Inland Steel Company

The Inland Steel Company was a U.S. steel company active in 1893-1998. Its history as an independent firm thus spanned much of the 20th century. It was headquartered in Chicago at the landmark Inland Steel Building.

Inland Steel was an integrated steel company that reduced iron ore to steel. Original founders included mining engineer, Moise Dreyfus, who immigrated from Alsace-Lorraine France. Its sole steel mill was located in East Chicago, Indiana, on the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal and a large landfill protruding out into Lake Michigan. The steel mill's shoreline location enabled it to take in steelmaking commodities, such as iron ore, coal, and limestone, by lake freighter. Throughout much of its life, Inland Steel operated its own fleet of bulk carrier vessels.

Firm history

Inland Steel was founded in 1893 through the purchase, by financier Philip Block, of a small failed Chicago Heights, Illinois steel mill, Chicago Steel Works. The Block family led Inland Steel's recovery and, in 1901, Inland Steel pledged to raise more than $1.0 million to build an open-hearth mill in East Chicago. This expansion caused the firm to grow more than tenfold in size, from 250 workers in 1897 to 2,600 in 1910.