Burns Harbor: The Last of the Great Steel Plants

The Bethlehem Steel plant that anchors Burns Harbor holds a distinction unlikely to ever be surpassed: it is the last fully integrated steel mill built from scratch in the United States. Construction began in nineteen sixty-two on thirty-three hundred acres Bethlehem purchased in Porter County, Indiana, with direct access to Lake Michigan for the iron ore, limestone, and coal that steel demands in bulk. The town itself was incorporated in nineteen sixty-seven, essentially called into existence by the mill.

At peak capacity the plant produced around five million tons of raw steel a year. Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt in two thousand one, and the facility changed hands several more times, landing eventually with Cleveland-Cliffs. The blast furnaces still run. Burns Harbor is one of the few places in the American interior where you can still watch the full arc of steelmaking, from raw ore arriving by lake freighter to finished coil leaving by rail.