J&L Steel - Modern Logo - License Plate
- 6" x 12" .030 Gauge Aluminum
- Includes 4 Mounting Slots & 1/2" Radius Rounded Corners
- UV Protective coating to Prevent Fading
- Image is reproduction - final product might differ slightly
- Made in America
Originally producing only iron, the enterprise began the production of steel in 1886. Over the ensuing 60 years, the company expanded its facilities and its operations along both sides of the Monongahela River and along the Ohio River. The Hot Metal Bridge across the Monongahela River was built to connect the blast furnaces (making pig iron) on one side of the river with the open hearth furnaces (making steel) on the other side of the river. In 1905, a new plant was begun at Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. The company also owned coal mines in western Pennsylvania in its early days, including some reached by an incline in Pittsburgh's South Side which connected to the railroad over the bridge adjacent to the Hot Metal Bridge. Other mines were along the nearby Becks Run, also directly connected by railroad. The incline and mines were gone before 1900, but mining continued in Pennsylvania towns such as Vestaburg and elsewhere. The former Otis Steel company along the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was purchased in 1942, and then in the mid-1960s a finishing plant was constructed in Hennepin, Illinois.
J & L Steel (known to its employees as simply "J & L", sometimes pronounced "jane ell") provided the most able competition to the Carnegie Steel Company in the vicinity of Pittsburgh. Ling-Temco-Vought, Inc. of Texas offered to purchase 63 percent of J & L Steel on May 10, 1968 J&L agreeing to it on May 14, completing its purchase of 63% by June 1968 for approximately $428.5 million ($2.92 billion today). It took full control of the company in 1974.
In 1978, J & L Steel acquired Youngstown Sheet and Tube. In 1981, J & L Steel bought a stainless steel mill from McLouth Steel Products in Detroit, which was probably an attempt to try to get closer to the auto market. It merged with Republic Steel in 1984 to form LTV Steel. (Credit - Wikipedia)