The Lorain Steel Mill in Lorain, Ohio, was originally founded in 1894 as the Johnson Steel Street Rail Company and began producing steel via Bessemer converter in 1895. It was renamed the Lorain Steel Company in 1898 and soon absorbed into J.P. Morgan’s Federal Steel, becoming part of U.S. Steel when that company was formed in 1901. By the early 1900s, the site evolved into a major integrated steel facility, featuring blast furnaces, coke ovens, converters, and rolling mills. U.S. Steel’s National Tube subsidiary expanded the plant further starting in 1903, focusing on pipes and tubes for the petroleum and infrastructure sectors. The mill played a central role in transforming Lorain into an “International City,” drawing waves of immigrant labor from Europe, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. At its peak in the mid-20th century, the mill operated up to five blast furnaces and had extensive capabilities for coke, Bessemer, and open-hearth steelmaking. Modernization in the late 1960s added basic-oxygen furnaces and bar mills, though pollution controls began shutting down older processes. As foreign competition intensified in the 1970s and 1980s, and materials like aluminum replaced steel in some sectors, the mill began to decline. In 1989, it was split—Republic Steel took over the bar mill and U.S. Steel continued tubular production until idling the facility in 2015. A partial revival came in 2013–2014 when Republic installed a new electric arc furnace, bringing back some jobs and special bar quality production, though the plant’s output remains far below its historical peak.