Midland, Pennsylvania

History

Native American petroglyphs exist in the area surrounding Midland, including on Babbs Island, the Little Beaver Creek, and Shippingport Bridge.

In 1905, Pittsburgh agent T. K. Miller purchased land on behalf of a group of industrialists who would form the Midland Steel Company and with it, the borough of Midland as a company town in 1906. Other companies would begin operations in the town as well. In 1911, Midland Steel Company sold its operations to the Pittsburgh Crucible Steel Company, a division of the larger Crucible Steel Company of America. By the end of the First World War, Crucible employed 2,700 men.

The contraction of the American steel industry in the 1960s and 1970s forced layoffs at the Crucible plant and a decline in the borough's population. During the 1980s, the American Iron and Steel Institute reported that more than 200,000 steelworkers in the U.S. had lost their jobs, and more than 400 mills and plant divisions were closing, including Crucible's Midland plant. Jones & Laughlin Steel bought the Midland plant and merged with Republic Steel to form the LTV Steel Corporation, which went bankrupt in 2001, accelerating the decline of the borough's economy.

From the History section of Midland, Pennsylvania on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.