Colorado Fuel and Iron

American steel company

The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel conglomerate founded by the merger of previous business interests in 1892. By 1903 it was mainly owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs. While it came to control many plants throughout the country, its main plant was a steel mill on the south side of Pueblo, Colorado, and was the city's main industry for most of its history. From 1901 to 1912, Colorado Fuel and Iron was one of the Dow Jones Industrials. The steel market crash of 1982 led to the decline of the company. After going through several bankruptcies, the company was acquired by Oregon Steel Mills in 1993, and changed its name to Rocky Mountain Steel Mills. In January 2007, Rocky Mountain Steel Mills, along with the rest of Oregon Steel's holdings, were acquired by EVRAZ Group, a Russian steel corporation, for $2.3 billion. Through the process of vertical integration, the company came to own more than just the main steel plant. Over the course of a century, CF&I operated coal mines throughout southern Colorado, as well as iron mines in Wyoming and Utah, limestone quarries, smaller mines for other materials going into the steel making process, and the Colorado and Wyoming Railway. In Redstone, Colorado, hundreds of coking ovens converted coal into coke. The Mcnally, Cameron, Robinson and Walsen Mines located in the area of Walsenburg, Colorado, were just a few of the mines owned by the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company. The Colorado Supply company store was also owned and operated by CF&I. They also came to control many furnaces throughout the country, including E. G. Brooke in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.

The first, and only until World War II, integrated iron and steel mill west of St. Louis was built in 1881 in Pueblo on the south side of the Arkansas River by the Colorado Coal and Iron Company (CC&L), an affiliate of the narrow gauge Denver and Rio Grande Railway Company (D&RG), controlled by General William Jackson Palmer and Dr. William Abraham Bell. Its purpose in part was to manufacture rails for the railway. Local resources included water from the Arkansas River, coal from Trinidad, limestone from a few miles south of Pueblo, and iron ore from the San Luis Valley with rail transportation provided by the D&RG. Manufacturing using blast furnaces and the Bessemer process began April 12, 1881. Products included rails, pig iron, iron and steel bars and plates, and cut nails and spikes. The original steel works were one of the projects of the Central Colorado Improvement Company, founded by General William J. Palmer in 1872, with plans "to purchase lands, minerals springs, coal and iron and other mines and quarries in Colorado Territory, and the establishment and building up of colonies, towns, coal mining, iron making and manufacturing works, and to build canals and wagon roads. "—with excavation of the foundation for the first blast furnace in February 1880, on a prairie south of what would later become South Pueblo. A neighborhood of makeshift homes arose near the works, initially called Taylorville, then Steelworks, then, as more permanent dwellings were constructed, Bessemer in 1881. Initial capacity of the mill in 1881 82 was per year from the first blast furnace, while a second furnace was being built, and the mill employed 300 400. The first steel rails were produced in April 1882 for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad's Silverton Branch. Other properties were acquired in Garfield, Huerfano, Las Animas, and Pitkin counties. On Osgood's initiative these two companies merged in 1892 to form Colorado Fuel and Iron with members of the Iowa Group in control. The mill was renamed the Minnequa Works in 1901.

Early sources of iron ore were hematite from the Calumet Mine north of Salida, Colorado, limonite from the Orient Mine on the west slope of the Sangre de Cristo Range east of Villa Grove and iron and magnesium rich ore which was a byproduct of silver mining at Leadville. Additional iron ore was obtained from New Mexico and Wyoming and reserves purchased in Utah. Company towns were built at isolated facilities such as Orient and Calumet. Orient was abandoned in 1905 but some ore continued to be mined and sold to the company by contractors until 1922 when it reopened, only to be permanently closed at the beginning of the Great Depression due to falling demand. Production, which began in 1899 at the Sunrise Mine in Wyoming, was initially by open pit mining at a cost of 15 cents a ton. By 1900, daily production was 2,000 tons. Purchase of the property was completed in 1904. Shortages of ore continued to plague operations at the refurbished Minnequa Works in Pueblo and some ore was obtained from the 86, Jim Fair, and Union mines near Fierro and Hanover in Grant County, New Mexico. Substantial reserves were purchased near Cedar City in Iron County, Utah but remained unmined.

In 1903 CF&I was the largest producer of coal in the Rocky Mountain west with 23 mines in Las Animas, Huerfano, Fremont, Gunnison, Garfield, and Pitkin County, Colorado producing 53% of the coal mined in Colorado and its 9 coking plants producing 89% of its coke. Demand for coke by the precious metals smelting industry fell off as first silver production was impacted by the panic of 1893 and then gold production fell off in the first decade of the 20th century and used refining techniques which did not require large quantities of coke. The large copper smelting companies operating in the area, Phelps Dodge and The American Smelting and Refining Company, invested in their own coal mines and coking plants in Colfax County, New Mexico and Cokedale, Colorado.

In 1901, in an effort to deal with its mostly immigrant workforce, CF&I formed the Sociological Department. Their main focus was to better the lives of the workers and their families and to shape their political and economic views. The Sociological Department began educating the miners through night school to teach them English. The Sociological Department began to set standards for education by regulating the curriculum and getting miners' children involved. Richard Corwin came up with the idea that Kindergarten would be the best way to help the immigrant children become better citizens. Through the Kindergarten program, children were taught English and the importance of industrial labor in hopes of making them good future employees. Also part of the multi pronged efforts to promote support for the Company in the latter half of 1914, several schools were constructed, including one in Primero.

In 1900, anticipating high demand for coal, the extensive and coal rich lands of the Colorado portion of the Maxwell Land Grant near Trinidad in Las Animas County were purchased through its subsidiary, the Rocky Mountain Coal and Iron Company. Gould, via Frederick Taylor Gates, Rockefeller's financial adviser, brought John D. Rockefeller, creator of the Standard Oil monopoly, in to help finance the loan. Analysis of the company's operations by John D. Rockefeller Jr. showed a need for substantially more funds which were provided in exchange for acquisition of CF&I's subsidiaries such as the Colorado and Wyoming Railway Company, the Crystal River Railroad Company, and possibly the Rocky Mountain Coal and Iron Company. Control was passed from the Iowa Group to Gould and Rockefeller interests in 1903 with Gould in control and Rockefeller and Gates representing a minority interests. Osgood left the company in 1904 and devoted his efforts to operating competing coal and coke operations. An experienced manager, Frank J. Hearne, retired president of National Tube Company, one of the predecessors of U. S. Steel was brought in September, 1903 to manage the enterprise. In 1904 the assets of the firm and its subsidiaries were consolidated as Colorado Industrial Company whose stock was wholly owned by the shareholders of CF&I, mainly Gould and Rockefeller. This put all properties of the firm under a single management. Gross sales were substantially increased but increasing profit proved elusive due to competition from eastern produces. Income in 1907 was $1.07 million on sales of $23.8 million in 1907. In November, 1903 the United Mine Workers struck the coal mines near Walsenburg and Trinidad. The strike, which lasted 11 months, produced no gains and demoralized the miners, was fought vigorously with strikebreakers and reduced steel production. The company was able to maintain coal inventory for sale to the company's customers, thus preventing state interference due to a shortage of coal. Following the strike substantial investments were made to the mill including purchase of water rights in the Arkansas River and a reservoir at the site of Sugar Loaf Dam west of Leadville. Previously the mill had relied on the scant and variable flow of the St. Charles River, storing water in Lake Minnequa. Effectively in charge from 1908 to early 1915, Bowers applied his managerial skills to making the company profitable, reducing employment rolls, closing marginal operations, and reducing improvements and the companies sociological and medical programs. His efforts were successful; profits increased and dividends were paid. The steel mill operated at full capacity and was slightly expanded. Greater profits proved elusive, however, due to eastern competition and limited transportation facilities such as a perennial shortage of railway cars to ship coal. There was a series of disastrous explosions from 1904 to 1910 at the coal mines near Trinidad which resulted in substantial casualties. Attempts to prevent such disasters resulted in substantial improvements in mine safety techniques by the company and by the coal mining industry generally such as increased mine ventilation, sprinkler systems to keep coal dust wet, and liberal spreading of rockdust to dilute explosive coal dust. Concern over mine safety resulted in creation of the United States Bureau of Mines in 1907 and enactment of improved mine safety regulations in Colorado.

CF&I's early labor relations were set in the context of the volatile and violent Colorado Labor Wars. Over the course of its history, the company has had numerous major labor disputes. CF&I was accused of brutality against the UMWA in a strike called by that organization in 1903 04. The best known strike culminated in the infamous Ludlow Massacre at the Ludlow Depot, a stop on the Colorado and Southern Railroad which was near several coal mines, in 1914. Evidence from CF&I's archives reveals that the company infiltrated, propagandized against, and attempted to disrupt the Industrial Workers of the World. The labor force of CF&I was made up in large part of immigrants, many from eastern and southern Europe. Although experienced miners from Cornwall were encouraged to immigrate and were taken on particularly at the Sunrise Mine, much of the workforce was inexperienced and not fluent in English. This complicated communication of mine and industrial safety information. Due to their lack of sophistication it was possible to influence how the workers voted. Fraudulent voting of this nature was employed extensively by company operatives to accomplish various personal and company goals. Lamont M. Bowers, effectively the chief executive officer of CF&I, in addition to his paternalistic concern regarding vices such as drinking, gambling, and prostitution which might affect the health of CF&I workers, and also company profits, and his efforts to clean up the mining towns and support enactment of prohibition in Colorado, was strongly anti union and refused to recognize or negotiate with the United Mine Workers during the period leading up to the major strike of 1913 14. The effects of that prolonged and violent strike ended his career with the firm.

The strike, called in September, 1913, by the United Mine Workers over the issue of union representation, was against coal mine operators in Huerfano and Las Animas counties in southern Colorado where the majority of CF&I's coal and coke production was located, and was fought by the coal mine operators association and its steering committee which included Welborn, president of CF&I, who was spokesman for the coal operators. Bowers, Rockefeller's man, remained in the background. Few of the miners actually belonged to the union or participated in the strike call, but the majority honored it. Scabs were threatened and sometimes attacked. Both sides purchased substantial arms and ammunition. Most dangerous on the union side were Greek immigrants who were experienced veterans of the Balkan Wars. On October 26, 1913, Elias M. Ammons, the democratic governor of Colorado, responded to the widespread violence by ordering out the Colorado National Guard.]] In October, 1915 John D. Rockefeller Jr. with the assistance of William Lyon Mackenzie King, director of the Rockefeller Foundation and head of its Department of Industrial Research, introduced the Colorado Industrial Plan, an internal system of worker representation which included guarantees of basic decency in working conditions and in company towns. Segundo, Colorado, was an example of a company town where CF&I offered adequate housing for its workers and promoted upward mobility through its sponsorship of a YMCA Center, elementary school, and some small businesses, as well as a company store. However air pollution was a constant health threat and the houses lacked indoor plumbing. As demand for metallurgical coke declined, the mine laid off workers and Segundo's population declined. After a major fire in 1929, CF&I left and Segundo became practically a ghost town.

The CF&I held pervasive spying on workers in the years following up to and during the General Colorado coal strike of 1927, which remains one of the few historically persevered record of company spying on labor organizing, given the secretive nature and risk of bad publicity it brings.

On November 7, 1990 CF&I filed for protection under Chapter 11.

In 1997, the steelworkers union in Pueblo voted to strike over alleged unfair labor practices. The old CF&I facility, under new ownership, hired permanent replacement workers, leading to further tension between the new employer and the union. However, in September 2004, local unions 2102 and 3267 won both the strike and the unfair labor practice charges. All of the striking steel workers were returned to their jobs, and the company was forced to repay a record amount of back pay to all of the striking steel workers for the seven years of the strike.

In addition to the blast furnace/open hearth steelmaking process, CF&I also used the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) process for a number of years. This process was later replaced by electric arc furnaces (EAF). Currently, one EAF is used at the facility to convert over a million tons of scrap per year into steel billets of various sizes. The billets are then distributed to the three steel finishing facilities (rail mill, rod & bar mill, seamless tube mill) for processing into the various finished products. Several of the administration buildings, including the main office building, dispensary, and tunnel gatehouse have been purchased by the Steelworks Center of the West to house their Steelworks Museum and the Steelworks Archives. Out of the many production and fabrication mills which once existed on the site, only the steel production (electric furnaces, used for scrap recycling), rail, rod & bar, and seamless tube mills are still in operation. The wire mill was sold in the late 1990s to Davis Wire, which produced products such as fence and nails under the CF&I brand name until 2014 when it was closed. The mill was able to produce rail lengths of up to 480 feet (up from the current 80 feet), lengths currently possible only in a few European plants.