In 1903, William Pigott (1860-1929) formed Seattle Steel Company (later Pacific Coast Steel Co., then Bethlehem Steel Co., now Nucor Steel) on 55 acres of the Duwamish River estuary tide flats in Humphrey (later Youngstown, now the North Delridge neighborhood of Seattle). Operations began on May 4, 1905, and the Seattle Sunday Times proclaimed the plant "Seattle's Little Pittsburgh."
In this image the Bethlehem Pacific plant stands 50 years after it was built in Youngstown, a rough and rowdy neighborhood in the 1900s built for the immigrant steelworkers. Visible in the image are two long buildings, parallel with Spokane Street, which house the rolling mills and their shipping departments. The building parallel with Avalon Way, with five smokestacks, housed the basic open hearth furnaces where steel scrap and other raw materials were turned into new steel. The open hearth furnaces were closed in 1958 in favor of modern electric steel making facilities.
SHS category: Mills - Steel
Caption information source: "Pigott, William (1860-1929)," by David Wilma, HistoryLink.org Essay 3177
ID Number: SHS11316
Date: 1954
Physical Description: 1 photographic print mounted on cardboard: b&w ; 8 x 9.5 in.
Additional Information: Digital copy of this item available thanks to funding from a 2016 Institute for Museum and Library Services grant. Metadata updated as part of a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services administered by the Library Services and Technology Act, through the Washington State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
