The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-10-23
THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK, Montgomery, Ala.

quite take the daily output of steel from the Gadsden plant, where each The remaining steel made at Gadsden is sold for car axles and for minor uses The Messrs. Shutters feel a special pride in the excellence of the steel made at Gadsden, and the manufacture of which how 1t was begun might be considered an experiment. for no steel of any sort had been made previously in that sec tion. The severest test to which steel can be put Is for 1t to be made into car axle. and yet no single piece of steel sent out by the Gadsden plant are turned into 0 car axle has yet proved deficient and been turned back to the company.
 The Ensley plant here each day em- ploys 1000 men. They are In the main skilled workmen and draw large sala- ries. One Is told that $10 day for the better and more skilled employees among them is no unusual or great pay.
 The way in which steel is turned into wire, nails and staples and what not may be here told in general way. The 800 tons of steel which the plant uses every day comes to 1t in the shape of billets only four inches square. but which weigh ITS pounds. The billets are unloaded from the Gadsden cars and given furnace treatment. They come into the rod mill from the furnace in a red hot state. In the rod mill is where the billet becomes a snaky rib bon of fire for there 1t Is rolled into q No. rod which is one-quarter of an inch in diameter.
 It is not ready yet to be made into wire, however. It is first coiled, then thoroughly cleaned and baked. This ready for the drawing room. the draw ing room meaning the place where the wire Is drawn out to its slenderest di- mensions. In the drawing room 1t is drawn cold through die into whatever size is desired for making the various kinds of wires and nails.
 Wires or Nails.
 Having been transformed into wire there are now two courses open to the original piece of steel. It may remain wire for one thing. In which case it is carried into the galvanized room and galvanized so that it will safely stand any sort of weather. Or 1t may he in- tended for nails Tn which event 1t Is carried into the nail mill and chopped up into millions of steel nails.
 The galvanized wires may he used for other purposes than as wire. It may be made into field fencing, into hasps or staples. There are other rooms about the big plant where all these materials of commerce are mado from the original piece of steel The full list of the articles of commerce turned out by the plant Is made up of wire nails. baroed wire. field fencing. wire staples, galvanized and annealed wire.
 The MessIs. Shulers are firmly of the opinion that the raw material which they are getting for their steel in the neighborhood of Gadsden is of supe- rior quality. As d test showing this they are now drawing from No. rod wire of an eighteen gauge without an- healing. when previously they used other steel they had to anneal when the wire got to or 10-inch gauge.
 The material history of the steel mak- ing industry in Ensley only runs back to 1898, for in that same year the plant of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Com pany and the rod and wire mills of the Shutters were set to work. The possibilities of the industry were fore casted years before. Possible pioneers in the industy had been frightened off by the experience of the Henderson mill people who several years built a plant In North Birmingham. The plant today is dark and windowless and 1t is used only by bats and owls. They tried to make steel here by the Besse- mer process. but the ores were not the right sort. Earnest persistent effort was made. but the steel would not turn out right.
 The "Open Hearth. Process.
 It remained for the "open hearth" process to come in and show the rich possibilities of the district.
 It may not be generally known, but 1t is nevertheless fact that the location of the first steel plant at Ensley was due largely to the faith of President NJ H. Smith of the Louisville and Nash vtiIa in the district and to his nersistent efforts to have the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company build such plant. Per haps to him, more than to any other one man is due the existence of the steel works at Ensley. As far back as 1891 there had been talk of building q steel plant in the Birmingham district by the Tennessee Company. This company was interested in the Henderson fur mace, put up for steel making in 1898 and which failed.
 After this failure the company hesi- tated about again entering on the pro- feet for several years. In the mean while President Smith. together with certain prominent citizens of the dis trIct were urging upon the Tennessee people the possibilities of such an in- dustry at Ensley. Persistence won at last and the Tennessee people want ed the Louisville and Nashville road to subscribe to &200.0 .000 worth of the bonds of the proposed mill. And this sub scription was secured from the stock holders by President Smith and the plant became certainty. And with it came the plant of the Messrs Shutters.
 The fullest account of the early his tory of the steel industry is given in an opinion recently handed down by Judge Thomas c. Jones in the United States Circuit Court in the case of Kessler