C-1 blast furnace and blower engine house in operation in 1989. This was originally built by Jones & Laughlin Steel which was bought by LTV Steel in 1984, along with Republic Steel which had a huge mill across the Cuyahoga River. The furnace was imploded and the other structures demolished by 2004 in yet another wave of bankruptices before George Bush enacted steel tarrifs on imports and saving the remaining stwewl insustry, but not this furnace. The basic oxgen plant, that turns the iron from the blast furnace into steel was saved and restartd, and is operational today.
There was nothing wrong with the Blast furnace, it was big, efficient and a great producer of molten iron, but couldn’t compete with the cheap steel produced in China, which bought the hot strip mill here, and shipped it back to China.