CARNEGIE ENTERPRISES 149 



the various concerns comprising the Carnegie company were 

 reared. 



The Keystone company built the first 300-foot span metal 

 Bridge over the Ohio and has since erected many of the largest 

 steel structures throughout the country. The business ex- 

 panded rapidly during the boom in railroad building after 

 the American Civil war and received a great impetus when 

 steel was adopted for building purposes. Soon after these 

 works began operation, it became necessary to provide an 

 independent source of pig iron supply, and the Lucy Furnace 

 company was formed and built a small stack which was blown 

 in May 11, 1872. 



The manufacture of steel by the Bessemer process was 

 taken up in 1874, the Edgar Thomson Steel company, limited, 

 being organized by Mr. Carnegie and others for that purpose. 

 This company was capitalized at $1,000,000 and built a plant 

 for rolling rails, consisting of a Bessemer converter and a 

 rail mill. The American steel rail industry was then about 

 seven years old, and, under the Morrill and supplemental 

 protective tariffs, had attained considerable proportions, al- 

 though imports continued from England. The Illinois, 

 Pennsylvania, Cambria, and Bethlehem companies had entered 

 the trade in the order named between '65 and '73, but it was 

 not until 1867 that home made Bessemer steel rails were 

 laid for the first time in place of iron rails. The prices ranged 

 from $174 per ton in March, 1868, down to $95 per ton in 

 January, 1872. In 1870, when it was proposed to place 

 a duty of $28 per ton on foreign rails, the Hon. S. S. Marshall, 

 a prominent member of the house, made a strenuous protest, 

 declaring that the duty would make the cost prohibitive. 

 On the contrary, prices declined, but not for English rails. 

 Four years after the duty was imposed, American rails sold 

 at $94.25 per ton, and a year later, when the Edgar Thomson 

 plant was put in operation, a marked decline resulted, the 

 average for the year being $68.75 per ton. Rates were scaled 

 down steadily thereafter as the manufacturers improved their 

 facilities and reduced the cost, until the ephemeral boom 

 between September, 1879, and February, 1880, when rails 

 advanced from $50 to $85 per ton, the average for the two 



