PUEBLO — Like the city itself, steel-mak­ing in Pueblo has seen its highs and lows, booms and busts, and peri­ods of “steady as she goes.”

In his­to­ry tomes as well as the minds of the thou­sands with a con­nec­tion to the “steel mill” and the mines that fed it, mem­o­ries of strikes, mass lay­offs, bank­rupt­cy and name changes share space with thoughts of the glo­ri­ous era when coal, and in turn Amer­i­can steel, was king.

Now, with the announce­ment that EVRAZ North Amer­i­ca plans to move for­ward with an esti­mat­ed $480 mil­lion in improve­ments at its Pueblo plant, the icon­ic South Side steel mill is set to become the most mod­ern rail-rolling facil­i­ty in North America.

A fore­shad­ow­ing of the next era that will see Pueblo remain at the epi­cen­ter of steel-mak­ing for the next 50 years.

Steel-mak­ing in Pueblo is inex­tri­ca­bly linked with the city, which this year is cel­e­brat­ing its 150th anniver­sary, as well as with Col­orado Fuel and Iron (CF&I), the com­pa­ny that estab­lished its main plant at the loca­tion now occu­pied by EVRAZ.

But the gen­e­sis of the endur­ing moniker “Steel City” lies not with indus­try mag­nate and CF&I own­er John D. Rock­e­feller, but with a Civ­il War vet­er­an turned industrialist.

On Jan. 11, 1872, Gen. William J. Palmer, founder of the Cen­tral Col­orado Improve­ment Com­pa­ny, declared the pur­pose of his ven­ture “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.”

“Just two years ear­li­er, the gen­er­al orga­nized the Den­ver and Rio Grande West­ern Rail­road,” notes Vic­to­ria Miller, cura­tor at Steel­works Cen­ter of the West. “While his com­peti­tors were build­ing rail lines east and west, Palmer pro­posed a nar­row gauge from Den­ver along the Rocky Moun­tains south­ward to El Paso, Texas and even­tu­al­ly Mexico.”

On a cold morn­ing in Feb­ru­ary 1880, eight men ven­tured to a prairie south of what was to become the town of South Pueblo and began exca­vat­ing for the foun­da­tion of a blast furnace.

As the labor force grew, so too did the “neigh­bor­hood,” as makeshift homes sprung up on the con­struc­tion area west of the fur­nace sites.

Res­i­dents named the set­tle­ment Tay­lorville, in hon­or of the super­in­ten­dent of con­struc­tion, Col. W.W. Taylor.

“Tay­lorville remained the pop­u­lar name until 1881, when the com­pa­ny insist­ed that the prop­er des­ig­na­tion for the area was ‘Steel­works,’” Miller said. “At that time, between 300 and 400 men were employed, and the month­ly pay­roll was $7,000 to $8,000.”

Lat­er that year, the cor­po­ra­tion began orga­niz­ing a town named “Besse­mer” and, through the South Pueblo Home­stead and Invest­ment Com­pa­ny, arranged for the build­ing of a large num­ber of homes.

Once these per­ma­nent homes were up, the tem­po­rary dwellings were abandoned.

To cel­e­brate the erec­tion of the first of two blast fur­naces, a for­mal blown-in cer­e­mo­ny was staged, attend­ed by com­pa­ny offi­cials and com­mu­ni­ty leaders.

“The blast fur­nace was chris­tened ‘Bet­sy’ in hon­or of the superintendent’s daugh­ter,” Miller explained. “It was designed to yield 80 tons of iron dai­ly, and the ini­tial tap of 12 tons was made two days later.”

And with that, Pueblo was on its way to becom­ing “Steel City.”

The first rail came out of the plant on April 12, 1882. A few days lat­er, the Den­ver and Rio Grande Rail­road placed it on the Ani­mas Canyon route.

“The fol­low­ing July, when the Burling­ton Rail­road reached Den­ver, the last 100 miles of the new line was laid with rails and fas­ten­ings made at Pueblo’s Steel­works,” Miller explained.

The raw mate­ri­als nec­es­sary for the pro­duc­tion of steel were obtained through what Miller terms “a wide­ly orga­nized effort from sites around the state.”

“The iron ore was mined in Fre­mont and Chaf­fee coun­ties,” she said. “The lime­stone was quar­ried along the St. Charles Riv­er and the coke for the fur­naces was obtained from the El Moro works near Trinidad. Coal was also mined in Fre­mont and Huer­fano counties.”

Soon after that ini­tial rush of rail pro­duc­tion, Pueblo Steel­works began a rapid expansion.

Nail pro­duc­tion began in the wire mill, fol­lowed by out­put from the spike, bolt, and mer­chant bar mills. Addi­tion­al blast fur­naces were blown-in in 1889 and 1892.

By this time, the com­pa­ny was known as Col­orado Coal and Iron Com­pa­ny, rep­re­sent­ing the merg­ing of three ven­tures con­trolled by Palmer.

And when the Col­orado Coal and Iron Com­pa­ny con­sol­i­dat­ed with J.C. Osgood’s Col­orado Fuel Com­pa­ny in Octo­ber 1892, the Col­orado Fuel and Iron Com­pa­ny (CF&I) was born, launch­ing Pueblo’s rep­u­ta­tion as the “Pitts­burgh of the West.”