Tony,

Don't forget that Bethlehem Steel had a plant in
Huntington Park, California. It was on State Street
between Randolph and Slauson and was served by SP
who's tracks ran down Randolph.

I remember going to school at Huntington Park High and
seeing the many switchers pulling gondolas loaded with
steel going to the Bethlehem plant. If I remember
correctly, more than one of SP's surplus early
switchers found a home there until they closed the
plant in the 60s.

Jim Scott
Lompoc, CA.
--- thompson@... wrote:

Shawn Beckert muses:

I know that both Texas and California had heavy

industries that

used steel. Where that steel came from is the big

unknown. I've

always thought that steel pipe, plate and other

shapes came from

back east to be used west of the Mississippi, but

it's clear that

there were plants capable of producing steel

products out west as

well.

The specialized shapes and alloys would have been
produced in the big
eastern mills. "Plain Jane" shapes can be rolled in
much less specialized
mills, or in single-purpose mills like the U.S.
Steel facility for tinplate
at Pittsburg, Calif. For example, a great deal of
pipe was made at Kaiser,
both in Southern California and at their plant in
Napa: it just takes steel
sheet and some machinery <g>. Really low-tech stuff
like rebar can
practically be made by a remelter in his backyard.
So how far the "steel"
is shipped depends on "which steel." To generalize
about "steel shipments"
is a little naive.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press,
Berkeley, CA
2942 Linden Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705
http://www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail,
thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroads and on Western
history

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com