Construction of the works, located near Spirit Lake, a widened stretch of the St. Louis River which flows into Lake Superior, and then known as the Minnesota Steel Company, began in 1910 and was completed in 1916. The first billet was rolled in the year of completion with the first strand of wire drawn in 1922. The plant was capable of making 200,000 miles of barbed wire and 23,000 miles of woven wire fencing per year. The nails, of some 300 different kinds, filled 650,000 kegs (100 pounds each) on a yearly basis. The nail kegs were made on site in the cooperage shop. Rebar was also part of the product mix.

For the employees, a company town, known as Morgan Park named after famous, or infamous, New York financier J. Pierpont Morgan, was built on the northeastern side of the works in 1914. Housing was initially owned by the company, but were offered for sale in 1938. The company also supplied medical services, education and daily items in the company stores.

The Minnesota Steel Co. was leased to the USS subsidiary American Steel & Wire in 1932. The former company remained as a corporate entity, but functioned as a holding company no longer involved in operations.

The 1920's were a heady time for the company, but the 1930's and the Great Depression saw both blast furnaces banked. By 1938 pig iron was flowing again, but only from one furnace since its sister was dismantled. Still, the remaining rebuilt furnace was able to contribute to the 300,000 tons of ingots per year produced in 1938 - 140,000 tons less than in 1926.

Fate of the Works

The glow of hot metal dimmed permanently on November 13, 1971. The United Steel Workers of America's threatened strike on August 1 of that year was a major factor in the closing of the hot-side since steel users all over the U.S. had stockpiled domestic and foreign supplies prior to the strike which never occurred. The output from the Duluth Works was just not needed any more with other USS facilities chock-a-block with their own steel inventories. The shock to Duluth was profound as the works was the city's largest employer. Eventually about 2,500 men and women would lose there jobs. The first phase resulted in 1,600 employees being let go.

The hot-side shutdown would permanently close the blast furnace, the remaining four open-hearth furnaces, soaking pits, blooming mill and billet mill. The rod and wire mills, fence post fabrication unit, coke ovens and cement plant were not shuttered - at least for a time.

With the announcement of the hot-side closure, Minnesota politicians weighed in with offers of tax incentives to modernize the works with one desperate Duluth pol even proposing punitive taxation on taconite operations on the Iron Range to force the company to keep most of the Duluth Works open. This legislator suggested using these punitive taxes to modernize the works. The last straw in the cost equation for USS was the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's directive to the company to lay out its plans to reduce certain pollution emissions at the works.

Duluth's hopes for the 700 employees still working in the finishing mills were dashed when USS announced all steel facilities would be shut down on October 1, 1973. This decision would finally close down all production of wire, rods, fence posts and fencing material. A possible reprieve came in January, 1974 when a company called "New Hallet Company" was set to resume wire production and bring back 55 employees, but this plan proved to be moribund.

The next facility to go down on January 1, 1976 was the Universal Atlas Cement Division of USS. This plant really should have closed earlier since there was no longer a source of the key material from the blast furnace slag. Slag was even being shipped in from USS Gary Works in Indiana to keep the plant running.

The end for the coke ovens came in 1981. No longer would the flared coke oven gas light the night sky nor the brilliant steam clouds from the quencher at the coke ovens in subzero weather be seen in West Duluth. Spirit Lake was again quiet after 70 years of heavy industrial action. The razing of the works began on August 20, 1988.