In 1797 John Young purchased 15,560 acres in the Mahoning Valley for
$16,085 from the
Connecticut Land Company.
While Young didn't settle in the city that inherited his name for very
long, by 1802 he and a survey team had laid out
the Youngstown township along the
Mahoning River, seven miles west of the Pennsylvania line. The plot was
recorded on August 19, 1802. The plan of
downtown Youngstown today remains
essentially the same as the plan for the original town that was laid out
by John Young. This was the beginning of settlement in the Mahoning
Valley.
Mahoning is derived from the Indian word mohonik, meaning "at the lick" or
"at the salt lick". Native Americans and colonial settlers came to the
area for the salt. In the following century, European immigrants were
drawn to the area by the promise of work in the steel mills that stretched
for twenty-five miles from Lowellville to Warren. The
history of
Youngstown is tied to the
history of these mills.
The census taker of 1800 found about 15 houses
in "Youngs Town." In 1802 there were almost 300 people living in the
township. The federal census reported the population had grown to 773 by
1810 and 1,035 by 1820 (Youngstown
Sesquicentennial Committee, 1953, p. 2).
The introduction of iron making occurred early. In 1802, Daniel and James
Heaton
Youngstown's first industrialists, contracted for the rights to dig
coal and make charcoal along the banks of the Yellow Creek in Poland
Township. "Hopewell" became the first blast furnace in the area using the
air flow from the Yellow Creek to create the blast.
The opening of the
Pennsylvania-Ohio
Canal in 1839 provided inexpensive transportation between Lake Erie and the
Ohio River bringing trade and growth to
the new town.
It provided cheap transportation for pig iron and iron ore,
the primary freight on the canal. Passenger traffic on packets (passenger
boats) was very popular. One way passage cost $3.50 from Cleveland to
Youngstown, including meals.
Activity created by the canal increased the population threefold between
1840 and 1860 to 5,300. The demand for metal during the Civil War also
contributed to the boom. (Railroads transported the passengers, then the
freight.) In 1872 the last barge floated down the canal.
Strategically located between Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, and New York and
Chicago,
Youngstown became a railroad center served by four different rail
companies; the Baltimore and Ohio; the
Erie Lackawana; the New York Central; and the Pennsylvania. More rail cars
passed under the Center Street Bridge per day than any other location in
the country.
The burgeoning metal industry brought prosperity. Wick Avenue became the
address of the well-to-do. Mansions were built on the north side of the
city for the industrialist and bankers. Tod, Wick, Butler, Powers,
Stambaugh; these names are imprinted on the buildings and the streets of
Youngstown.
The city's prosperity drew many including a large variety of European
immigrants. First the Irish and Germans; later the Poles, Czechs,
Armenians, Ukrainians, Russians, Italians, Slovacs, and Hungarians.
Lebanese came from the Middle East. With them they brought their religions
and their churches. The wealth of ecclesiastical architecture reflects the
ethnicity of those who came to work in the steel mills.
West Federal St. c. 1905
By 1880 the city had grown to a population of 15,435, nearly double the
population of 1870. Federal Street was the main commercial thoroughfare
and remained so for one hundred years. Incandescent lighting was
introduced in 1888 when the G.M. McKelvey Company installed a private
light plant. Later, the North Avenue power plant provided electricity for
Youngstown, Sharon, Wheatland, Mill Creek Park and Falls Street Car
Line. A new power plant was later built in Lowellville increasing the
electrical output to 60,000 watts. The telephone was introduced in 1880
and by 1915 automatic dialing was introduced. Within two years there were
75 subscribers.
The first hospital was started with a contribution of two and one half
acres of land on Oak Hill Avenue and $10,000 by John Stambaugh. The South
Side Unit of the
Youngstown Hospital Association is at
that same location on Oak Hill. St. Elizabeths Hospital had its beginnings
when two houses on Belmont Avenue were joined and the first patient was
admitted on December 8, 1911.
Market Street Viaduct - c. 1910
The Market Street Viaduct was opened in 1899
transforming a country road
into a thriving commercial street. Other bridges crossed the river on
South Avenue and Mahoning Avenue. McGuffey Street bridge spanned Crab
Creek. Eventually, bridges opened the entire city in every direction,
overcoming the natural barrier of the winding Mahoning River.
The turn of the century brought the automobile to the country and to
Youngstown. By 1904 Youngstown
had 22 cars including Henry Wick's $20,000 Blue Goose, a six-passenger
custom-built automobile. Charles T. Gathier, a local engineer, built the
Fredonia, a fast automobile that traveled 36 miles in 35 minutes.
As prosperity spread, the workers in the mills demanded higher wages. In
1916 workers went out on strike seeking an increase in their nineteen and
a half cent hourly wage. Marching workers confronted mill guards at the
main gate of the Campbell Works. Shots were fired and three workers were
killed while twenty-seven were injured in the incident. As the workers
fled, anger grew and a riot took place. The crowd converged on the village
of East Youngstown, now known as
Campbell, and set fire to the business district causing an estimated
$1,500,000 in damage.
The First World War dramatically increased the demand for steel
production, thereby increasing the need for housing for the additional
employees. It was estimated that an additional 2,000 housing units were
needed in the city to accommodate the population increase.
Labor unrest continued. In 1919-20 strikes in the steel industry of the
valley idled 39,500 men. The demands of the workers were an eight-hour
day, a six-day week and the elimination of the twenty four-hour shift.
Other demands included double time pay for overtime and an end to company
unions. Again the labor unrest led to rioting.
Steel was "the industry" and
Youngstown boasted as being the third
largest steel-producer in the country behind Pittsburgh and Chicago.
Though the mills were producing at record output, problems began to
surface. Inexpensive transportation was by water and
Youngstown had become landlocked since
the closing of the Ohio-Pennsylvania
canal.
The Lake to River Canal was proposed as early as 1787. It became a passion
in the 1920's. Surveys were done and many routes discussed but the cost
was too enormous to undertake. Congressman Mike Kirwan spent his entire
career in the Congress trying to build the canal that would go from Lake
Erie to the Ohio River and on to
Pittsburgh. It became known as the "Big Ditch." A model of the proposed
canal is displayed in the lobby of the Maag Library on the YSU campus.
Another problem was a lack of cooling water. The Mahoning River did not
have the volume of water necessary for the needs of the growing industry.
The city of
Youngstown built the dam that created Lake Milton at a cost of
$1,000,000 in 1921. The lake provided enough water to supply The
Youngstown Sheet and Tube and the
Republic Steel Corporation. In later years even this supply would not be
enough.
By 1921 Youngstown was the second City
of Steel behind Pittsburgh.
Youngstown's payroll exceeded $100,000,000; its bank deposits
exceeded $75,000,000; and the steel mills alone represented capital
investments of $360,000,000.
Growth of the city was unstoppable. Predicting a population of 500,000 by
1971, the city reached 132,358 in the 1920 Census. It ranked fiftieth in
the nation and was among the fastest growing cities in the country. There
were fifty-nine miles of trolley car tracks inside the city and the
inter-urban lines extended to the principal cities of Eastern
Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. The fire department was the second
in the nation to be completely motorized. The Chamber of Commerce boasted
that "Youngstown offers unlimited
opportunity to all" (Aley, 233).
Far from the population of 500,000 predicated by 1971, the city reached
its maximum population in 1930 at 170,002. Future population growth took
place in the county outside the city. The suburbs made an attractive
alternative to the smoke filled city. The Great Depression hit the city
hard and Youngstown suffered
extraordinarily because of its single industry economy. The unemployment
rate in Youngstown was three times the
national average. Thousands were unemployed. Many businesses displayed
signs reading "No Help Wanted." Suicide was not uncommon and many were
homeless. Eating watermelon was considered a luxury.
Innovation in the steel industry continued. Cold rolled steel was
developed in an automobile repair shop on Logan Avenue. The Steckel mill
was a revolutionary process. It allowed rolls of steel to be reduced to a
thickness of one one thousandth of an inch while the metal retained most
of its physical properties without annealing. This high quality steel was
used in transformers, motors and other electrical equipment.
Republic Steel - c. 1917
In 1930
Republic Steel was formed out of the
Corrigan, McKinney, and Truscon Steel Corporations, becoming the third largest in the industry
with a capacity of 6,000,000 tons. The industry was hoping for a 20
percent increase in the coming year. Twenty-three open hearths were in
production.
The Steel Workers Organizing Committee was formed in 1936 and by 1937 most
of the largest steel producers were under contract agreement. The
exceptions were known as the "Little Steel Companies" The group consisted
of Youngstown Sheet and Tube, Republic
Steel, Bethlehem and Inland Steel.
With the help and encouragement of such labor notables as Phillip Murray
and David J. MacDonald, the workers of the "Little Steel" companies called
a
strike on March 26, 1937. Gus Hall of the Communist Party USA was the
head of the local organizing committee. He was eventually arrested and
later acquitted of charges that he interfered with rail shipments into the
mill.
The "Little Steel" strike, while not a complete success, did lead to the
formation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, better known as the
CIO. In 1941 the CIO was powerful enough to force the heads of the "Little
Steel" companies to sign on with the unions, something that the presidents
of those companies said would never happen.
During the Second World War, the Mahoning valley was an important area for
its production of steel in the war effort. The
Youngstown Sheet and Tube developed a special steel used in the
production of machine gun belts. These belts held fifty caliber shells
which were fired at an impressive rate of eight hundred rounds per minute.
Other specialty products included portable landing strips made of dense
steel grating that aided in the rapid construction of airfields on the
islands of the South Pacific and in Europe after the Normandy invasion.
The post war period brought prosperity and growth to the valley.
Automobile production increased and consequently the demand for steel as
well. However, Youngstown would continue
to be effected by the business cycles as its mills became less productive.
Disputes between the steel companies and the unions continued to plague
the industry (see
letter from President Truman to Wage Stabilization Board in December 1951).
In 1932 Michael Ficocelli and his brother Carmine, sons of recent
immigrants, began the Little Symphony Orchestra. This "Little" orchestra
soon became the
Youngstown Symphony Orchestra and brought many nationally known
classical musicians and vocalists to perform with the orchestra. Today the
orchestra performs at
Powers Auditorium, formerly known as the Warner
Theater.
The Youngstown Diocese was established
in 1943. Bishop McFadden headed the diocese that included the counties of
Mahoning, Stark, Columbiana, Portage, Ashtabula, and Trumbull counties.
The end of a steel dynasty
Sheet and Tube Open
Hearth
The closing of the steel mills has had a profound impact on the
city. The number of people living in the city has dwindled to about
half its peak in 1930 to less than one hundred thousand today.
Neighborhoods that once were alive with people are now nearly empty.
An economic report compiled by the Pace Associates of Chicago, dated
June 1951, gave several reasons why the "high cost of producing
steel in the Youngstown area makes the district a marginal
producer". Youngstown is landlocked. Iron ore being shipped
from Michigan had to be off-loaded at Ashtubula and sent by
Steel Mills in
Youngstown circa 1900-1905
Library of
Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing
Company Collection.
rail, while the facilities at Gary, Indiana and Buffalo, New
York received their shipments by barge. Another problem was the lack
of cooling water. Re-circulation of the cooling water raised its
temperature to one hundred thirty degrees, making it more difficult
to cool the steel. It cost an additional three to five dollars per
ton to produce in Youngstown. At ten million tons per year, this
cost was a significant thirty to fifty million dollars annually. In
the 1950's, the Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company invested $100
million in the expansion of their mills in the Indiana Harbor while
other producers increased capacity in areas other than Youngstown.
Capacity in Pittsburgh increased from 22,385,461 to 26,145,000 tons
between 1951 and 1953 while capacity in Youngstown went from
10,065,800 to 10,205,800 tons in the same period.
In January of 1975 the Northern Ohio Urban System (NOUS), an urban
planning firm from Cleveland, produced a document entitled A Look At
Youngstown's Future. In the summary of that report the authors noted
that in 1969 "nearly 37,000 persons of a manufacturing labor force
of 81,000 in the Mahoning and Trumbull Counties worked in blast
furnaces, rolling mills, and closely aligned metal industries." The
fate of Youngstown in the year 2000 was dependent to a large degree
on what was done to revitalize the steel industry in the valley.
The report quoted another study of industry analysis in Ohio, noting
that at least 44 percent of plants and equipment in Ohio were
obsolete. It further noted that "the landlocked firms in Youngstown
were being allowed to deteriorate. The decision to close them down
permanently or completely modernize them must be made by 1975."
Youngstown and Warren had the highest rate of obsolescence. Eighty
percent of their plants and equipment were over 10 years old.
Predicting the future, the report sounded a sharp warning that "if
existing commitments to modernize the facilities are not carried out
and if additional commitments are not forthcoming, Youngstown will
find it difficult to maintain its position as a major industrial
center."
This analysis led NOUS to the conclusion that even if the
investments that were necessary to maintain the level of employment
in the steel industry were met, Youngstown would not create any
additional employment in the future. Furthermore, the outlook for
expansion of the steel industry was not expected to keep up with the
rest of the economy's growth. Thirdly, firms involved with supplying
the steel industry were not going to expand even if the necessary
investments were made in the steel industry. The study said that if
everything went right for Youngstown the most that was to be
expected was a no growth economy.
Youngstown Sheet and
Tube - Panorama view
Without investments forthcoming, vultures were soon circling the
city. In 1969,
Lykes, a ship building and real estate firm out of
New Orleans, leveraged
a buy out
of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube
Company. Not only did Lykes not make the necessary investments, they
took the profits from the company and invested them in their
non-steel subsidiaries. In 1977, Lykes lost control. Losses piled
up; the nation was in a recession; the alternative was to shut down
the Campbell Works. Approximately 4,100 workers were told they were
out of work overnight.
The closing sent shock waves through the community. For whatever
reason, Lykes gave no warning to the community. On Monday September
19,1977, the announcement was made and by the end of the week the
gates were closed. There were no programs in place to ease the
burden of unemployment. Health and human service agencies were not
permitted access to the company records or even the names of the
laid off workers. Furthermore, any communication by company
officials with outside agencies would be punished by "blacklisting".
The officials that were making the decisions were not in the
community and there was no communication of their intentions Terry
Buss explains:
The effect of this policy by the Lykes Corporation is that a
company, which had dominated the area economy for 77 years, closed
its largest facility in a matter of weeks. It left behind unemployed
workers, empty buildings, and rust coated, antiquated, useless
facilities (Buss, 22).
After the closing, Lykes remained in financial trouble and sought to
merge with LTV which owned Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation. On
June 21, 1978, Attorney General Griffin Bell approved the merger
over the objections of his staff. As soon as the merger was approved
LTV closed down the Briar Hill works putting an additional 1,400 out
of work. (Note: December 29, 2000,
the LTV
Corporation, along with 48 subsidiaries, filed voluntary petitions
for relief under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.)
The closings continued. Youngstown was devastated by a wave of plant
closing that wiped out three-quarters of its steel jobs and slashed
manufacturing employment from 93,000 to below 50,000 (Buss, 3).
Unemployment reached a staggering 30 percent. The carcass of the
steel industry had been picked clean.
In the mean time, the downtown was in the midst of an urban renewal
project known as "the Central Business District Urban Renewal Area
No. 1, Project Ohio R-81". It had the best of intentions. Its aim
was to "eliminate structurally substandard commercial and industrial
uses . . . Construct and reconstruct streets . . . to enhance the
area as the focal point of the Youngstown Central Business District
. . . Provide an adequate supply of off street parking facilities .
. . and provide Architectural and financial advice to property
owners and tenants" (Project R-81).
Most of the Central Business District on the East End was demolished
in the Urban renewal project. The renewal did result in a new office
structure and a new parking facility. Federal Plaza was created as a
pedestrian walk way. To accomplish this, the major east-west traffic
axis was eliminated and the north-south axis allowed the only flow
of traffic through the central square. Given what was happening to
the industrial base of the community a quarter of a mile away,
investment potential dried up and the central business district was
left with an abundance of vacant land. Much of the development that
has occurred is more suburban in character due to the changes in
zoning laws that respond to the need for on-site vehicular parking.
The problems of the downtown grew in the 1950's when the movement of
people from the inner-cities to the suburbs began. Movement in
Youngstown was even more dramatic than many other cities of its
size. In 1960, for example, retail sales in the Standard
Metropolitan Statistical Area increased 16.6 percent while the sales
in the Central Business District fell by 27.1 percent. Cities of
similar size were off by 14.9 percent.
The largest mall developer in the country,
Edward J. DeBartolo, is
headquartered in Boardman. The Boardman plaza, one of the DeBartolo
Corporation's early developments, was built in the 1950s. The
company took advantage of the demographic shifts that were
occurring. The problems associated with living in a city that was
environmentally polluted from the emissions of the mills
precipitated a shift to the suburbs even before it occurred in other
cities. This shift was eased by the automobile that became the
dominant and the preferred mode of transportation.
Youngstown's population peaked in the 1930 census with 170,002
residents, while the county population stood at 236,142. From that
point on a trend of steady decline in the city population continued
while the county population grew. By 1980 the city population was
115,436, while the county stood at 304,545. The 1990 census reported
95,732 city residents and 264,806 within the county. Between 1970
and 1990 the population of Youngstown and the county lost 40,000
residents.
The decision of the steel companies not to modernize their
operations here was, in the final analysis, the reason for the
collapse of the steel industry. Reliance on outdated technology,
e.g. open hearth furnaces, meant that it was only a matter of time
before the operations would become obsolete. The transportation of
raw materials remained a problem. However, if the mills had
installed the
Basic Oxygen Process (BOP), a process that reduced the
time to "cook" the molten metal from nine hours to less than one
hour, they could have remained competitive.
Even more advanced than the BOP is that of the Electric Furnace.
This technology does not rely on the costly transportation of raw
materials. The basic steel making ingredient is scrap steel, which
is in abundant supply in the region. Decisions made in the board
rooms miles away from the affected people determined what happened
in towns like Youngstown.
North Star Steel, which operates in the old Briar Hill plant, uses
the Electric Furnace. The steel pipe that is produced here is made
from scrap metal that was once a part of the steel buildings, where
thousands were employed. North Star employs 250 people.
Today the city is digging its way out of the ashes. As many as
10,000 new jobs have been created since 1983. New industrial parks
in the Salts Spring area and on the LTV property east of the
downtown are home to new smokeless industries and distribution
centers. Youngstown must build its future not on what has passed but
on what is ahead.
References:
Buss, T. & Redburn, F. (1983). Shutdown at
Youngstown: Public policy for mass unemployment. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Youngstown Sesquicentennial Committee,
(1953). Youngstown grows with Ohio.
An online
reference and image gallery chronicling the rise and decline of the
American steel industry in and around Youngstown and Warren, Ohio,
and Sharon, Pennsylvania, between 1803 and the present.
The displays in this on-line exhibit examine a variety of
representations of work and working-class culture, using materials
from family photo albums and scrapbooks, local museums and
publications, and other local sources, including the streets of
Youngstown. The exhibit was created by students in American
Studies 701/Labor Studies 740, Representations of Work in
Youngstown, during Spring Quarter, 1999 and Winter Quarter, 2000.
In,
December, 1994 he died at age 85. A real estate tycoon who,
after serving in WW II and Korea as an Army engineer, took advantage
of the post-war growth of suburbia. His philosophy of building
shopping centers in the country helped change the way America shops.
Known for his 13 hour, seven days per week work habit, DeBartolo
donated $33 million to Notre Dame and purchased the champion San
Francisco 49ers which is still in the family. - From
Stereotypethis.com
Jack, Harry, Albert
and Sam, the four
WarnerBrothers
They had begun with showing movies off the
side of a tent in
Youngstown,
borrowing all the chairs from the local undertaker. Every time there
was a funeral in
Youngstown,
they had to give all the chairs back and the film patrons were
forced to stand.
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