Consolidated Steel Corporation Consolidated Steel Corporation was an American steel and shipbuilding business . Consolidated built ships during World War II in two locations : Wilmington , California and Orange , Texas . It was created in 1929 by the merger of Llewellyn Iron Works , Baker Iron Works and Union Iron Works , all of Los Angeles . Baker Iron Works . Baker Iron Works of Los Angeles also manufactured mining equipment . The Baker Iron Works had its start at Los Angeles , California , about 1877 , when Milo S . Baker acquired a small machine shop there . The business , begun on a small scale as M . S . Baker & Company , grew quite rapidly . Less than a year later , Baker erected a $ 15 , 000 building [ equivalent to $ 300 , 000 in today ’ s buying power ] on Buena Vista Street near College . Baker Iron Works had a great many different products , manufacturing mining , milling , pumping , hoisting , oil and well drilling machinery , streetcars , boilers , oven and heating furnaces , as well as a line of architectural iron . It seems to have been especially noteworthy for steam boiler fabrication , installation and maintenance . According to one authority , in 1889 Baker produced the first locomotive built in Los Angeles , designed by Milo ’ s son Fred , vice president of the firm . Another authority { 106 } says Baker built horse cars and perhaps street cars for Los Angeles , Pasadena and other communities in the Los Angeles area and that they built some larger cars for the Santa Ana & Orange Motor Road in 1898 . According to this authority , after Pacific Electric bought this line , the cars were revamped and continued in service until 1920 . It is claimed that In the early 1890s , Street Railway Journal reportedly ranked Baker “ among the principal car builders on the Pacific Coast . ” There is also some possibility Baker built some of the L . A . cable cars too . ( Yes , San Francisco was not the only city to have cable cars . Within four years of San Francisco ’ s first , eight other cities had them : Brooklyn ; Chicago ; Hoboken , NY ; Kansas City ; Los Angeles ; Oakland , CA ; Omaha ; and St . Louis . ) According to an article in the 1 January 1890 issue of the Los Angeles Times , the Baker works then occupied some and provided employment to 75 men . A large variety of manufacturing was being done . The foundry was making iron and brass castings to fit nearly all kinds of machinery for mining and milling purposes , besides pumping plants for large and small water - works , and steam plants for all the variety of uses to which steam was put . They manufactured their own boilers . They were also manufacturing oil - boring tools and rigs , and constructing elevators — both passenger and freight — in all varieties : hydraulic steam or hand . It was claimed by the newspaper that Baker had installed nearly all the first class passenger elevators in Southern California . The article said they manufacture street - cars and did other railroad work to order and claimed to make the best gang plows and road and field rollers that could be obtained anywhere . They also installed heating and ventilating plants for public buildings , both steam , hot water and hot air . And they did architectural iron - work . Milo S . Baker was then President , J . E . Sills was Vice - President and Treasurer , and Fred L . Baker ( Milo ’ s son ) was Secretary and Plant Superintendent . After the turn of the 20th century , Baker seems to have specialized in steel fabrication and elevator building . Over the next 30 years they did the steel work and / or elevators for — among many others — L . A . ’ s first skyscraper , the twelve - story Union Trust Building , the Public Service Building , the Queen of Angels Hospital , the YWCA Hotel , the United Artists - California Petroleum Building , the University of California at Westwood , The Masonic Temple at Glendale , the Los Angeles - First National Bank at Glendale , the Los Angeles - First National Bank at Hollywood and the University of Redlands at Redlands . Orange shipyard . The Orange , Texas shipyard was expanded in 1940 when Consolidated Steel was awarded a Maritime Commission contract from the U . S . Navy . At its peak it employed 20 , 000 people . The first ship launched was the on March 2 , 1942 . The last ship launched was the on December 28 , 1945 . Wilmington shipyard . The Wilmington , California shipyard was an emergency yard built in 1941 after Consolidated Steel was awarded a Maritime Commission contract from the U . S . Navy . At its peak , it employed 12 , 000 people , working on eight shipways on the 95 - acre facility . Production peaked on May 29 , 1944 , when it launched three large ships in only a 2 - 1 / 2 hour period . Later that year , the yard delivered its 500th vessel of the war . The yard was built as a temporary facility and , like most such war plants , it was closed after the war ended . Together , the shipyards ranked Consolidated 29th among United States corporations in the value of wartime production contracts . After the war , the facility was shut down . The former shipyard location is now the Distribution and Auto Service ( DAS ) facility at berths 196 and 197 of the Port of Los Angeles , or another source indicates that it was at the site of the present - day TraPac facility ( Berths 136 - 41 ) . The Wilmington yard launched one of the first Liberty Ship s SS " Alcoa Polaris " on 27 , September 1941 Liberty Fleet Day . After the war . Shortly after the end of the war , in 1945 , Consolidated Steel bought the assets of the Western Pipe and Steel Company of California , another wartime shipbuilding firm , for a sum in excess of $ 6 . 2 million . The WPS assets along with some other assets of Consolidated were sold in 1948 for over $ 17 million to the Columbia Steel Company , a division of US Steel , which formed a new division known as the Consolidated Western Steel Corporation to manage them . The former President and Chairman of Consolidated Steel ' s board , Alden G . Roach , became President of Consolidated Western . Consolidated Western was later merged directly into the parent company , US Steel . After the sale to Columbia , the remaining assets of Consolidated Steel were folded into a new company known as Consolidated Liquidating Corporation , which was dissolved on February 29 , 1952 .