Making a batch of steel is a massive process, involving a huge expense of manpower, money, and natural resources, but the result is a product that has helped build the infrastructure of modern society, as well as a product that is in everyday use all over the world.

In a person's daily life, they encounter steel from the moment they wake up to the moment they fall asleep (and generally, they are sleeping in a bed with a steel bedframe, on a mattress of steel springs!).  Our houses have steel in them, our kitchen utensils are steel, our automobiles, the roads we drive on, the bridges we drive over, the buildings we work in ... steel touches nearly EVERY aspect of our lives.

This webpage will show the steelmaking process, illustrated with photos taken from the LTV Photo Collection in the WRHS Library.  The steel companies used to illustrate this process are Otis Steel, Republic Steel, and LTV Steel.  While these photos are not yet available to the public (though they will be once the collection has been processed), they provide a sample of what the LTV Photo Collection contains.

Step One: Getting the raw materials from mine to mill