After browsing literally hundreds of photos on the Cleveland State University Cleveland Memory Project website, specifically the section on Cleveland Union Terminal, I finally found some more photos of the bolt & nut plant. Of course, I found none of the photos by searching for anything related to the bolt & nut plant.
The photo below was found by searching for "Cuyahoga River", and was listed as a general distant view of the Terminal Tower from the banks of the Cuyahoga River. What it actually shows was my "bingo" moment because as far as I know this is the best shot available on the internet of the blast furnace at the bolt & nut plant, which was constructed prior to 1900. The photo was taken in 1928, which was 2 years before Republic Steel purchased the bolt & nut plant, and at this point in time the plant was known as the Upson Bolt & Nut plant and was owned by the Bourne-Fuller Company. You have to look closely to notice, but a large ore freighter is on the river just on the other side of the person standing in the foreground, the deck of which is just above the person's head. The wheelhouse and mast are visible to the left of the Terminal Tower.
A little more history research revealed that this blast furnace along with the ore unloading dock and the open hearth furnaces were dismantled at some point after 1935, just 5 years after Republic took control of the plant. After the blast furnace and open hearth furnaces were dismantled, the bolt & nut plant would have received raw steel slabs from the much larger Republic Steel mill just a few miles away and a little further up the Cuyahoga River. The large structure formerly housing the open hearth furnaces was turned into a steel bar and slab storage building. I assume that this was done by Republic as a cost saving measure and to consolidate steel making operations in the Cleveland area. The larger Republic mill up river, the former Corrigan-McKinney steelworks, was a much larger steel mill and was the centerpiece steel mill for Republic in Cleveland.
The photo below is a 1952 aerial photo from USGS Earth Explorer, which I obtained by following Chris Ellis' excellent tutorial. The stacks from the open hearth furnaces are gone, as is the blast furnace and ore dock, meaning that the bolt & nut plant was not making its own steel anymore. The ore bridge crane has not yet been dismantled though.
This leaves me with a modeling dilemma. If I am to model the 1940's-1950's operation of the plant, I will either have to take freelancing license and pretend that the bolt & nut plant still made its own steel in the 1950's or I will have to model the plant without steel making capability. I am leaning towards freelancing because I think a working steel mill will add a layer of interesting operations to the layout.
The photo below was found by searching for "Cuyahoga River", and was listed as a general distant view of the Terminal Tower from the banks of the Cuyahoga River. What it actually shows was my "bingo" moment because as far as I know this is the best shot available on the internet of the blast furnace at the bolt & nut plant, which was constructed prior to 1900. The photo was taken in 1928, which was 2 years before Republic Steel purchased the bolt & nut plant, and at this point in time the plant was known as the Upson Bolt & Nut plant and was owned by the Bourne-Fuller Company. You have to look closely to notice, but a large ore freighter is on the river just on the other side of the person standing in the foreground, the deck of which is just above the person's head. The wheelhouse and mast are visible to the left of the Terminal Tower.
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| Upson Bolt & Nut late 1800's era blast furnace, photo circa 1928. Photo: CSU Cleveland Memory Project. |
A little more history research revealed that this blast furnace along with the ore unloading dock and the open hearth furnaces were dismantled at some point after 1935, just 5 years after Republic took control of the plant. After the blast furnace and open hearth furnaces were dismantled, the bolt & nut plant would have received raw steel slabs from the much larger Republic Steel mill just a few miles away and a little further up the Cuyahoga River. The large structure formerly housing the open hearth furnaces was turned into a steel bar and slab storage building. I assume that this was done by Republic as a cost saving measure and to consolidate steel making operations in the Cleveland area. The larger Republic mill up river, the former Corrigan-McKinney steelworks, was a much larger steel mill and was the centerpiece steel mill for Republic in Cleveland.
The photo below is a 1952 aerial photo from USGS Earth Explorer, which I obtained by following Chris Ellis' excellent tutorial. The stacks from the open hearth furnaces are gone, as is the blast furnace and ore dock, meaning that the bolt & nut plant was not making its own steel anymore. The ore bridge crane has not yet been dismantled though.
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| USGS aerial photo of the Republic Steel Bolt & Nut plant, circa 1952. |
This leaves me with a modeling dilemma. If I am to model the 1940's-1950's operation of the plant, I will either have to take freelancing license and pretend that the bolt & nut plant still made its own steel in the 1950's or I will have to model the plant without steel making capability. I am leaning towards freelancing because I think a working steel mill will add a layer of interesting operations to the layout.
It's a shame the plant's furnaces were shutdown by the 1940's. While I think operating the plant to receive slab steel would still be interesting, my first instinct was also to fudge the furnace's shutdown date. It's a small application of the freelance license that most won't notice at all. A working blast furnace somewhere in the flats of Cleveland? Doesn't seem out of place to me! Thanks mentioning the USGS link, I still use the site for the never ending research.
ReplyDeleteAfter returning from SE Asia, I was hired at the Bold & Nut Division as an inventory accounting clerk.
ReplyDeleteThe office building was connected to the plant which goes back to the bridge. In the aerial view. It was built to represent a Great Lakes freighter, with the bow/wheel house the office building, deck the plant and finally the warehouse/plant being the stern of the freighter where the crew's berths were and engine room.