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The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I) was a large steel concentration. By 1903, it was largely owned and controlled by John D. Rockefeller and Jay Gould's financial heirs.〔(Lehman Brothers Archives Online )〕 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 lead 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, along with the rest of Oregon Steel's holdings, was acquired by Evraz Group SA, 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.〔For a discussion of the relationship between CF&I and the railway, see McKenzie, William H., "Mountain to Mill: The Colorado & Wyoming Railway" (1982, MAC Publishing)(ISBN 0936206160).〕 In Redstone, Colorado, hundreds of coking ovens converted coal into coke.〔Frey, David: ("Redstone coke ovens preserved" ) Aspen Daily News, February 7, 2004〕 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, PA. ==Founding and early history== 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.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 7〕〔William Wyckoff, ''Creating Colorado: the making of a western American landscape, 1860-1940'', 1999, page 147.〕 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.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 8〕 The market for steel was slow due to intense competition from eastern mills, and the mill was often idle. The company turned to production of coke and coal opening additional mines near Trinidad and others near Canon City, Walsenburg, and Crested Butte. Coke ovens were built at El Moro north of Trinidad and at Crested Butte.〔 In the early 1890s demand for fuel fell and the company faced stiff competition from the Colorado Fuel Company, which was closely associated and provided coal to the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad (CB&Q).〔 John C. Osgood, who with other investors from Iowa and Colorado, the Iowa Group, had founded Colorado Fuel Company in 1883 which acquired substantial coal reserves in Las Animas and Garfield Counties by purchasing existing facilities.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 9〕〔James Whiteside, Regulating danger: the struggle for mine safety in the Rocky Mountain coal Industry, U of Nebraska Press, 1990, page 8.〕 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.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 10〕 Often idle during the decades of the 1880s and 1890s due to stiff competition and the effects of the panic of 1893, the steel mill at Pueblo was small and obsolete. Due to economic conditions it was not possible to modernize it until 1899 when substantial improvements were made.〔 including a rolling mill, additional blast furnaces, a modern Bessemer converter, open hearth furnaces, a wire mill, and supporting facilities.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 11〕 The mill was renamed the Minnequa Works in 1901.〔Scamehorn, Chapter 1, "The Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, 1892-1903" page 13〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Colorado Fuel and Iron」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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