Sterling, IL: Northwestern Steel and Wire

Satellite

(They also had some plants on the south side of the Rock River.) A lot has changed since 1939.

The company started producing wire products in the late 1870s. In 1936 it installed an electric arc furnace and started producing its own steel and wire. The plant closed in 2001.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

I don't know if the 1939 factory was still water powered, but at one time it was because the tailrace around the dam still existed.

1939 Aerial Photo from ILHAP

This company was famous for having steam locomotives that worked in the plant until 1980.

From Laura-Ann Caryl Peters sharing of the steam-locomotive link:

Craig Knopf I was once told a story that went a little like this....

My grandfather was an engineer at a steel mill in southern Michigan. One day (wayyyyy back when) he was on a reverse move into the building to pick up a cut of ingots. As his eyes were focused on the conductor behind, he kept watch for the stop, and then the proceed signal. One common practice was to leave the throttle open, or cracked open anyway, to keep the cylinders warm, and use the Johnson bar for he moves. He got the proceed, notched up the Johnson bar, slacked out, and watched the conductor. The engine was struggling a bit, he thought it must have been a pretty heavy cut, so he notched out the Johnson bar another notch, and pulled a little more throttle. Still, he thought, must be really heavy! So, another notch, and a little more throttle. About then he caught out of the corner of his eye, someone flailing there arms and running towards him. So he cut the Johnson bar, looked up, and seen a dust cloud in front of him. As he climbed down, to look, it became apparent what had happened. As he was backed in, the ice delivery truck parked across the tracks perpendicular to the engine, just far enough it was out of his view. All that notching and throttle managed to roll the ice truck over a couple times before being told there was a problem!

This video fits the exact image I have of that story...

Steve OConnor commented on his posting

Steve OConnor commented on his posting
Carl Venzke also posted

Roger Holmes commented on a post
NWS&W used ex-CB&Q 0-6-0's until the GTW 0-8-0's showed up for scrap. My first visit was in 1970.
I don't have the exact date but I believe the last steam was used in December 1980

According to the video below, the company started out making 10 spools of barbed wire a day. (The founding date is 1878 or 1879 depending on the source.)  In a few years production grew to over 600 spools a day using smooth wire from an outside source. (The video is wrong because it started with 10 employees producing 600 spools a day. [nwsw.info]) During the depression, 1936, it installed an electric furnace so that it could make its own wire because its wire suppliers also made competitive wire products. It used two 10-ton electric furnaces, which were large for their time, because the "National Recovery Act" forbid building more blast furnaces. Experts said an electric furnace could not profitably produce carbon steel. The factory grew to an annual production of 2 million tons of raw steel with an employment of 2700 people. The electric furnace facility, three 400-ton furnaces, was once the worlds largest. A furnace used 85,000,000 watts. They also had 6-strand bloom and 8-strand billet continuous casters. The plant had 12-, 14-. and 24-inch rolling mills. The 24-inch mill was one of the first continuous structural steel rolling mills. The two larger mills produce structural steel forms. The 12-inch line was a continuous set of rolling stands producing rod at a rate of 230mph at the last roller stand. Some of the rod was sold and some was used in their own wire production facilities. Products included fence, reinforcing fabric, and nails. [video, nwsw.info]



This video provides more detail about the electric furnace, continuous caster, and rod rolling mill.

20170524 8797

They mentioned that the nails are made with the Sterling brand. When I saw the boxes coming off the production line, they looked familiar. I went into my workshop and over half of the boxes of nails that I have accumulated over the decades are Sterling Nails.

While looking for evidence of the power lines that fed the electric furnaces, I  found that a building labeled Mazel & Co still exists. I had noticed that my pile of nail boxes contained a red, white, and blue box of a different design that was labelled Mazel Nails. This is not to be confused with Maze Nails in Peru, IL.

nwsw.info
As of 1998, the 400-ton furnaces are still "among the largest in the world." And NWSW is Commonwealth Edison's single biggest power customer. [nwsw blog, search for "Edison"] (I'm sure Fermilab was operational during this time, and they had their own high-voltage power line and switch yard. I wonder how their power load compared.)

It would be nice to end with the histories produced on its 100th anniversary in 1979 because that was the year they installed their third 400-ton furnace and had their peak employment of 4,678. [Wikipedia] So what went wrong? Unlike many steel companies that failed in the 1980s, it is not because it allowed itself to become obsolete. They not only used electric furnaces, which is the backbone of modern mini-mills, they helped pioneer their development. They replaced pouring ingots and then running them through 46" blooming mills to create blooms and billets with continuous casting. Their newer rolling mills used computer controlled continuous rolling stands. This failure seems to be another case of bad management by the company that bought them. (Another example is White Motor Company killed Oliver.) In this case they were bought in 1987 but they foundered after management bought a money-losing mill in Houston. Kohlberg & Co. bought controlling interest in 1993 and closed the Houston mill in 1997, firing 325 employees and returned to profitability. (These struggles were against the backdrop of a strong steel market in the 1990s.) It filed for bankruptcy in 2000 and closed the plant in 2001. $4.4 million was spent "for site assessment, clean-up and infrastructure." Judging from satellite images, the redevelopment got hit hard by the 2008 recession. [nwsw blog, search for "Edison", CMU (I hate it when a web page doesn't indicated when it was written. The latest date referenced is 2007.)]

I used Google Earth to search for the power lines feeding the 100s of millions of watts used by the company, but I could not find them. NWSW was Commonwealth Edison's single biggest power user. [nwsw blog, search for "Edison"]

Google Earth, 1999

Update: I don't know if this wire plant made chain link fence, but this is a video link is worth saving. Hopefully Facebook won't break the link.

Screenshot, How chain fence is made

Comments on a post:
Deon Clevenger Lawrence Brothers, across the street to the west is National Manufacturing which is also abandoned now, then to the west of that is the old Northwestern Steel and Wire which is mostly torn down, abandoned or sold off.
Dustin Holschuh Deon Clevenger actually a good portion of mill is still there and operating . As leggett steel and wire.
Deon Clevenger Dustin Holschuh I thought it was just the wire mill that stayed up and running? The east plant is all torn down and I thought the structural departments were shut down also, but I probably misunderstood.
Dustin Holschuh The wire mill,furnace and castor were saved. The west building is still there however I believe it's used for railcar storage by sterling rail.
Deon Clevenger Dustin Holschuh ok that makes sense. Thanks!

Reynolds Brown posted
My view walking in today. Sterling steel. Used to be northwestern steel and wire.

 

Thomas Dyrek posted

Northwestern Steel & Wire No. 28, formerly Grand Trunk Western No. 8328, switching hopper cars full of scrap metal at the NWS&W plant in Sterling, Illinois in the winter of 1969.

Northwestern Steel & Wire scrapped locomotives and turned the metal into nails. They acquired several of these former Grand Trunk engines for scrapping, but wound up using them for power to move cars around at their facility. Several of them would operate until 1980, making it one of the last regular steam locomotive operations in the country. The locomotive pictured here was scrapped in 1988.

Photographer unknown, Thomas Dyrek collection.

Bob Kalal commented on Thomas' post
1 of them is-was sitting in Galt Il. 0-8-0 Northwestern Steel Plant Switcher 05. Just west of Sterling. I saw it there in 2018. My Photo.

Comments on Thomas' post

Marty Bernard posted three photos with the comment:

Northwestern Steel & Wire 0-8-0 Photos, Part 1

The mill purchased retired Grand Trunk Western 0-8-0s at scrap prices and used them for switching scrap to furnaces for several years.  Here are 3 photos of the locomotives doing just that.  I went to watch and take some photos three times during the mid-1960s.  They put on a great show.

1
1. NSW 05 built in 1924 as GTW 8305, August 19, 1964.

2
2. NSW 25 built in 1925 as GTW 8325, August 19, 1964.

3
3. NSW 80 built in 1929 as GTW 8380, December 31, 1966. She went to the Illinois Railway Museum.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

6:29 video (source, "Here’s an old vid showing us charging one of our 400 ton furnaces, in Sterling, IL. ")

16:23 video made in 2001 (source)  At 3:40, it says the electric furnace facility is the world's largest. Three 400-ton furnaces. That would have been big in 2001. I wonder how it ranks now. They consume up to 120 railcars of scrape each day and the charging bucket hold 100 tons. The electrodes consume 85mw of electric power.