Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-22
CHICAGO STEEL MEN
Building Extensive Plants to Enter
Into More Active Competition
WITH GAS CITY MANUFACTURERS
Their Advantage Of Nearness to Iron
Mines and the Lake May
MAKE THEM FORMIDABLE RIVALS
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE D1spArcH.l

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE D1SPATCH.l
CHICAGO May 21.-South Chicago, where
the principal works of the old North Chi
cago Rolling Mill Company are located, is
all activity just now. A big new steel mill
is being built as rapidly as men and money
can build it. New blast furnaces have been
put up and vast steel shipyard is in pro-
cess of construction. The Calumet river,
which winds through the town-it is now
within Chicago's city limits-is being deep
ened. Great dredges are at work cutting
new channels through the sand, and all this
because the Illinois Steel Company, the
successor of the North Chicago Company,
has determined to crowd the steel men of
Pittsburg and the East out of the Western
market.
They 60 about it very modestly, too. Call
at their offices and they tell you that they
were only making few repairs, replacing
some of their old machinery with new and
adding furnace or two to keep up with the
demands of the times, but the fact Of the
matter is that, with characteristic Western
shrewdness and energy, they have deter
mined to capture the Western markets IN
every branch of steel manufacture and leave
Carnegie and other giants of the East to seek
pastures new.
GREATER COMPETITION PROMISED.
Up to this time steel rails are the only ar
ticles in which the programme has been TO
any great extent carried out. In that line,
as everybody knows, Chicago Is close COM
petitor of Carnegie, the race between
the two is often very exciting, and
the "star spangled Scotchman" would
be deprived of some of his Western
trade, if it were not for the cheap carriage OF
his goods by way of the rivers, as, for
instance, when it was noted in a recent issue
of THE DISPATCH that one of Gray's Iron
Line boats left Pittsburg with tow OF steel
rails representing over S400, 900 in value,
destined for points on Western rivers, to
which they can thus be taken as cheaply as
they could be shipped by rail from Chicago.
Within the next three or four years the COM
petition will be much keener, unless all
signs fail.
The Illinois Steel Company now own and
operate its own iron mines in the Northern
Peninsula, and the only thing for which it
is dependent on outsiders is the carriage of
its ores to its furnaces in Milwaukee and
Chicago. 1t proposes to be independently
this regard also, for. through an allied cor
poration styled the Chicago Ship Building
Company, it will build its own line of great
lake freight carriers of the modern style
which, because of their immense capacity,
their speed and cheapness OF handling, have
made the sailing vessel almost thing Of
the past.
HOPE TO EQUAL PITTSBURG.
The Chicago blast furnaces will thus get
their ores more cheaply than those in Pitts
burg, and, by using the same policy with
reference to coal, a similar reduction will be
made in the cost of fuel. By these and
other means, it is believed, the great ad-
vantage which Pittsburg enjoys in natural
gas will be overcome, and the cost of produc-
tion made at least as low in Chicago as it is
in Pittsburg. The question then will be
which can take its goods at the lowest cost
to the consumer, and there Chicago claims
to have the advantage, because of her
greater nearness to the West and the sharp
rivalry among the numerous railroad lines
which center there and compete for her
trade.
The new steel plate mill at South Chicago
can hardly be finished and in operation for
a year. The work at the shipyard is being
pushed very fast. Part of its buildings are
already under cover, and some of Its ma
chinery-which bears the marks of manu-
facturers in Scotland. New England and
various parts of the East including Pitts
burg,-is already in position. One of its
slips is nearly completed. and the dredging
in the other two has fairly begun, but it can
hardly be ready for work in less than
year. So that, in the matter of steel plate
at least, Pittsburg, which now makes vast
quantities of that article for use in lake
boats, will have full year to prepare for
the advent of its Western rival.
SENDING EAST FOR IRON.
Structural iron is another article, in the
OF which the Illinois Steel
Company is about to compete more actively
than heretofore with the Edgar Thomson
and its other Eastern rivals. Up to this
time the limit Of its capacity in this line has
been straight 15-inch beam. The work
has been done at the mill located in the
north side Of Chicago. The machinery there
is none too robust, and 15-inch beam
crowds 1t to Its utmost capacity, and is
liable TO bring about breakdown. but the
sizes under that IL makes very comfortably
and about as cheaply as the structural steel
works of the East. It's great disadvantage
has been that 1t did not have the necessary
appliances for punching and fitting the
beams so as TO make them ready for imme-
diate use. To obviate this difficulty ma
chinery for punching and fitting has just
been introduced In the Northside mill, and
hereafter, as to smaller and commoner sizes
and shapes, Chicago will be a somewhat !
more active competitor of Pittsburg than
she has been heretofore.
But in the department Of structural iron |
she is still immeasurably behind such es-
tablishments as the Edgar Thomson, and it
is estimated that with tie utmost that care |
and skill could do, she could not catch up
in less than three years. For instance,
when our Tacoma Buildings 13-story |
structure built of steel beams and terra Gotta
was proposed a year and half ago, no |
Chicago establishment could touch the work. |
The architects plans were taken to the Car
negies; their draUghtsmen figured out the |
details; the orders were
SENT ON TO PITTsBURG
and the steel came back finished, and fitted |
with such nicely that it only remained to set |
it in position. Few Of the people who saw |
that building spring up like mushroom in
4 night, understood that the reason was that |
it had all been built beforehand at Brad
dock, and came out only to be set in position |
and bolted together. The same thing was
true, to a limited extent Of our old Chamber |
Of Commerce building, which has been |
heightened by nine additional stories, built |
,f Pittsburg steel and terra Gotta.
1t is believed that the Worlds Fair |
buildings will call for vast amount Of this |
material, but up to this time there is moth |
ng to indicate that the Illinois Steel Com
oany will get its plant in readiness to enter
INTO active competition with the East iorit,
urther than for few OF the smaller sizes |
and the commonest shapes.