The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1910-08-01
Travellers Tales

Il was much pleased to see the little
story you had in The Forum night or
two ago in regard to the making of
wire fences" said c. F. Leonard, South
Dakota representative of the American
Steel & Wire Co, a subsidiary branch
Of the United States Steel Co. Per
sonally / have visited several of the
plants Of the company and have seen
the actual work of making wire fences
just such as we exhibited at the fair,
from the raw material, and the story
you told of the work Is correct One
of the big mills of the company Is To-
Gated at Sharon, Pa. Ten or twelve
years ago the site of this town was
covered with hay and grain, with only
a farm house on 1t. Today eleven thou
sand people are living there. The en-
tire plant employs 5000 men, but only
1000 Of these are in the American Steel
& Wire plant, but the whole of the
$500 have some part in the production
Of the wire fence from the iron ore.
Most of the ore that is secured by the
company comes from the company's
own mines up in the great lakes re-
gion, and 1t is transported over the
Astabula Harbor, Ohio, and then load
ed with the aid of great cranes on to
the company's own cars on the Besse-
mer railroad, which is mostly owned
by the u. S. Steel. At the plant in
Sharon great derricks pick up cars
loaded with the ore, which is mostly
like dust, and carrying them over diff
ferent parts of the ore yards, dump
them at places where great iron
bridges are used for hosting them into
the big blast furnaces, some of which
produce as many as $50 tons of pig
metal per day. There are thousands
and thousands of tons of this metal in
and about the yards, waiting their turn
TO be sent to the Bessemere steel mills,
which are In the same yard. Here they
are converted into steel billets of 5000
pounds each and then they go to the
rod mill. l just wish you could see
the great heavy intricate machinery in
this department, how one machine will
pick up one of these three or four ton
billets, turn it and roll it about and
shove it on through roll after roll until
1T comes out in a sort of a rod fifty
or sixty feet long. 1t is again heated
III Tie lOu IT'LL. his is a queer look
ing place, with rolls everywhere, some
times the wire going wrong and shoot
ing away into the air, and woe betide
the man it happens to hit, for it some
times does catch a man and then it is
pretty generally all up with him. The
rods an inch thick are reduced by pass
ing through roll after roll until they
become the size of the fence you see
here. Indeed, I have seen the wire re-
duced to the fineness of a watch spring.
After this reduction has been made,
they are placed in picking watts and
sort of cooked. Then they are coiled
up and sent to the fence factory and
here is where the nice work is done.
There are scores of different patterns
OF fences, from the stately fence that
Is used about some millionaire's man
sion to the common everyday fence
that is used for wiring in a section Of
land. There are many machines in this
place, each one taking fall as it were
out Of the wire, and all having a part
to play in producing the finished fence.
could talk whole day on the work
that the machines do, for it is simply
marvellous. was told on my last visit
to the Sharon plant that it Is possible
to take the raw material, iron ore, coke,
limestone, etc., and in twenty four
hours produce the finished fence or the
wire nail. 1t seems incredible but it
is the truth"