Duluth Works - End of A Company, Start of Another

End of A Company, Start of Another

Following World War I and the 1920s, of which Minnesota Steel enjoyed great success and profit, the Great Depression hit the country. The barely 15 year old Duluth Works was affected just as bad as the rest of the country. The blast furnaces, coke ovens and open hearths were idled at times, leaving only the finishing mills operating. in 1935, one of the two blast furnaces was dismantled. The benzol plant closed in 1939. Things looked bleak for the young facility. It was realized within company headquarters at U.S. Steel, that it had to re-organize some of its less profitable divisions to try to maintain its profit within the industry. With the newfound focus of the Duluth Works on wire products, in 1932 it was decided to move the Minnesota Steel Company's holdings under the umbrella of the American Steel and Wire company (AS & W), another division within the vast U.S. Steel empire. The Minnesota Steel Company now existed only on paper. For the next 24 years, the American Steel and Wire Company ran the operations at the Morgan Park plant. In 1964, the American Steel and Wire division was absorbed once again into the U.S. Steel umbrella, under its Operations Division, and with it, the Morgan Park operations were known thereafter simply as "the Duluth Works".