Sparrows Point

Sparrows Point is an unincorporated area in Baltimore County, Maryland. It was named for Thomas Sparrow, landowner, and is adjacent to Dundalk, Maryland.

It is the site of a very large industrial complex, now in decline, known in the past for steelmaking and shipbuilding. See also Steel industry, history

Steel

The first steel was produced at Sparrows Point in 1889 by the Pennsylvania Steel Company. By the the mid-20th century, Sparrows Point was the world's largest steel mill, stretching four miles from end to end and employing tens of thousands of workers. It used the traditional open-hearth steelmaking method to produce ingots, a labor- and energy-intensive process.

Purchased by Bethlehem Steel in 1916, the mill's steel ended up as girders in the Golden Gate Bridge and in cables for the George Washington Bridge, and was a vital part of war production during World War I and World War II. The mill was serviced by three railroads: the Western Maryland, Penn, and B&O.

By 1961 the mill was producing 672,000 tons of steel per year. But changes in the steel industry, including a rise in imports and a move toward the use of simpler oxygen furnaces and the recycling of scrap, led to a decline in the use of the Sparrows Point complex during the 1970s and 1980s. The Sparrows Point plant is now owned by Mittal Steel following its acquisition of Bethlehem Steel successor company International Steel Group in 2005.

Ships

The Sparrows Point site was also a major center for shipbuilding and ship repair. Maryland Steel Company established the Sparrows Point yard in 1889, and it delivered its first ship in 1891. Bethlehem Steel Corporation acquired the Sparrows Point shipyard in 1917, 44 years before the company's purchase of the adjacent steel mill. During the mid-Twentieth Century, Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding (BethShip)'s Sparrows Point yard was one of the most active shipbuilders in the United States, delivering 116 ships in the 7-year period between 1939 and 1946.

During the 1970s, Bethlehem Steel invested millions of dollars in upgrades and improvements to the Sparrows Point yard, making it one of the most modern shipbuilding facilities in the country. This included the construction of a large graving dock to allow for the construction of large supertankers up to 1200 feet in length and 265,000 gross tons in size.

Bethlehem Steel lurched from one financial crisis to another throughout the 1980s and 1990s, selling the Sparrows Point yard to Baltimore Marine Industries Inc., a subsidiary of Veritas Capital, in 1997 as part of an unsuccessful restructuring attempt. Baltimore Marine operated the facility as a ship repair and refurbishment yard until 2003, when Baltimore Marine Industries collapsed in bankruptcy.

The Sparrows Point shipyard complex was sold at auction to Barletta Industries Inc. in 2004. Barletta is attempting a redevelopment of the site for use as a business and technology park, and plans to revive shipbuilding on at least part of the site, making use of the modern graving dock added in the 1970s.

External links

• Brief history of Sparrows Point

References

Reutter, Mark, Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise and Ruin of American Industrial Might, University of Illinois Press, 2004. ISBN 0-252-07233-2

• Malcolm Gladwell on Sparrows Point, Pensions and Healthcare