The earliest foundations of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company were the American Iron Company, founded in 1851 by Bernard Lauth, and B. F. Jones founded in 1852 a few miles (c 4 km) south of Pittsburgh along the Monongahela River. Lauth's interest was bought in 1854 by James H. Laughlin. The first firm to bear the name of Jones and Laughlin was organized in 1861 and headquartered at Third & Ross in downtown Pittsburgh Originally producing only iron, the enterprise began the production of steel in 1886. Over the ensuing 60 years, the company expanded its facilities and its operations along both sides of the Monongahela River and along the Ohio River. The Hot Metal Bridge across the Monongahela River was built to connect the works on one side of the river with the works on the other side of the river. In 1905, a new plant was begun at Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The company also owned coal mines in western Pennsylvania in its early days, including some reached by an incline in Pittsburgh's South Side which connected to the railroad over the bridge adjacent to the Hot Metal Bridge. Other mines were along the nearby Becks Run, also directly connected by railroad. The incline and mines were gone before 1900, but mining continued in Pennsylvania towns such as Vestaburg and elsewhere. The former Otis Steel company along the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was purchased in 1942, and then in the mid-1960s a finishing plant was constructed in Hennepin, Illinois.
J & L Steel (known to its employees as simply "J & L", sometimes pronounced "jane ell") provided the most able competition to the Carnegie Steel Company in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. of Texas offered to purchase 63 percent of J & L Steel on May 14, 1968 completing its purchase of 63% by June 1968 for approximately $428.5 million ($2.99 billion today). It took full control of the company in 1974.
In 1978, J & L Steel acquired Youngstown Sheet and Tube. In 1981, J & L Steel bought a stainless steel mill from McLouth Steel Products in Detroit, MI, which was probably an attempt to try to get closer to the auto market. It merged with Republic Steel in 1984 to form LTV Steel.
Read more about Jones And Laughlin Steel Company: J&L Coal Incline, From Hot Strip To Mixed-use Development, Historic Sites
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