Towns and Nature: Morrisville, PA; US Steel Fairless Works

Dave Wils posted
Eric Stosius: Vessel dock, ore bridge, 3 blast furnaces, sinter mill on right, 9 open hearths. Entire cold side can't be seen. That photo might be from fifties, can't be sure.
James James: Fairless Hills opened in 1952, close friend worked there from day 1.
Kevin Zeik: Last open hearth constructed in North America.
Brian Olson: Kevin Zeik Sparrows Point has an open hearth built in the late 1950s. Fairless open hearth was built in the early 1950s.
Joe Kerner: Greg Brizell Fairless is still running two galvanize lines they are listed under Irwin Plant.
Michael Matisko: Nearly obsolete when it was opened due to the open-hearths (no fault of the steelworkers). Maybe if it could have been upgraded with a BOF plant?
Brian Olson: Michael Matisko The BOF didn't exist commercially until 1952 in Austria. I think the first commercial BOF in the USA was built in the late 1950s at J&L Steel Aliquippa. They didn't get to economical size until 1962. I was told that US Steel could have installed Q-BOP furnaces in their Fairless open hearth shop in the mid 1970s just like they did at Fairfield. It would have been much less expensive then building the BOP shop in Braddock they built in the early 1970s. The benefit to Q-BOP was the ability to use the existing open hearth building and cranes. It seems there is always bad timing in the steel industry.
Brian Olson: Michael Matisko The BOF didn't exist commercially until 1952 in Austria. I think the first commercial BOF in the USA was built in the late 1950s at J&L Steel Aliquippa. They didn't get to economical size until 1962. I was told that US Steel could have installed Q-BOP furnaces in their Fairless open hearth shop in the mid 1970s just like they did at Fairfield. It would have been much less expensive then building the BOP shop in Braddock they built in the early 1970s. The benefit to Q-BOP was the ability to use the existing open hearth building and cranes. It seems there is always bad timing in the steel industry.
Joe Kerner: Brian Olson BOF couldn't be built in the OH building due to closeness to ocean (sea level) and how deep they would have to dig to properly bed a BOF furnace. Rick Walck did the engineering studies and it was built at ET.
Brian Olson: Joe Kerner So US Steel actually investigated installing a new BOP at Fairless Works with a high bay for oxygen lance, etc? Or did they investigate installing a Q-BOP vessel like the ones at Fairfield open hearth which of course do not have a top lance?
Michael Matisko: I wonder what the efficiency of a group of small (125T) BOFs might have been as a Fairless OH replacement.
Allegheny Ludlum had a pair of 125T furnaces at Natrona (which I saw in action in high school during the 1970s) that were originally fed hot metal from a cupola, and later from a pair of Lectromelt induction furnaces.
Just bad luck for Fairless and its employees, I guess, that there was no bedrock in reach to handle the foundation for a BOF plant with 300T to 400T vessels and the associated cranes, once the BOF process was proven.
Greg Brizell: Believe the Electric Furnace was feeding the Bar Mill instead of the rolling mill.
Brian Olson

Greg Brizell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_Kr3IVyHg&t=542s

Bill Gailey posted
Dean Dodszuweit: Nancy, Patricia, and Hazel blast furnaces.
David Martin: galv line is still there. I work there.
Bill Gailey: I was told today, they could never get the EAF to run good?
Harry Peachey: Bill Gailey nope. Blast furnaces and open hearth to ingots and slab mill the last decade of operation. They were done making steel in the 90's.
Bill Gailey: Harry Peachey thanks, I work with a guy who told me today that the EAF was 300 ton. He said it had a lot of problems. His Dad was a boss at Fairless for over 30 years.

Rich Shaginaw posted
Fairless Works blast furnaces and sinter plant (on right), with open hearth at top. This operation was like a city -- traffic lights, overpasses, multi-story office buildings, and of course a large fire department.

This appears to be a closer cropping of the above photo.

Chuck Comaty posted
Blast furnaces at US Steels' Fairless Works off the Delaware River in Pennsylvania around 1965. The open hearth furnaces are at the top of the photo.
Dean Dodszuweit: Who remembers the names of the furnaces?
Bill Price: Dean Dodszuweit Patty,Nancy,Hazel
Dean Dodszuweit: Bill Price Fairless' grand-daughters.
Jeff Sherrill: Is any of it still there...???
Chuck Comaty: Jeff Sherrill The only thing left is a galvanizing line that employes about 75 people. The mill was 9,000 employees at its peak.
Dean Dodszuweit: Chuck Comaty plus another 5000 or more contractors, truckers, etc on any given day.
Dean Dodszuweit: Chuck Comaty Hot side shut down in early 91' a long with the 80" line. They railed in coils from Mon Valley to feed what was left.
Steve Turner: Chuck, the "sister" to #3 Galv line @ Fairless was #4 Galv Line @ Fairfield Works in Alabama. It was shut down in 2008, so I am surprised the #3 is still in operation. I worked @ #4 from 1985-1998; it was a great dept to work in!
Dean Dodszuweit: The Galvalum line, which they only seem to run occasionally. They sold off the bulk of the plant after the Keystone tax abatements expired. The new owners are building a bunch of million plus square foot flip up warehouses (Amazon style operations) that can utilize the rail and highway access and the port for bulk transfers. It's kind of coming back to life, just not the same level of skilled, well paying jobs.

US Steel seems to tear down its newer plants. Or maybe they never upgraded this 1950s plant. Actually, after reading some of the comments, it sounds like it was a threat to the Pittsburgh area plants and the USS honchos could not tolerate that. And they had troubles with their EAF.

Robert Hedden posted
Philadelphia Electric print ad from 1952 touting the opening of Fairless Works in Falls Twp., Bucks County.

James Torgeson shared
When the USS Fairless Works was new! Fairless was the second to last integrated plant built in the US. Philadelphia Electric commissioned a series of these paintings that covered the various major industries it served.

Comments on Robert's post

Comments on James' share

Bubba Dubs posted
A ocean going, bulk transport ship arrives with iron ore, at US Steel’s Fairless Works.
Bill Price: Nancy, Patricia, and Hazel blast furnaces.
Richard Allison: I never could understand why Fairless was closed. Lots of time USS lacks logic. With having a sea port for raw materials and in the middle of the largest market area in the US, if Fairless was losing money, efforts should have been made to adapt to the market and overcome problems, either by matching product to the area or invested in fixing anything broken. Over the years, USS has always took the easy way out and closed facilities rather than fixing them. In the past, their strategic plan was to win the race to the bottom. Their current CEO David Burritt is a little improvement on investing in EAFs but putting good money into bad money at ET is continuing the race to the bottom. In 1901 USS was the largest corporation and in the 1990s USS lost it's title as the largest steel company in the US. Now they are not the largest of anything.
Bill Price: Richard Allison Fairless did enlarge the capacity of their 9 open hearth furnaces and they did add 2 electric furnaces which became too expensive to operate. They were counting on a nuclear power plant being built on Burlington Island resulting on lower electrical charges but that never happened. They pushed the open hearth furnaces to lower the heat time but that was doing damage to the fire brick causing more maintenance and down time. They got it down to about 6 hours.
[My goodness, open hearth furnaces were obsolete. They should have been replaced with BOP. Did they ever have a continuous caster?]
Nathan Gower: Richard, coming from the inside of the beast, they’re making the right investments but part of me wonders whether they have done so timely enough. The mentality that they put into place where they simply bought everything wasn’t exactly working well for them. They still need to figure out a way to make steel cheaper to be competitive. Acquiring Big River was a good move in the right direction. If they can actually get the continuous caster off the ground at ET, they will be in much better shape. It will likely kill Irvin Works in the process but the best strategy they have currently is to figure out ways to cut costs while finding new ways to implement the blast furnaces to either compete with eaf or at least make products where eaf can’t compete.
[And they are just now added a continuous caster to Edgar Thomson two decades into the 21st Century? Or is it a new, improved caster? Richard mentions a "thin caster" below.]
Nick Hlavaty: Richard Allison Since the 1950s, Gary Works has been the flagship of the company. And it's located near the auto industry, and it's closer to limestone and ore than Fairless. USS Gary has always been more modern and a bigger producer. There are probably other important reasons, but the ones I've listed are not lacking logic.
Nathan Gower: Nick, the only reason the mon valley works has survived financially is because of Clairton Coke works. And Allegheny county is trying to crack down hard on the pollution they create so that’s an uphill battle. As a company, there seems like there has been some attempts to modernize the operations but they sincerely need to display to investors that they can join the 21st century and catch up with the competition and they haven’t really made an concerted effort to display that.
Richard Allison: Nathan Gower My problem with investing at ET is the old, antique blast furnaces making hot metal for the BOF and thin caster. I know those furnaces but I haven't been there in a long time. I will tell everyone that works on a blast furnace but every blast furnace manager tells his crews that their blast furnaces are the most efficient or makes the cheapest iron. ETs furnaces are not only old but small. One big furnace feeding the continuous casting/rolling would be much less cost on making slabs and an EAF shop would make slabs even cheaper. That is my point is a great technology like continuous thin casting and continuous rolling is like investing good money into those two blast furnaces, bad money.
Nathan Gower: Richard, I can absolutely agree. The only mitigation tactic to make a blast furnace worthwhile to keep in operation is to make chemistries that an eaf is not able to replicate. That was my point. The mon valley is still the low cost producer for USS but it’s not nearly cheap enough to make it continuously viable without cornering a market in which an eaf is not able to compete.
Richard Allison: Nathan Gower If ET is the low cost producer for USS, then they are in BIG trouble. Gary should be the lowest. Shutting down their coke plant was costly and putting most of their eggs in one basket at Clairton was another mistake. Allegheny County has lost interest in USS and in the future, Clairton is going to be costly to operate with new restrictions coming. USS has shrunk in the Pittsburgh area to the point that they are not as important as in the past. I think a worth while project would to put an EAF at Granite City and shut down those two old furnaces. I know they are not low cost. Granite City is small enough a EAF could serve the finishing mills and make it a very viable plant. I think there is plenty of room at Fairfield Works in Alabama for another major project that would serve the automotive market. Alabama is second in the US for auto production after Michigan.
Nathan Gower: Richard, don’t get me wrong. It’s an uphill battle for the mon valley works but I still think it’s a viable option despite them putting a lot of their eggs in the Big River Steel basket. Granted, I work on those old blast furnaces so I’ve got a vested interest in them continuing to operate.
Brian Olson: Richard Allison The nationalization of US Steel's iron ore properties in Venezuela in 1974 probably was a factor. I'm sure iron ore costs shot up when that happened. Not having a Q-BOP or BOP was the main reason Fairless closed and Mon Valley stayed open. The east coast is not the best market for steel in the United States, the Midwest is.
James Torgeson: Brian Olson Yes, the nationalizations and political instabilities caused skyrocketing ore costs and unreliable supplies for Fairless, Sparrows Point and the Bethlehem home plant.
Richard Allison: Brian Olson USS was the last major steel company anywhere that had lots of modern open hearths (by open hearth standards) and they were in very good shape because USS had invested so much money in them. USS was reluctant to invest in BOFs and Q-BOPs because they had so much invested in their open hearths. Even with USS finally relenting to converting to BOFs in the 1970s, they were still pouring ingots and still using blooming mills in the early 1980s when the Europeans, Japanese and the last of the US steel companies were using continuous casting. USS was really struggling in the 1970s and 80s and slashing facilities instead of modernizing. I have always questioned the way USS operates but then Bethlehem, Youngstown Sheet and Tube and etc are all gone....
Richard Allison: James Torgeson My logic is that ET has continued being inland and profitable as per USS but sending ore a little further to the Bethlehem plants is not much further. Sparrow's Point is a catastrophe in which was not a lost cause but it was bled dry. Ore could have been gotten from Brazil and ore could have also come from Nova Scotia or the Great Lakes. I stood on the casthouse of L Furnace when it was built and was in awe of the magnitude of this furnace. I wish I still had my helmet sticker there but never I thought it would have disappeared in only 30 years. I never made it to Madline No.7 at now CC but did go to the former USS Gary 13 and now 14 and the USS Fairfield No. 8, the most modern furnaces in the US and L Furnace and No.8 did not survive even though all built in the late 1970s. Old furnaces seemed still go on with 120 or so blast furnaces in the 1980s to around 16 or 17 running today. I guess finances do not always follow logic in the steel industry today or in the past.
James Torgeson: Richard Allison For example, when the Bethlehem Plant was getting ore from Liberia, the rail journey from Philly cost more than the sailing across the Atlantic. Similarly, Bethlehem is substantially farther away from Lake Erie than ET. As pointed out above, ET has an advantage in that it is close to Clairton.
James Torgeson: Looks like a Navios bulker. USS created that line to bring ore to Fairless and the ore docks in Philly.
Fred Stairs: The Ship is built like a laker not an ocean freighter.
James Torgeson: Fred Stairs Standard configuration for an ocean-going bulk carrier at that time.
Bill Price: Fred Stairs I believe most of our iron ore came from Brazil or Venezuela. We also got Canadian ore which was a much finer in size. We also got iron ore pellets by ship.
Fred Stairs: Probably coming in from Duluth.
James Torgeson: Fred Stairs More likely USS Orinoco in Venezuela.
Ronald Hill: 1977 I was in Taiwan promoting American industrial scientific equipment. As Editorial Director of a number of technical publications my travel was paid by the US Department of Commerce and I could speak with good knowledge of the US products in their factories and laboratories. While there I visited the industrial city of Kaosgeoing and technicians and engineers working in numerous chemical and petrochemical plants. While there I noticed a number of Americans at the same hotel. It seemed that they were there working on a new USS integrated steel mill. My assignment was the chemical industry so I did not learn any more about the new steel plant being built.
Will Jamison: Looks like a sinter plant on the lower right.
Jody Dibenedetto: Fairless was a dangerous place to work. I worked the cast houses there in 1998. My roommate Danny Itsky fell through the cast house floor and into an empty ladle. That's same weekend the GF of Iron Making had liquid iron dumped down his chest and another guy fell into the fly hole and onto a debris pile. Later that year a man was decapitated at the open hearth. I was glad to get out of that place in 1 piece.
Bubba Dubs: Jody Dibenedetto were all those deaths?
Jody Dibenedetto: My roommate died when he fell into the bottle. It was empty but red hot. USS was letting that mill run itself into the ground. There was no linings left inside the blast furnaces. They were constantly blowing holes in the stacks and filling the cast houses with coke. They finally shut the open hearth down in 1988 after that fatality. I think they shut the hot end down around 1990. I worked there in 1987 and 1988.
Richard Allison: I have seen USS run blast furnaces that were to eventually close into the ground. I have seen fire hoses on hot spots around the bosh, plates buckling on the stack and just letting everything go until they shut the furnace down or it took itself offline. One night I was working on No.8 BF at Fairfield Works and saw No.6 BF blow a huge hole in the bosh and it looked like a huge blow torch.
[There are several comments about bad accidents at other plants.]
Kris Rossmiller: Imagine if US Steel had the foresight to install BOF's instead of open hearths, and then followed that up with a caster. Could this have become a key plant for US Steel for years to come? Or was it too far east, too far from the auto industry to matter in the long run. I think it was too far east, and should never have been built. Those dollars should have gone into Conneaut, which would have led to the eventual closure of ET and Irvin. But we'll never know.
Bubba Dubs: Kris Rossmiller they specialized in both structural and plate at Homestead, so the auto sector didn’t really matter much to them.
Kris Rossmiller: Bubba Dubs I was referring to Fairless. Homestead was a goner as that market moved to mini mills.
Michael Maitland: Have read that this plant was built at the request of the Government/Military, just like the Geneva works in the west. Once the need passed, USS took over the plants and tried to find the markets. The east coast had a couple of auto and stamping plant, but they have been closed. (ex Framingham, Edison, Linden, Wilmington, Baltimore, Poughkeepsie to name a few main ones that come to mind) Not sure of the full history and markets, but this is what I have read or heard.
James Torgeson: Michael Maitland USS built Fairless on its own dime in the prosperous 1950s, both to take advantage of developing foreign ore sources and to compete with Sparrows Point. USS had the right of first refusal to buy Geneva, much like Ford did with Willow Run. Ford declined.
Bill Price: Besides the steel mill, our railroad also serviced National Can, American Can, American Wire, National Tube, and U S Steel Supply. We also delivered cars to Tube City.
Kris Rossmiller: Bubba Dubs I was referring to Fairless. Homestead was a goner as that market moved to mini mills.

Mark Mcdermott provided eleven images as comments on this post.

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The best Steel Mill story ever lol...when Julie Newmar the future Catwoman...toured the Fairless Works site ...during Steel Mill Mark Days ( business promotion) ...that is her waiting at the Levittown train station ...just about to get picked up for the tour ( early 1960s)

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Fairless Works...Morrisville Pa.....Delaware River ..original photo from my collection.

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Ore ship ..Delaware River...on its way to Fairless Works..Morrisville Pa....Burlington Bristol area.

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Original art work ...Fairless Works ..Delaware River..Bucks County PA. ...across from New Jersey Bordentown..Burlington

Dave Boone posted
Back in the 1960's U.S. Steel chartered a Great Lakes self-unloading ore boat to transport coal from Virginia to their steel plant in Morrisville, NJ. The ship was the W.F. WHITE and looked out of place so far from the Lakes.
Dave Boone: It was taken from the north walkway of the Ben Franklin Bridge by the late Francis Palmer on May 8, 1964.
James Torgeson: This was actually a “Bradley Boat” that usually carried limestone from USS ports in Michigan.
Cornelia Mueller: Top left, the long gone Port Richmond grain elevator.
David Malcolm: She probably used the C&D Canal between Delaware Bay and the Chesapeake and never went out into the open ocean.
Mark Burton Sr.: I worked at Fairless for many years and the plant is not in Morrisville it's in Fairless Hills. The post office is in Morrisville.

James Torgeson posted
Virginia coal to the USS Fairless Works via a Great Lakes freighter on the Delaware River? Yes indeed, but the salt water is really taking a toll on her delicate complexion! May 8, 1964.
Hunter Jones: The last steel mill by USSTEEL from the ground up. What a shame they tore it down.
James Torgeson: Hunter Jones Yes, and the 2nd to last integrated mill built in the USA. Burns Harbor was the last.
Michael Maitland: Heading southbound. Can see the Reading Railroad grain elevator in the far left background, located at their massive waterfront yard (no ore though) PRR Cooper point yard complex on the right.
James Torgeson: Michael Maitland Right, she’s running light, headed back to Virginia for another load of coal.

Brian R. Wroblewski commented on Dave's post
Lakers are not internally framed for deep ocean swells. They can't handle rolling seas like they would have on the ocean.
The Equinox class lakers built overseas have these temporary steel frame stiffeners installed at the yard that are removed upon arrival to the lakes after transiting the deep ocean so they don't break up on the way here.

Brian R. Wroblewski commented on Dave's post
The ocean swells are much different. Lakers are built like a big tub. They don't have the internal structure to resist the wave action. Typically, they break up & sink in the ocean on their scrap tows overseas. The new ones being built for CSL & Algoma overseas come to the lakes with stiffeners installed that are cut off & removed from the ship's structure when they get here.
Lake storms are different. Although furious- The wave frequency, depth, & height are not the same. The night the Fitz sank, there were upbound & downbound salt water ships out there on Lake Superior while the lake freighters were all hiding from that storm.

One of eight aerial construction photos posted by Mark Mcdermott
FAIRLESS WORKS STEEL SITE....3,939 ACRES
Al Haberstick shared

1 of 10 photos posted by Mark Mcdermott
FAIRLESS WORKS STEEL MILL PICKLE LINE ...spent a couple of years in here ...some nasty air there ...80 inch and 56 inch lines ...I was an Acid tester and Upcoiler....a very dangerous place ....the roof rotted away ...I can not see how the Crane Operators survived ....on the left of the Pickle line would be the 4 and 5 stand.
[There are several comments about the smell and danger of the acid used to pickle the steel.]
Mark Mcdermott shared
[The comments add feral cats to the list of dangers of working in that plant. Several of the comments mention the acid haze in the building eating the enamel off the teeth. For example:]
Bob Daykin: Our family dentist in Wyandotte, MI had a big business in full dentures for guys working at nearby McClouth and Great Lakes Steel because the acid in the air in the pickling sheds ate the enamel off their teeth before they were 30.
Jf Hull: It's all gone because the union wouldn't let them ditch the open hearths for a bop shop....one coating line and a handful of people left.... now we bargain for new technology and investment....SMDH.

Sean Brady posted
An operator at the control panel overseeing production on the No 1 continuous butt weld pipe mill at the Fairless Pipe Mills, National Tube Division of the United State Steel Corporation, at Fairless Hills, Pennsylvania, circa 1955. The No 1 butt weld mill produces pipes measuring from 13mm to 102mm in diameter.
Dennis DeBruler shared
Rich Waters: Worked there for 10 years 74-85. I don't remember his name but I worked with the guy at the controls.
Charles Gardineer: That was USSteel Fairless #1 CBW. Mill, that is Andy in the photo, I spent 28 years.

John Carenbauer commented on Dennis' share
Worked very similar mill at Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Benwood Plant ‘72-‘80

Mark Mcdermott posted 13 photos with the comment: "VINTAGE FAIRLESS WORKS PHOTOS...I HAVE THOUSANDS."

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FAIRLESS WORKS ...SAFETY SHOE STORE ..ACTUALLY WAS SETUP IN A LARGE WAREHOUSE.

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FAIRLESS WORKS POWER HOUSE ..CLEANEST FACILITY IN THE WHOLE PLANT.
Stanley Quick: Similar to our Power House. Only ours was dirty and let go. The generators were operated by a Switch board operator while the wind turbos had their own operator. We had big powerful M-G sets later replaced with rectifiers.
Brett Wanamaker shared
Bruce Douglas: Looks like about 3 LP steam units in the foreground...

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FAIRLESS WORKS...1953 FIRST PUPPIES BORN ON PLANT SITE ...FOR DECADES PACKS OF DOGS ROAMED THE PLANT...TAKEN CARE OF BY THE WORKERS THROUGHOUT THE PLANT ..ESPECIALLY THE RAILROAD CREW AND TRACK GANG ...WHO THEY WOULD FOLLOW ...ONE INFAMOUS DAY UNITED STATES STEEL SENT IN PEOPLE TO DISPOSE OF THEM....SAD ...BUT IN THE END THE DISPOSERS REGRETTED DOING IT ...UNION RETRIBUTION CAUGHT UP WITH THEM...NEED I SAY MORE .

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TORPEDO ...OPEN HEARTH
Trebor Nirom: I worked on many of these at ET Works! Replacing tops was a maintenance nightmare! Crappy support from management until it was outsourced right out of the Carshop! I fought the company and the Union to no avail!

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FAIRLESS WORKS DOCKSIDE ..ORE YARD ...SINTER PLANT AND DOCK FACILITIES...THE WATER WAY WAS THE DELAWARE RIVER ...I WORKED ON THE DOCKS FOR YEARS .. ORE SHIPS...SHIPS WITH COILS AND WIRE ...SUPER DANGEROUS...BUT WAS A BLAST ...A ROWDY CREW...GREAT FISHING ..SOME TIMES FAMILY MEMBERS BROUGHT THEIR OWN BOATS TO DROP OFF " SUPPLIES " ...MANY A COLD SNOWY ...RAINY NIGHT ..ICE STORMS ...BEAUTIFUL SUN FILLED SKIES.

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ORE SHIP BEING GUIDED UP THE DELAWARE ..THAT IS THE DELAIR RAILROAD BRIDGE .. ..ON A FOGGY MORNING ..IN A SHORT DISTANCE IT SOON WOULD BE DOCKED AT THE FAIRLESS WORKS STEEL MILL FOR UNLOADING.

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I SWEAR TRUE STORY ..AND I HAVE A LOT MORE PHOTOS ...THAT IS JULIE NEWMAR..BEFORE BATMAN CATWOMEN FAME ..EARLY 1960s...SHE JUST GOT OFF THE LEVITTOWN PA .TRAIN STATION...SOON TO BE PICKED UP BY LOCAL POLICE AND UNITED STATES STEEL FAIRLESS WORKS EXECUTIVES..FOR A TOUR OF THE PLANT AND A PARADE ...THIS WAS FOR A PROMOTION FOR STEEL MARK DAYS ..WHICH PROMOTED LOCAL BUSINESSES....CAN YOU IMAGINE THE LOOKS THAT DAY ...PRICELESS

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FAIRLESS WORKS ..THE BIRTH OF THE PLANT

FAIRLESS WORKS...BLAST FURNACE.

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FAIRLESS WORKS ...
Joe Kerner: Don't remember that chute going into the slag pot, It must have been done away with after initial build. It may have been used for waste material from runner..
Eric Stosius: All straight and clean by time I got there it was a wreck.
Trebor Nirom: I was 3rd helper when Bob Harris was running the Hot End! He ran the furnaces until you could see the iron work inside the furnaces glowing! There was gunnite crew respraying constantly!

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FAIRLESS WORKS ...THAT IS THE CHOIR ...STILL TO THIS DAY THEY STILL TOUR THE AREA.

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FAIRLESS WORKS...TOUR OF THE OPEN HEARTH ....PRETTY SURE SHE WAS NOT WORKING THAT DAY .....UNITED STATES STEEL MAGAZINE 1952
[This photo has several comments about brick laying in ladles, etc.]