Cleveland's Mill of Steel

Molten steel glowing bright orange. The sound of machinery so loud you can go deaf. Heat so hot you would burn to a crisp in an instant! Arcelor Mittal’s Cleveland steel plant is where you can experience the molten steel, loud machinery, the heat, and much more. The excitement and fun of walking through the mill will bring a new perspective on Cleveland.

Arcelor Mittal steel wasn’t always Arcelor Mittal. The company started in 1870 with the original name of Otis Iron and Steel Co’s. As quickly as it started it failed because of the corporate would not allow it to be overcome by the unions that were created at the time. Next in line was LTV Steel, they would invest 1.1 billion dollars to bring the steeling areas back to life but after two years the company went bankrupt. Third ISG would buy out the company as it was diving into the ground. Unfortunately the person who would buy LTV steel had no clue what he was doing in the Steel business. They would soon be bought out by the company that now controls roughly seventy-five percent of the worlds steel production, Arcelor Mittal.  Think about it. Cleveland’s mill was the first to cause the Cuyahoga River to catch on fire. Not everything in the past of the mill is boring.

            As the present company of Arcelor Mittal, many things have changed for the best. “We never have to worry about the river catching on fire because the problem of the water pollution is fixed now; it actually goes back into the river cleaner then when it was pumped out.” As stated form Mr. Cordell Petz the safety manager of the US Steel making plants. Mr. Mittal bought the Cleveland plant in April 2005 having the worlds largest steel company the world has ever seem, involving 300,000 employees in over sixty countries around the world. Going to the mill is breathtaking covering 950 acres 7,000,000 square feet of buildings. It Ranks as the only truly global steelmaker. (Email2)

The Production is the truly amazing and awing part of the steel mill. Putting raw materials into a giant blast furnace until they turn into molten steel resembling a bright neon orange color. The heat from the molten steel can be felt from all the way across a fifty  foot room.  From there more scrap, lime, flux, and oxygen are combined into a basic oxygen furnace until the steel is pure and the quality the buyer is wanting. The steel is then hauled to the slab castors by what the workers call lobsters, giant red trucks, which are used to haul steel from one part of the plant to the other. From the slab castors, the giant molten candy bar resembling blocks of steel are then put on a train to be carried a mile to the other aide of the mill to be but into giant rollers. The rolls are roughly a quarter inch thick but a mile long, weighing as much as twenty-five tons.

The future of the plant is looking more and more optimistic as Mr. Mittal finds new consumers to buy the steel that the Cleveland plant produces. The plant sees not future in shutting down like previous companies. The most recent deals have involved making the steel plating for the bullet proof vehicles for the armed forces.

The excitement will bring joy to the “so called” depressing city of Cleveland Ohio. The mill is one of my favorite places to go. The speechless experience that you will have at the Arcelor Steel Mill will change your view about Cleveland being one of the most depressing cities in the United States.