Beginnings
Kaiser Steel Corporation was incorporated on December 1, 1941 for the purpose of manufacturing steel in Southern California. The finished steel was needed to supply the various shipbuilding facilities controlled by Henry J. Kaiser on the west coast. These facilities were building ships for the British government and were using costly eastern steel that was in short supply. After obtaining the $125 million needed, construction of the mill in Fontana, California began. In August 1943, the first plate steel rolled off the production line at the Fontana Mill.
Coal for this early production came from Utah Fuel Company Mine No. 2 at Sunnyside, Utah and was transported to the mill via the Union Pacific Railroad. In 1950, Kaiser Steel purchased the entire Sunnyside, Utah facility. In 1955, Kaiser purchased 500,000 acres (2,000 km2) of land near Raton, New Mexico for future expanded production. The existing mine at this Raton location, named the Koehler Mine, was operated and upgraded until a newer and more modern mine could be completed. This new mine, named York Canyon Mine, served as the major source of coking coal until the Fontana Mill closed in 1983.
Also needed for the production of steel was limestone. Until 1955, this material was purchased from various sources in California and Nevada. In that year Kaiser Steel purchased a large deposit located at Cushenbury, California, only 75 miles (121 km) from the Fontana Mill. The limestone was transported to the Fontana Mill by the Santa Fe Railway.
The last ingredient needed for the steelmaking process was a reliable source of iron ore. Kaiser Steel purchased the Vulcan Mine located near Kelso, California, which served as the primary source of ore until 1948. The Union Pacific Railroad transported the iron ore from Kelso to the Fontana Mill. This ore, however, was not of good enough quality to satisfy Kaiser and a better source was sought. In 1944, Kaiser Steel purchased the large Eagle Mountain mining claim from the Southern Pacific Railroad and began development of the Eagle Mountain Mine after the end of World War II.
Read more about this topic: Eagle Mountain Railroad
Famous quotes containing the word beginnings:
“Let us, then, take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the infinite. Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“These beginnings of commerce on a lake in the wilderness are very interesting,—these larger white birds that come to keep company with the gulls.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)