page_title: Union–Miles Park
section_title: Formation and growth of Cleveland Rolling Mill
hierarchical_section_title: Union–Miles Park / Union–Miles and the steel industry / Formation and growth of Cleveland Rolling Mill
caption_attribution_description: English: Henry Chisholm (1822-1881), Ohio steel magnate who created Chisholm, Jones &amp; Co. which later became Cleveland Rolling Mill.
context_page_description: Union–Miles Park is a city planning area on the East Side of Cleveland, Ohio, in the United States. The neighborhood draws its name from Union Avenue, and Miles Park in its far southwest corner.
  Union–Miles Park was originally part of Newburgh Township, which was organized in 1814. Settled by whites as an area of farms and orchards, Union–Miles Park became one of two centers in the Cleveland steelmaking industry beginning in 1856. The steel mills drew Irish, Scottish, and Welsh immigrants to the area, with the intersection of E. 93rd Street and Union Avenue becoming known as "Irishtown". After an 1882 strike at the steel mill was broken using Polish and Slovak strikebreakers, the large Irish and Welsh communities were displaced by these two new immigrant groups. Railroads cut through many areas of Union–Miles Park, defining the area. The steel industry in Union–Miles Park collapsed during the Great Depression. White flight from the area in the 1960s, and a strong influx of African Americans eager to take advantage of inexpensive housing, radically changed the demographic nature of the neighborhood.
context_section_description: 1856 saw the establishment of Union–Miles Park's (and Cleveland's) most important manufacturer, Cleveland Rolling Mill. The firm was established by brothers and Welsh immigrants David and John Jones in lot 456 to manufacture flat bottomed railway rails. The brothers ran out of money that same year, and shut down. Scottish immigrants Henry and William Chisholm made a major investment in the Jones plant in 1857, and the company was renamed Chisholm, Jones and Co. The plant was expanded  and began rerolling iron flanged railway rails into flat bottomed rails. In 1860, Amasa Stone and his brother, Andros, made a further investment in the company, which took the name Stone, Chisholm & Jones. The new capital enabled to firm to add a blast furnace and puddling plant, which opened in 1859. A second blast furnace was added in 1860. It was the first blast furnace to operate in the Cleveland region. The plant had grown so swiftly that it now employed about 150 workers and produced 50 short tons (45 t) of iron railroad ties daily.
  On November 9, 1862, Stone, Chisholm & Jones reorganized and became the Cleveland Rolling Mill after receiving investments from Henry B. Payne, Jeptha Wade, and Stillman Witt. The company built a 60-foot (18 m) high, 16-foot (4.9 m) wide blast furnace in 1864 near the west end of what is now Saxe Avenue, and the following year erected its first Bessemer converter. This made the Cleveland Rolling Mill only the second Bessemer steel works in the United States.
  Cleveland Rolling Mill expanded its presence in 1868 with the construction of the Newburgh Steel Works next to its existing plant. The new works included an open hearth Bessemer furnace; it was the first continuous open hearth Bessemer furnace west of the Allegheny Mountains and only the fifth such furnace in the nation. A 50-short-ton (45 t) stationary blast furnace and four 50-short-ton (45 t) rolling open hearth furnaces were also built. A boiler plate mill, sheet metal mill, and wire mill were in operation by 1870. Another 60-foot (18 m) high, 16-foot (4.9 m) wide blast furnace was erected in 1872. By the end of 1872, the combined Newburgh plants had two puddling mills; two blast furnaces; two Bessemer converters; a boiler plate mill; two rail and rod mills; a wire mill; and a bolt, nut, and spike manufacturing shop. The Newburgh plants were producing so much pig iron, cast iron, and steel that Cleveland Rolling Mill became one of the principal metalworks in the state. A second open hearth furnace was constructed in 1876, and the company leased the works and the Proton Furnace of the Cleveland Iron Co. in 1878. Cleveland Rolling Mill built a 70-foot (21 m) high, 17-foot (5.2 m) wide blast furnace at the leased site a year later, by which time Cleveland Rolling Mill occupied 32 acres (130,000 m²) of the Union–Miles Park neighborhood.
  Cleveland Rolling Mill continued to expand in the last two decades of the century. In April 1880, the firm issued new stock to double its capitalization, purchased the "Canal Tract" from John D. Rockefeller, built the Central Furnaces on the site from 1881 to 1882 A blooming mill was built on the Newburgh site in 1881, and a third blast furnace in 1882. 1882 also saw the erection of a Garrett rod mill, the first of its kind anywhere in the world. Construction of the Central Furnaces enabled the company to dismantle two of the older furnaces at Newburgh in 1884. Another blooming mill was erected at Newburgh in 1901, another blast furnace in 1901, and a rod mill in 1902.
  Cleveland Rolling Mill was acquired by the American Steel and Wire Company of New Jersey in 1899. By that time, the company's works stretched from E. 91st Street in the east to E. 78th Street in the west, and from Harvard Avenue in the south north to Aetna Road. A second, smaller works occupied an area a half-mile to the west, bounded by Broadway Avenue, Fleet Avenue, and Aetna Road. Cleveland Rolling Mill occupied a total of 75 acres (300,000 m²) in what would become the Union–Miles Park neighborhood, and 4,000 workers were employed there.
caption: Henry Chisholm, the driving force behind Cleveland Rolling Mill.
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