
B	1 Mar 25	31 Jan 26	54,175	376	65,000	387
C	1 Feb 26	30 Apr 26	13,596	348	17,249	345
D	1 May 26	31 Aug 27	83,046	360	100,250	396

In October 1925 Columbia acquired the Milner-Dear-Lerch iron ore holdings, 51 claims covering 921 acres at Iron Mountain, from the Milner Corp. of Salt Lake City.^[12]

A warehouse was opened in August 1926 at Connecticut street (today South Royal Brougham Way) and 6th Avenue South in Seattle (47°35′32″N 122°19′34″W / 47.59232°N 122.32599°W / 47.59232; -122.32599 (Seattle Warehouse)).^[13]

On 24 November 1926, the Pacific Sheet Steel Corp. of South San Francisco (a Metal & Thermite Corp. subsidiary) was acquired on a stock exchange basis.^[14] The plant was to be moved to Torrance.^[15] The 6-mill plant had been erected starting July 1923, adjoining the existing Metal & Thermite Corp detinning plant, had opened in April 1924 and was the second such plant on the West Coast, the other being Columbia's own 4-mill works in Pittsburg. Sheet bars were provided by the one-half mile distant plant of the Pacific Coast Steel Company. The principal equipment consisted of 6 stands of hot-rolled 30-inch finishing rolls and 3 stands of 30-inch roughing rolls, driven by a 1500hp motor at 30rpm. There was a 26-inch cold roll at both ends of the hot mill train.^[16] The Iron Trade Review called Columbia the sole sheetmaker and largest steel business on the Pacific Coast.^[17]

A survey of the West Coast steel industry published in the Iron Trade Review in December 1928 listed only one blast furnace in operation on the Pacific Coast.^[18]

• Provo
  • One stack 83x19 feet
  • 4 stoves
  • 56 Koppers-Becker coke ovens (+23 contract to Koppers Construction Co. June 1927^[19])
  • a by-product recovery plant
  • Koppers benzol plant
• Pittsburg
  • 6 open-hearth furnaces
• Torrance
  • 4 open-hearth furnaces (+2 from 1923 survey)
  • 1 5-ton Heroult electric furnace (+ 2 tons)
• Portland
  • 1 Tropenas 3-ton converter
  • 1 Greene electric furnace
• for comparison, Pacific Coast Steel Company, biggest competitor at the time
  • South San Francisco: 6 open-hearth furnaces
  • Youngstown (Seattle): 4 open-hearth furnaces

The Columbia Steel Corporation became a wholly-owned subsidiary of U.S. Steel in January 1930. The payment was made with 251,771 shares of Common stock of U.S. Steel. The assets were estimated by U.S. Steel to be of a total value of no less than $41,375,000. At the time of acquisition, Columbia Steel owned and operated steel-producing plants and rolling mills at Pittsburg and Torrance, a steel foundry at Portland, a blast furnace and by-product coke plant in Provo, iron, coal, and limestone deposits in Utah^[20] and warehouses in San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle.^[21]

Almost simultaneously to the above expansion of U.S. Steel into the Far West, the first such acquisition of U.S. Steel west of Illinois and Alabama, Bethlehem Steel acquired the Pacific Coast Steel Company and the "independent" Consolidated Steel Corporation was formed by the merger of 3 Los Angeles based companies (the Llewellyn, Baker, and Union Iron Works).

When surveyed in 1945 by the Steel magazine, the Provo furnace had a capacity of just under 600 tons per day and there were 4 gas-fired and 1 oil-fired open-hearths at Pittsburg.^[22] In the 1951 survey the Provo furnace was at 199,200 tons per year.^[23]

In 1947 Columbia Steel planned to acquire the Consolidated Steel Corporation, its facilities to be supplied by the Geneva mill. The Justice Department objected, but The Supreme Court ruled in favor of U.S. Steel. Consolidated became a subsidiary of U.S. Steel on 31 August 1948, alongside Columbia. That included all assets of the former Western Pipe and Steel Company, which had been acquired by Consolidated in September 1945.

Erection of a new $25,000,000 cold reduction mill in Pittsburg began in August 1946.^[24]

A ceremonial opening on 21 October 1948 for 2000 industrialists, government officials, and civic leaders and on 22 October for 15,089 visitors of the general public of the new cold reduction mill in Pittsburg was attended by the U.S. Steel Board of Directors and broadcast coast-to-coast.^[25] The new plant had an annual capacity of 325,000 tons of cold reduced sheets and tin plate. U.S. Steel had invested $120,000,000 since the end of the war in California and Utah. On 24.5 acres under the roof of several buildings, the production line consisted of:

• a continuous pickling line
• a 5-stand tandem four-high cold reduction mill
• 2 electrolytic cleaning lines
• 10 rectangular annealing furnaces, crane-moveable to 30 bases
• 2 2-stand tandem four-high temper mills
• 1 single stand four-high sheet temper mill
• side trimming and shearing lines
• Tin plate
  • 14 hot-dip tinning lines
  • 1 continuous electrolytic plating line
  • 1 sheet galvanizing line

It didn't take long for a second expansion of the sheet and tin capacity to be contemplated. In January of 1951 construction was announced of a new 215,000 tons/year (new total 540,000) cold reduction mill at the Pittsburg site, estimated to cost $28,000,000, It was a 4-stand mill and related equipment including a continuous pickling line, annealing equipment, a continuous galvanizing line and an electrolytic tin plate line.^[26]

Effective 31 December 1951 in an internal restructuring of the corporate structure of U.S. Steel, the Columbia Steel Company and the Geneva Steel Company were merged into the Columbia-Geneva Steel Division of the United States Steel Company. Alden G. Roach became president of the division.^[27][28]

In August 1952, the Army decided to reopen Plancor 516 and spend $9,500,000 to convert it to make large castings for military tanks, with Columbia-Geneva operating it.^[29]

In the spring of 1958 a third electrolytic tinning line was constructed, increasing the plant's tin plate capacity by 55 percent. The plant had by this point grown to 600 acres, with another 600 acres adjoining being looked at.^[30]

External links

• 1928 photographs of Columbia Steel Company in Torrance

References

1. "About Us". Columbia Steel Cast Products LLC. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
2. "Steel foundry on the Pacific Coast". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 61, no. 12. 20 September 1917. p. 597.
3. "Here and There in Industry". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 66, no. 8. 19 February 1920. p. 576.
4. "(unreadable title)". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 67, no. 1. 1 July 1920. p. 29.
5. "Columbia Steel Corporation". Commercial and Financial Chronicle. Vol. 116, no. 3004. 20 January 1923. p. 301.
6. "Columbia Steel Purchases Torrance, Cal. Plant". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 72, no. 16. 19 April 1923. p. 1134.
7. "New Utah Blast Furnace Now in Operation". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 74, no. 20. 15 May 1924. p. 1287.
8. "Utah Coal Mining Feels Awakening in Utah Coal Mining". Coal Age. Vol. 22, no. 15. 12 October 1922. p. 596.
9. "Utah Line Authorized". The Traffic World. Vol. 31, no. 4. 27 January 1923. p. 202.
10. "UtahRails Maps". Utah Rails. Retrieved 2023-10-18.
11. Kinney, S.P. (1930). Effect of Sized Ore on Blast-Furnace Operation, Technical Paper 459. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Mines.
12. "Columbia Steel Corp., San Francisco". Commercial and Financial Chronicle. Vol. 121, no. 3146. 10 October 1925. p. 1793.
13. "Industrial Business Changes". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 79, no. 8. 19 August 1926. p. 484.
14. "Columbia Steel Corp". Commercial and Financial Chronicle. Vol. 123, no. 3206. 4 December 1926. p. 2906.
15. "Storms Hold Back Work". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 79, no. 24. 9 December 1926. p. 1522.
16. "Build Sheet Mill at Golden Gate". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 74, no. 21. 22 May 1924. p. 1373.
17. "Columbia Becomes Sole Coast Sheetmaker". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 79, no. 23. 2 December 1926. p. 1451.
18. "Steelworks and Rolling Mills on Pacific Coast". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 83, no. 26. 27 December 1928. p. 1643.
19. "Enlarges Coking Capacity". Iron Trade Review. Vol. 80, no. 25. 23 June 1927. p. 1618.
20. 28th Annual Report of the United States Steel Corporation. 1929. p. 7-8.
21. 29th Annual Report of the United States Steel Corporation. 1930. p. 38.
22. "West Coast Steel Mill". Steel. Vol. 116, no. 14. 2 April 1945. p. 120.
23. "Blast Furnace Capacity by Plant Location and Operating Company". Steel. Vol. 129, no. 14. 1 October 1951. p. 123.
24. "Construction Underway at Columbia's Pittsburg Mill". Organized Labor. 10 August 1946. p. 5.
25. "The Doors Open at New Coast Mill". U.S. Steel News. Vol. 14, no. 1. U. S. Steel. January 1949.
26. "Columbia Starts Expansion". Steel. Vol. 128, no. 1. 1 January 1951. p. 434.
27. 50th Annual Report of the United States Steel Corporation. 1951. p. 19.
28. 50th Annual Report of the United States Steel Corporation. 1951. p. 38.
29. "Army Reopens West Coat Foundry". Steel. Vol. 131, no. 7. 18 August 1952. p. 175.
30. "Watch the West Coast". Steel. Vol. 142, no. 18. 5 May 1958. p. 54.