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HAER Works;
HAER Wire Mill;
Satellite)
I knew John Roebling started out making steel wire. He started building suspension bridges by spinning the cables from wire to increase the market for his wire. His first plant was in Trenton, NJ. This plant was an expansion of the wire manufacturing business. The company town Roebling is now a neighborhood in Florence, NJ. "Some of the most important technological achievements of the industrial age such as big bridges, telegraphs and telephones, electrification, deep mines, big ships, elevators and airplanes as well as everyday objects were built in Roebling....His three sons, Washington, Ferdinand and Charles, built their father’s company into the world’s leading producer of wire rope with four factories and nearly 8,000 employees at its peak. In 1904, when competition pushed them to start making their own steel, they bought farmland on the Delaware River and built the factory complex known as the Kinkora Works and the company town known as Roebling, NJ for their workers. " [
RoeblingMuseum-about]
These are the Roebling bridges of which I have studied so far.
Here is the Bridge Hunter list of Roebling bridges. John designed the bridges up to, and including, the Brooklyn Bridge. At least some of the wire used in the remaining bridges were made by his steel company.
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Roebling Museum posted
Pictured here is the Wire Mill No. 1 building in 1926. This is where wire was drawn through machines to get to a desired size.
James Torgeson shared |
James Musser
posted three photos with the comment: "Roebling Steel, Roebling, NJ Standard gauge open hearth charging box buggies, and ingot buggies. They added the guard rails to the ingot buggies to keep ingots from falling off and causing damage. Also a LeTourneau slag pot mover. Roebling Steel made open hearth steel from pig iron and scrap for their wiremaking operation at this plant and their original mill in Trenton, NJ. There is an extensive HAER survey of this site if you want to read more, including a number of drawings. The Roebling family sold the mill to Colorado Fuel and Iron in the early 50s and the mill closed in the 70s. The open hearth furnaces were replaced with electric furnaces in the 1950s."
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Dennis DeBruler commented on James' post
Kinkoria Works |
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| Dennis DeBruler commented on James' post |
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Dennis DeBruler commented on James' post
Wire Mill #1 |
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Trisha Stryjewski commented on James' post
Filling ingot molds (circa 1950) So not long after Roebling sold to CF and I.
If anyone wants to visit the museum please let me know. I have the hook up.
James Musser: An example of a teaming ladle like in the color photo is also on display. The mill is gone, other than the gatehouse, that is the museum, and the artifacts and crane way, minus actual crane, shown. From a modeling standpoint, steelmaking at this mill was very small-scale, as they were making billets for rolling wire. The ingots molds/ingots were very small. Modeling those ingot buggies in HO would be difficult. They would only be about an inch long and require small wheel sets and couplers . The open hearth layout was interesting in that the charging materials were stored, sorted and loaded on tracks that were in the open and perpendicular to the furnaces. This required a lot of open space, compared to the typical arrangements parallel to furnaces and in a covered building. Without waste gas from blast furnaces or coke works to fire the furnaces and soaking pits, Gas producers were used. |
Dana Sherer
posted 10 photos with the comment:
📍 The Pre-Stretcher Machine at the old John A. Roebling's Sons Company steel mill site in Roebling, NJ.
🏭 Buildings 92 and 93
⚙ A key peice of machinery used in manufacturing the wire rope cables for the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge.
📣 Save these structures! They are currently on the list of the Top 10 Most Endangered Places in New Jersey.
📢 Let's raise awareness and educate the public on the historical and engineering significance of not only these two buildings, but the entire story of the John A. Roebling's Sons Company.
Ed Anderson: So many questions, I’ll try to recall as best this old memory can. The Rope stretcher bldg. was never a clean, organized area. It was used as a catch all for storage . In photo 9 there is a platform in the back. It has two square boxes on it. These contained molten zinc used to attach the yolks to the cable ends for stretching. That platform is the most significant item in the bldg. and the top is where the men worked most of the time. The equipment was maintained by personnel from the Wire Mill Division and Central Shops.
Trevor Shellhammer: I see quite a few patterns, was there also a foundry?
Ed Anderson: Trevor Shellhammer I know of no foundry in the mill, and I see little resembling patterns in the photos.
Patterns were stored in the old Power House adjacent to the Pitch and catch rod mill.
John A. Roebling’s Sons!
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Trevor Shellhammer commented on Ed's "pattern" comment
Ed Anderson these are all patterns and/or core boxes. One on left actually an aluminum matchplate for squeezer molding!
Trevor Shellhammer: Dana Sherer I know very little about Roebling, but would like to visit sometime. Worked for Bethlehem Steel. I guess bridges are more than cables, lots of castings, etc. and wonder where they were made? We actually made the cast steel saddles for the Golden Gate Bridge in Bethlehem's Steel Foundry. Patterns were unfortunately destroyed after the plant closed. |
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