The Steel Mills of the Wheeling District

Explore the history of the Wheeling, West Virginia, iron and steel district, from its early nail mills to its long decline.

The early iron and steel industry of the Wheeling district developed through a series of local enterprises that gradually expanded, specialized, and eventually consolidated into large corporations during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The following narrative traces the origins of the industry and the companies involved, along with their progression through mergers and reorganizations.

Wheeling’s iron industry emerged during the early nineteenth century as the Ohio Valley became a transportation corridor linking eastern markets with the expanding American frontier. The town’s location along the Ohio River and at the western terminus of the National Road made it a natural center for trade and manufacturing. By the 1830s and 1840s, ironworking had become one of Wheeling’s principal industries.

Among the earliest operations were small rolling mills and nail factories that converted imported pig iron into finished products. Pig iron was initially shipped from furnaces in western Pennsylvania and refined in Wheeling using puddling furnaces. The resulting wrought iron was rolled into thin plates and cut into nails, a product in high demand as settlers moved westward and new towns were constructed across the Ohio Valley and Midwest.

One of the earliest and most influential firms was the La Belle Iron Works, established in Wheeling in 1852. The company quickly became one of the largest nail producers in the United States, operating rolling mills and nail machines that turned wrought iron plates into cut nails. La Belle’s success helped cement Wheeling’s reputation as “Nail City,” a nickname widely used by the mid-nineteenth century.

Other manufacturers soon followed. The Top Mill and several smaller nail factories operated along Wheeling Creek and the Ohio River, taking advantage of water access and transportation routes. These mills relied on skilled puddlers and rollers, many of whom had immigrated from Britain and brought specialized knowledge of ironworking.

By the 1850s, the Wheeling district had developed a regional network of mills extending beyond the city itself. Industrial sites appeared along the Ohio River at Benwood, Bellaire, and Martins Ferry, where access to river transport and railroad connections allowed manufacturers to expand production.

Growth After the Civil War

The Civil War accelerated industrial demand and helped expand iron production throughout the Wheeling district. After the war, several companies invested in larger rolling mills and improved manufacturing facilities.

One of the most significant developments was the formation of the Whitaker Iron Company, established in Wheeling in 1863 by Joseph S. Whitaker and his associates. The company later reorganized as the Whitaker-Glessner Company in 1873 after Henry Glessner joined the enterprise. The firm expanded rapidly, producing iron sheets, nails, and related products at mills in Wheeling and nearby communities.

During this same period, the Benwood Iron Works was established in Benwood, West Virginia. The location allowed manufacturers to take advantage of river transport while remaining close to Wheeling’s established industrial workforce.

Across the Ohio River, iron manufacturing also expanded in Bellaire, Martins Ferry, and Steubenville, creating what became known as the Wheeling iron district. Mills in these communities specialized in rolling sheet iron, nail plates, and structural iron products. By the 1870s, the district had become one of the most important centers of nail production in the United States.

Technological Change and the Rise of Steel

The industry entered a period of transformation during the late nineteenth century as new steelmaking technologies replaced traditional wrought iron processes. The Bessemer process, introduced in the United States during the 1860s, allowed molten iron to be converted into steel more efficiently and at lower cost.

By the 1880s and 1890s, manufacturers in the Wheeling district were gradually shifting from wrought iron to steel production. Rolling mills that had previously produced nail plates began producing thin steel sheets suitable for roofing, containers, and other industrial uses.

At the same time, the cut nail industry that had dominated Wheeling’s economy began to decline. Wire nails, manufactured from steel wire rather than iron plates, became cheaper to produce and increasingly replaced traditional cut nails in construction markets.

Development of the Tin Plate Industry

A major turning point occurred with the passage of the McKinley Tariff Act in 1890, which imposed duties on imported tin plates. Prior to this legislation, most tin plates used in the United States had been imported from Wales. The tariff encouraged domestic production and led to the rapid establishment of tin plate mills across the Ohio Valley.

Several Wheeling district firms entered the new industry during the early 1890s. Rolling mills that previously produced black plate—thin steel sheets—began coating the material with tin to produce finished tin plate. These products were widely used for food cans, tobacco containers, bottle caps, and household goods.

The region quickly became one of the leading centers of tin plate manufacturing in the United States. Mills in Wheeling, Benwood, Martins Ferry, Bellaire, and Steubenville produced large quantities of sheet steel and tin plate for national markets.

Late Nineteenth-Century Consolidation

By the end of the nineteenth century, competition and technological change encouraged the consolidation of many smaller companies into larger corporations.

In 1898, numerous independent tin plate manufacturers were merged to form the American Tin Plate Company, which soon became the dominant producer of tin plates in the United States.

In 1900, the American Sheet Steel Company was organized to consolidate several sheet steel producers across the region.

Both companies became part of the newly formed United States Steel Corporation in 1901, the largest industrial corporation in the world at the time. Although ownership shifted to national corporations, many of the mills remained physically located in the Wheeling district and continued to employ local workers.

Not all companies joined U.S. Steel, however. Several independent firms continued operating and eventually merged into new regional corporations.

Formation of Wheeling Steel Corporation

A major regional consolidation occurred on June 21, 1920, with the formation of the Wheeling Steel Corporation. The company combined several important Ohio Valley steel producers, including:

• Whitaker-Glessner Company
• La Belle Iron Works
• Wheeling Steel & Iron Company
• Wheeling Corrugating Company

These firms operated numerous plants along the Ohio River in West Virginia and Ohio. By merging, they created a vertically integrated steel company capable of producing raw steel, rolling sheet metal, galvanizing products, and manufacturing finished goods.

The resulting corporation operated a network of mills that included:

• Ackermann Works, Wheeling, West Virginia, produced pressed and drawn steel stampings for use in the automotive and appliance industries.
• Beech Bottom Works, Beech Bottom, West Virginia, operated sheet mills that manufactured hot-rolled electrical sheets for electrical equipment producers. The facility also coated long terne sheets supplied by the Yorkville Works.
• Benwood Works, Benwood, West Virginia, consisted of two pipe mills that processed slabs supplied by the Steubenville Works.
• LaBelle Works, Wheeling, West Virginia, manufactured cut nails.
• Martins Ferry Works, Martins Ferry, West Virginia, produced galvanized sheets, galvanized roofing and accessories, corrugated culverts, and hand-dipped items. The plant operated two continuous galvanizing lines that processed, coated, and treated coils of steel strip. Its products were marketed under the SofTite brand. A second galvanizing line began operation in November 1953 at a cost of $3 million.
• Steubenville Works comprised three integrated operations.
  • Steubenville North, Steubenville, Ohio, included two blast furnaces, eleven open-hearth furnaces, a blooming mill, a hot strip mill, and cold reduction mills. It produced hot-rolled sheets and plates, as well as cold-rolled sheets and coils.
  • Steubenville South, Mingo Junction, Ohio, operated three blast furnaces, two Bessemer converters, a blooming mill, and auxiliary equipment. It supplied hot metal to the open-hearth furnaces at Steubenville North and Bessemer slabs to Benwood Works.
  • Steubenville East, Follansbee, West Virginia, operated 314 coke ovens that supplied fuel to the Steubenville North and South facilities.
• Steelcrete Works, located adjacent to Beech Bottom Works, manufactured expanded metal, metal lath, and related accessories. It also produced Steelcrete bank vaults, reinforced mesh for buildings, stair treads, partitions, and other fabricated items.
• Wheeling Works, Wheeling, West Virginia, fabricated containers, stove and furnace pipe, electric and gas dryers, roofing accessories, floor and roof decking, automobile gasoline tanks, and various automotive components.
• Yorkville Works, Yorkville, Ohio, produced cold-reduced black plate for tinning and installed the first tandem mill of its kind in 1928. The facility manufactured electrolytic and hot-dipped tinplate, black plate, and terneplate. It also operated a metal decorating plant for coating and lithographing tin, terne, and black plate, along with two electrolytic tinplate lines capable of producing tinplate at speeds up to 1,000 feet per minute.

This consolidation allowed the company to coordinate production across multiple plants, with some facilities specializing in primary steelmaking and others focusing on finishing processes such as galvanizing and stamping.

The Wheeling District as an Industrial Corridor

By the early twentieth century, the Wheeling district had evolved into a continuous steel-producing corridor along the Ohio River. Industrial plants stretched from Wheeling and Benwood southward to Steubenville and Mingo Junction, with additional mills located across the river in Bellaire and Martins Ferry.

Railroads and river transportation connected these plants, allowing raw materials such as iron ore, coal, and coke to move efficiently between furnaces and rolling mills. Finished products—including sheet steel, tin plate, galvanized roofing, culverts, and fabricated metal goods—were shipped throughout the United States.

From its beginnings as a center of nail manufacturing in the 1830s, the Wheeling district gradually transformed into a diversified steel-producing region. Through technological change, industrial expansion, and a series of corporate mergers, the valley’s ironworks evolved into an integrated network of steel mills that shaped the economic development of the upper Ohio Valley for more than a century.

Consolidation and Decline

The consolidation of the Wheeling district’s steel industry continued into the late twentieth century. In December 1968, the Wheeling Steel Corporation merged with the Pittsburgh Steel Company to form Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation. The merger expanded the company’s geographic reach and production capacity, incorporating additional facilities, including the Allenport Works, a sheet steel plant in Allenport, Pennsylvania, and the Monessen Works, a steelmaking complex in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Despite the company’s expanded system of mills stretching across the upper Ohio Valley and southwestern Pennsylvania, it struggled to modernize its facilities during the industry downturn that affected American steel producers in the 1970s and 1980s.

Corporate restructuring followed as the company attempted to remain competitive. In 1994, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel reorganized under a holding-company structure with the creation of WHX Corporation, which became the parent company of Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. Financial pressures continued, and in 2001, the company filed for bankruptcy protection after posting major losses and accumulating significant debt. A court-supervised reorganization allowed the company to emerge from bankruptcy in 2003, at which time it became independent from WHX Corporation.

Ownership of the company changed several times during the following decade as the American steel industry underwent further consolidation. Esmark Incorporated acquired Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel in November 2007 following a proxy contest. Less than a year later, in August 2008, the Russian steel producer Severstal purchased Esmark’s Wheeling-Pittsburgh operations for approximately $1.25 billion. Severstal held the facilities only briefly; in 2011, the company sold the former Wheeling-Pittsburgh steelmaking operations to RG Steel, a subsidiary of the Renco Group. The arrangement proved short-lived, however. In 2012, RG Steel filed for bankruptcy protection and began shutting down facilities and laying off workers, marking another chapter in the long decline of large-scale steel production in the Wheeling district.