LaBelle Timeline Aug 28, 2007

Red- Wheeling/WV History Blue- World/US History Black- Labelle/Steel History ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1769 Wheeling founded by Col. Ebenezer Zane and his brothers; Jonathan, Andrew and Silas.

1775 Nail machine technology- Wilkinson developed a process to make tacks, by shearing iron slivers from iron plate. This was the basic technology used in most common nail machines and it was adopted very quickly with blacksmiths and other mechanics.

1776 Declaration of Independence

1776 Fort Fincastle renamed as Fort Henry

1777 Sam McColloch takes his leap.

1782 September 11th attack on Fort Henry recognized as the last battle of the Revolutionary War; makes famous run for powder.

1794 Wheeling’s first post office opens.

1803 Louisiana Purchase

September 7, 1803 Merriwether Lewis visits wheeling.

1804-1806 Lewis and Clark Expedition

1806 The first Police Department established in West happened in Wheeling. Wheeling is incorporated as a town.

1817 Security National Bank & Trust Company

1818 is completed to Wheeling, opening the Midwest to settlement

1820s Spread of Balloon framing Construction Method- The Balloon framing method created a cheap and easy new construction method that minimized construction time and required enormous amounts of nails.

1824 Charles H. Berry founds a riverboat supply house

1825 Marquis de Lafayette visits Wheeling.

1830 The Guards Volunteer Fire Company organized and located at 27 21st Street.

1831 Wheeling designated as a “Port of Entry” by the government.

1832 Wheeling’s first iron works, “Top Mill”, is founded by Shoenberger & Agnew on the river north of the city.

1834 Wheeling’s first waterworks established.

1835 J. Ludwig Stifel, a skilled fabric dyer, began Stifel Textile Company.

1836 Ott-Heiskell Company, a wholesale and retail hardware business, established.

1840 Centre Foundry & Machine Company established.

1840 Bethany College, ’s oldest degree-granting college, founded by Alexander Campbell.

1840 M. Marsh & Son and W.A. Wilson Company established.

1842 10-Hour day for children under 12, working in Massachusetts.

1845 Kepner Funeral Homes began conducting services.

1847 Stone & Thomas store originally opened as “Golden Bee Hive”, a dry goods store that also carried carpets.

1847 Edward M. Norton, built the Virginia mill on Wheeling Creek near the Market Street Bridge, the first western mill exclusively devoted to making nails.

1848 Gold discovered in California.

1849 Norton, Bailey, and Company begins producing nails. - Norton, Bailey & Co. built the Belmont Nail Works on two acres of land on the banks of the River. They installed six puddling furnaces, 2 reheating furnaces, and 18 nail machines with a daily output of 200 kegs of nails.

1849 Wheeling Suspension Bridge completed as the longest in the world till 1853.

1850 Wheeling population is 11,435.

1851 Isaac Singer invents the sewing machine.

1852 Bailey, Woodward, and Company purchases 4 acres in South Wheeling- Two years after the Belmont Nail Works was established; seven of the original 11 board members left the company and began establishing another nail factory. On two of the four acres they built the wooden structure. The “Specifications for building a rolling mill and nail factory by Bailey, Woodward, and Company. Size of Rolling Mill 50 feet wide by 132 long 28 feet high to the square . . . The Nail factory to be 128 feet long by 40 feet wide . . .” The other approximate two acres were worker’s houses. By 1852 there were only three other factories in Wheeling that produced nails; Top Mill, Belmont Mill and Benwood Mill.

August 24, 1852 First issue of the Wheeling Intelligencer published.

1853 The B&O Railroad reaches Wheeling. On December 25

1853 Centre Market is built to serve the population increase south of Wheeling Creek; this is a prime example of the use of structural cast iron in the trans-Appalachian area. Hempfield viaduct building began; tracks lain 1855.

1854 Republican Party formed for the abolition of slavery.

1854 Smith and Wesson invented the revolver.

1857 Weimer Packing Company established in Wheeling.

1857-1859- Construction of the Wheeling Custom House, one of the first buildings in the U.S. to use wrought iron beams.

1858 The first labor union in the iron trade is organized in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1859 Labelle purchases the Jefferson Iron Works in Steubenville, Ohio. - The founders were associated equally with the mills in Wheeling and Steubenville. Calvin B. Doty, David Spaulding, and John McClinton left Labelle and moved to Steubenville to oversee the company.

1860 A keg of nails sold for $3.13.

1861 Wheeling native, Rebecca Harding Davis, begins publishing her book “Life in the Iron Mills” in the Atlantic Monthly.

1861 Originally Nail City Brewery, it was taken over by Henry Schmulbach in 1881 and became known as Schmulbach Brewery.

1861 The Civil War begins. West Virginia will contribute 32,000 to the Union and 10,000 to the Confederacy.

1862-1864 The War causes the steel industry to rely heavily on local resources. – Because of this, LaBelle signed a year lease with Cyrus Mendenhall, owner of a blast furnace in Martin’s Ferry. Mendenhall would operate the furnace, then ship the ore down river to the nail works. This agreement continued until Labelle eventually constructed two blast furnaces in Steubenville in 1863.

1863 Siemens-Martin invents the open-hearth process. In conjunction with the Bessemer converter, the open-hearth process makes steel available in bulk. Because of this development, steel begins to replace iron in buildings: steel framing and reinforced concrete makes “curtain wall” architecture possible (i.e. skyscrapers).

June 20, 1863- West Virginia becomes 35th state.

1863 Wheeling Daily (News-Register) began publication. 1865 Substantial increase in profit by the end of the War. A keg of nails sells for $7.08.

April 1865 Lincoln assassinated.

1866 Wheeling Downs Racetrack opens.

1867 Coal Diggers Strike- Quoted from the Wheeling Intelligencer: “The coal diggers at the Labelle, Belmont, and Benwood Iron mills struck yesterday for higher wages. The Belmont strikers, we understand, threatened to kill anyone who should go to work in their places. This strike, if persisted in, will stop the mills again.” April 23, 1867.

1867 Invention of Barbed wire closes down “open cattle ranges” of the west. Alfred Nobel patents dynamite.

1868 An eight-hour day established for federal employees.

1870s Bessemer process is first used in Wheeling. – Sir Henry Bessemer invented the Bessemer process in 1856 in England. Its purpose was to convert pig iron into steel by blowing hot air through the molten iron, which would oxidize the carbon and impurities. Advantages of this process were many.

1870 West Liberty State College established.

1872 In six months, Wheeling nail mills manufacture 541,745 kegs of nails valued at $1,5 million.

1872 Yellowstone National Park established.

1874 Labelle sees increase in nail production- Labelle’s Wheeling works had increased its nail machines from 25 to 83, added 13 puddling furnaces, and one additional heating furnace. The nail factory had expanded to include warehouses, a coopers shop and a stock shed. At that time Labelle was working two turns or shifts of ten hours each, and employing approximately 400 hands or workers. The Jefferson works employed about 500 men and 84 nail machines. The combined Labelle and Jefferson operations had a total of 167 nail machines, reportedly more machines than any other nail works in the entire United States.

1875 State Capital moves to Wheeling.

1876 National “League” (baseball) founded. The Sioux and Cheyenne beat Custer at Little Big Horn. Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.

1877 First National Labor strikes in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

1877 Gilchrist-Thomas invents a basic process that uses a wider range of ore for manufacturing steel.

1877 Anton Reymann establishes the Reymann Brewery 1879 Thomas Edison invents incandescent light.

1879 Bloch Brothers (Aaron and Samuel) began to manufacture cigars in their grocery. They would create Mail Pouch tobacco.

1879 First telephone installed in Wheeling by the Beuter Brothers Grocery Company.

1880 West Virginia’s first exchange was installed in the People’s Bank Building in Wheeling.

1882 John D Rockefeller founds Standard Oil Trust

1883 First long distance telephone line installed from Wheeling to Pittsburgh

1884 Clapp-Griffith Converters- Labelle adopted a process based on the Clapp-Griffith’s patent that was similar to the Bessemer process. The Clapp-Griffith converters were problematic: neither cost- efficient nor consistently productive. The later bankruptcy of the Jefferson Works is blamed on these converters.

1885 William le Baron Jenney completes the first steel-girder, 10-story building in Chicago.

1885 Wheeling known as “Nail City.”- The city contains over 1400 nail machines with a yearly capacity of close to 140,000 tons or 2,800,000 kegs of nails. She was known as the Nail City, known the world over for her excellence of her chief product. Also, this year sees the capital moved to Charleston.

1885 Great Nail Strike in Wheeling lasts for 13 months, June 1885-1886. – This strike would end the reign of Wheeling being “Nail City”. Manufacturers discovered that eastern nail cutters were working for 7 cents less than those in the Ohio Valley. Because of this strike, wire nails flooded the market at a time when cut nails were in shortage. Due to the lack of workers, automatic nail feeders were introduced which replaced most need for skill and the number of men to work the machines.

1886 Labelle builds steel plant at Jefferson Works.

1886 Haymarket square Labor riot, Chicago, kills 11 people. General strike in United States for 8-hour workday.

1887 Warwick China incorporated

1890 McKinley Tariff on Tin Plate enacted. – Legislature hoped to promote the growth of the American Tin Plate Industry, which had previously been supplied by mills in Great Britain.

1890 United Mine Workers of America founded.

1890 AFL founded by Samuel Gomers. Massacre at Wounded Knee.

1890 Sherman Anti-trust act. 1890 Wheeling largest city in West Virginia, population 34,522.

1890 Wheeling Corrugating Company established by Alexander Glass. Fort Henry Engine Company organized. They were still using horse drawn fire fighting equipment.

1891 Second section of Centre Market is constructed.

1892 Strikers at Carnegie Steel Homestead kill 10 Pinkerton detectives.

1892 Wheeling Mold and Foundry Company organized.

1893 Wheeling Coffee and Spice Company established.

1894 First Coca-Cola bottled.

1895 Labelle erects 4 tin mills in response to the McKinley Tariff on tin plate.

1896 The first modern Olympic games in Athens, Greece.

1897 Mary Harris “Mother” Jones sent into West Virginia to organize miners.

1898 Labelle sells tin mill and buys back Jefferson Iron Works. – Labelle tin plate mill was bought by American Tin Plate, with the offer of roughly $1 million. Labelle then sold $92,000 in supplies and store inventory, and $250,000 of preferred stock. With those profits, they were then able to buy back the bankrupt Jefferson Iron works in Steubenville they had lost in _____?

1898 Spanish-American War began- West Virginia furnishes two regiments.

1890s Bessemer process replaced with Open-hearth process in Wheeling. - Open-hearth furnaces are reverbatory furnaces that reflect the heat onto the hearth and melt the steel. This process takes longer than the Bessemer, but the quality of steel far surpasses any from before.

1900 Wire Nail Demand far surpasses the cut nail demand. In 1886, the U.S. produced 8,160,973 kegs of cut nails in comparison to 600,000 wire nails. In the year 1900, only 1,573,494 kegs of cut nails were produced compared to 7,233,979 wire nails. The cut nail industry would never recover.

1901-1902 Hazel Atlas Glass incorporated. The Sterling Drug Company incorporated.

1901 Nobel Prizes first awarded.

1903 Wright Brothers first airplane.

1906 Earthquake shakes San Francisco.

1908 Henry Ford introduces his Model-T automobile. GE patents the electric toaster.

1909 City of Wheeling dedicates first public playground in East Wheeling.

1910 George V becomes King of England.

1912 Passenger ship, Titanic, sunk in the Atlantic.

1913 Mary Harris “Mother” Jones spoke to 1,000 men crammed into the Victoria Theater on Market Street, Wheeling.

1914 Labelle Iron Works the last Nail producer in Wheeling. World War I begins. Panama canal opens, its lock hinges made in Wheeling.

1915 Clayton-Antitrust Act legalizes nonviolent strikes and boycotts.

1916 Albert Einstein proposes the general theory of relativity.

1916 Legislation approved that created the .

1917 U.S. declares war on Germany.

1918 Influenza epidemic kills 195,000 Americans. World War I ends.

1920 Wheeling Steel Corporation Created- The merger between Wheeling Steel and Iron Company, Wheeling-Glessner, and Labelle Iron Works created the Wheeling Steel Corporation. The company was incorporated in Delaware on June 21, 1920 with the authorized capital of $100 million. The officers of the new company were; Alexander Glass, Chairman of the Boards and Vice president in charge of Operations, Isaac M. Scott, president, W.H. Abbot in charge of sales and William H. Manning, treasurer. It was during the latter part of the 1920s that they decided to enter again into the manufacture of nails.

1920 Greater Wheeling plan unites Elm Grove, Warwood, Fulton, Leatherwood, Woodsdale, Edgwood, and Pleasant Valley, population 60,000.

1920 Eighteenth amendment declaring the prohibition of alcohol, 19th amendment, women’s right to vote.

1921 West Virginia is first state to have a sales tax

1922 Tutankhamen’s tomb discovered by Howard Carter.

1924 Benwood Mine Explosion Kills 119. On April 28th, shortly after the last train carrying the day shift miners had entered the mine, an explosion occurred. The first explosion was caused by methane gas released from a coal seam, and the second was coal dust in the air igniting from the first. One hundred and fifteen miners were killed in the explosions. The Benwood Mill ceased production for weeks afterward since their only supply of coal was from that mine.

1926 Liquid-fueled rocket invented by Robert H. Goddard

1926 December 6 - Wheeling radio station WWVA signs on the air.

1927 Lindbergh crosses the Atlantic on non-stop flight 1928 Capital Music Hall and Oglebay Park open.

1929 Black Friday: Stock Market Crashes and Great Depression begin. The first Academy Awards is held.

1929 Wheeling Symphony founded.

1933 Roosevelt begins “New Deal”

1934 Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed.

1936 The first broadcast of “Its Wheeling Steel.” This program was unique because the entire cast was made up of Wheeling Steel employees. This show would air until ?

1937 The Hindenburg exploded in New Jersey

1939 WWII begins when Germany invades Poland.

1939 Island Mould and Machine Company established by Joseph Weishar and son, Joseph J.

1940 Wheeling Steel Corporation the 9th largest steel company in the United States. Companies were located at: Ackermann Factory, Warwood, WV Beech Bottom Works, Beech Bottom, WV Benwood Works, Benwood, WV Labelle Works, South Wheeling Martin’s Ferry Factory, Martin’s Ferry, OH Portsmouth Works, Portsmouth, OH Steelcrete Factory, Beech Bottom, WV Steubenville Works, Steubenville, OH Wheeling Factory, East Wheeling, WV Yorkville Works, Yorkville, OH

1941 Wheeling Steel Corporation “had gone to war.” With the coming of World War II, Army and Navy contracts were given preferential treatment.

December 7, 1941 Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and America enters the war

1944 Allied troops land on the beaches of Normandy in France.

1945 Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Germany and Japan surrender, ending WWII

1946 Major chemical industries begin operating in the Valley.

1948 NATO formed; Cold War begins. Bell labs invent the transistor

1949 Labelle employs 80 men, runs 101 machines and produces 900 kegs per day.

1950 Korean War begins.

1952 George IV dies; Elizabeth II becomes Queen of England. First hydrogen bomb detonated at Eniwetok, an atoll on Marshall Islands. 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenburg executed for passing secrets about US atomic weaponry to the Soviets.

1955 Blacks boycott buses in Montgomery, Alabama. Supreme court orders schools cease segregation. AFL and CIO merge.

1957 Soviets launch Sputnik- the first artificial satellite.

1957 Polio vaccine puts end to crippling disease.

1959 Alaska and Hawaii become states.

1960-1965 Civil Rights Movement.

1963 John F. Kennedy assassinated. Rev Martin Luther King delivers his “I have a Dream” speech.

1964 President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act

1967 Silver Bridge at Point Pleasant, WV collapses, resulting in 46 deaths.

1967 Wheeling tunnels built.

1968 Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Corporation created- Created by a merger between Pittsburgh Steel Corporation and Wheeling Steel Corporation.

1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated.

July 20, 1969 Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man to land on the moon.

1969 Strongest earthquake hits West Virginia.

1970 An airplane carrying almost the entire Marshall Football team, crashes and kills all 75 onboard.

1972 Watergate affair

1973 U.S. involvement in Vietnam War ends with the signing of peace treaties.

1974 President Richard Nixon resigns from his presidency.

1977 Wheeling Civic Center built.

1977 The movie Star Wars is released. Elvis Presley found dead in his home.

1980 Beginning of Iran-Iraq war.

Dec 8th 1980 John Lennon assassinated.

1980s Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation files for bankruptcy under Chapter 11.

1981 The first space shuttle Columbia launched.

January 28, 1986 Space shuttle Challenger explodes after takeoff.

1987 Black Monday: Stock Market crashes.

1989 Berlin Wall comes down.

1990 Beginning of Gulf War; Iraq attacks Kuwait.

1991 Operation Desert Storm begins.

1993 Internet expands with the World Wide Web.

1996 Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation Strikes.

1996 WV Coal industry sets record with 174 million tons of coal produced.

1997 D-Mac Industries purchases Labelle- In March 1997, Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation announced that they would sell or shut down the Labelle Company. They decided to sell Labelle after a protracted steelworkers strike. Denis McMorrow, from Atlanta, GA purchased the company for 2 million dollars.

1999 Euro Currency introduced in Europe.

2001 Terrorists attack the United States - 9/11.

2001 Heritage Port completed.

2003 Iraq war begins.

2004 Labelle has 22 employees.

2006 Tremont Nail Company closes - Labelle is the only surviving American cut nail producer left in the country.