The Texas Historian, Volume 51, Number 4, March 1991 Page: 8
21 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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TECHNOLOGY AND THE
TEXAS WoRKS STEEL PLAN
By Nathan Hamaker, Ross Sterling High School, BaytownSINCE EARLIEST TIMES man has
striven to better himself through
technology. Today it is evident that
if business wants to compete, it must
find a way to make a better product.
During the 1960s and 1970s U.S.
Steel's Texas Works Plant used tech-
nology to improve its operations, yet
it was this same technology exported
to third world countries that eventu-
ally killed the Texas plant.
In the early 1960s Cedar Point
was a 14,000 acre tract of undevel-
oped rice paddies and grazing lands
near Baytown, which is approxi-
mately thirty miles east of Houston.
In 1965, however, U.S. Steel an-
nounced that it planned to build one
of the most sophisticated steel pro-
ducing facilities in the world. It was
called "Texas Works" and was de-
signed as a steel plate producing fa-
cility.
Texas Works was constructed in
two phases-the first phase was com-
pleted in 1971 and the second phase
was not finished until 1977. Section
one consisted of the construction of
a rolling mill which was capable of
rolling plates up to 160 inches wide
by 1440 feet long and up to fifteen
inches thick. In 1977 two more elec-
tric furnaces and two more continu-
ous castors were added, giving the
plant a total of four furnaces which
were capable of handling 220 tons of
steel at a time. In 1977 a pipe mill,
capable of producing pipes from
twenty-four to forty-eight inches in
diameter, was also constructed. By
1977 the Texas Works facility housed
some of the most technologically ad-
vanced equipment in the world.
The first continuous castor was
used by U.S. Steel in the late 1950s at
the Gary plant in Indiana. The con-r
U.S. Steel's Texas Works Plant at Cedar Point near Houston was one of the
most modern in the world when it opened in the early 1970s.tinuous castor completely revolu-
tionized the process of steel making
for it cut out a great deal of manual
labor and eliminated the need for a
primary rolling mill. It also saved
energy, money and time.
Once the continuous castor was
put into use, a heat of steel, which
weighs 220 tons, could be made in
forty-five minutes where it had once
taken nearly eight hours. Along with
the continuous castor, the electric
furnace was also developed to re-
place the open hearth process. The
electric furnace could melt a heat of
steel much quicker than could be
done previously. It could also do so
with much less energy.
These advantages helped U.S.Steel improve the quality of the steel
they produced by eliminating many
of the variables in the steel-making
process. It also saved the company
tremendous amounts of money.
When Texas Works was built, it
contained the most advanced steel-
making machinery in Texas. And, as
technology improved, Texas Works
kept pace.
Technology also impacted the
kinds of steel produced at the Texas
Works Plant. In the late 1960s the
demand for high quality and high
grade steel was growing rapidly. This
was especially true among industries
requiring specific types of steel. The
nuclear industry, for example, needed
steel that had a low sulfur content.8 / TEXAS HISTORIAN
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Texas State Historical Association. The Texas Historian, Volume 51, Number 4, March 1991, periodical, March 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth391549/m1/10/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.