The Long Downturn: How American Blast Furnace Steelmaking Came Apart
Weirton's 2024 shutdown was the final blow in a slow 60-year decline: how "mini" mills, legacy costs, and lost marketshare undid American blast furnace…
Dispatches from the road — personal essays, travel stories, and observations from two decades of exploring America's overlooked corners.
Weirton's 2024 shutdown was the final blow in a slow 60-year decline: how "mini" mills, legacy costs, and lost marketshare undid American blast furnace…
While traveling late at night to a campsite in rural northern West Virginia, I did a double-take when I passed what looked like an…
The abandoned Adena Branch of the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway follows a former coal-hauling route through the hills of eastern Ohio.
Explore the history of the Wheeling, West Virginia, iron and steel district, from its early nail mills to its long decline.
In eastern Ohio, the story of one railroad mirrored the rise and decline of regional heavy industry. The Lake Branch of the Baltimore &…
A 19th-century pig iron blast furnace was more than a single stack: it was a carefully engineered industrial system built into the landscape itself.
Travel into the snowy hills of northern West Virginia to document early three charcoal iron furnaces.
The Mead Paper Company’s Chillicothe Works was one of Ohio’s largest paper mills, symbolizing over a century of industrial progress in Ohio.
The Barnes House, once a prominent residence in the Scioto River Valley, now stands in a state of severe neglect.
The Ravenswood, Spencer & Glenville Railway, incorporated in 1886, once linked Ravenswood and Spencer, West Virginia.
Near Miami, Oklahoma, a nine-foot stretch of pavement survives as the only remaining section of old U.S. Route 66.
Rock Island’s Tucumcari–Amarillo line once linked the Midwest to the Southwest before its decline and dismantling in 1984.