Duquesne Steel Works
Duquesne, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Plant here began in 1886. Acquired by Andrew Carnegie, 1890; by U.S. Steel, 1901. Workers here implemented advances in rolling mill & blast furnace processes before 1914; in pollution control, 1953. At peak of operations they manned six blast furnaces. Plant was in service until 1984.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
The steel works at Duquesne began in 1886 and quickly fell into the empire of Andrew Carnegie, who acquired it in 1890 before it passed to the newly formed U.S. Steel in 1901. Generations of workers here pioneered advances in rolling mills and blast furnaces before World War I and later in pollution control, tending as many as six blast furnaces at the plant's height. The mill fed the nation's appetite for steel until it finally went cold in 1984.
Why it matters
The Duquesne Works stands for the Monongahela Valley's era as the forge of industrial America, and its 1984 closing for the wrenching collapse of that steel economy.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Andrew Carnegie
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frederick Ingersoll (1874-1927)
West Mifflin, PA · est. 2019
At the dawn of the 20th century, Americans were flocking to a new kind of attraction—the electrically lit amusement park—and Frederick Ingersoll was one of its great inventors. From Pittsburgh he designed Figure-8 coasters and other rides that appeared across the country, and in 1905 he launched his dazzling, brightly illuminated Luna Parks in the Oakland neighborhood, sparking imitators worldwide. He also built some of Kennywood's earliest rides, including the Old Mill and the park's first Racer coaster.
George Westinghouse
East Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1948
George Westinghouse was one of the towering inventors of America's industrial age, credited with the railroad air brake and some four hundred other patents. From his base in Pittsburgh he championed alternating-current electricity, the system that won the 'War of the Currents' and made it possible to transmit power across long distances. The company he founded turned his ideas into an industrial empire that helped electrify the modern world.
National Tube Works
McKeesport, PA · est. 1991
Incorporated in 1869 and in production here at McKeesport by 1872, the National Tube Works grew into the largest pipe manufacturer in the world, its mills feeding the oil fields, waterworks, and factories of an industrializing nation. Absorbed into U.S. Steel in 1901, the plant pioneered advances in pipe inspection before its long run ended when operations ceased in 1987.
Out of This Furnace
North Braddock, PA · est. 2023
Thomas Bell's 1941 novel Out of This Furnace follows three generations of a Slovak immigrant family in the steel town of Braddock, where the mills ran day and night. Bell drew on his own life—including work at the nearby Edgar Thomson Steel Works—to render the hardships and hopes of immigrant labor with unusual authenticity. The book endures as one of American literature's most vivid portraits of working-class industrial Pittsburgh.