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parrows Point was still wide-open country when the Penn-
sylvania Steel Company, convinced the Dundalk peninsula
would make a world-class deepwater port for its shipbuilding
subsidiary, began its Baltimore operations in 1887 on theNorthPoint
parcel originally deeded to Thomas Sparrow by Lord Baltimore.
But giant Bethlehem Steel Company also coveted the site,
and the closer America came to war, the more irresistible the
plant seemed to Bethlehem President Charles Schwab, whose
grand design was to make Sparrows Point the greatest steel-
making machine known to mankind — all because of its prox-
imity to the Port and the industrial transportation network which
kept material moving through Maryland’s maritime machinery.
Steel is made from iron ore, chrome ore and manganese ore,
which are all imported. At Bethlehem’s Pennsylvania site, ore had
to be hauled from port to plant by rail. But Baltimore’s tidewater
location, with its deepwater access, had the potential to save the
company $2 in manufacturing costs per finished ton of steel, and
thus shift the balance of power toward Bethlehem Steel and away
from competing Midwest steel works.
For $25 million, Bethlehem bought the plant in 1916 — and
gained possession of its valuable ore reserves. Expansion began
immediately. A new tin-plate mill was erected, and another $15
million was spent on a mill to produce steel plate for battleships and
tanks. Greater batches of Beth Steel’s components emerged from
the Port’s pipeline — plate steel for shipbuilding and construction,
Facing page: The proximity of
Bethlehem Steel’s shipbuilding
yards to its steel furnaces and
the coal and ore piers supplying
imported rawmaterials created
an industrial behemoth that
provided work to tens of
thousands of area residents.
Bethlehem’s other area
facilities— its ship repair yard
at Key Highway (above) and
shipbuilding yard at Sparrows
Point (left) —provided work for
many thousands more.
Big Steel
