Farrell, Pennsylvania: Born Overnight in Steel
Near Youngstown, Pennsylvania
Farrell, Pennsylvania practically did not exist before nineteen hundred. Frank H. Buhl and associates broke ground for the Sharon Steel Company plant in nineteen oh one on a plain bordering the Shenango River, seventy miles north of Pittsburgh.
The mill drew workers so quickly that by the time the community changed its name from South Sharon to Farrell in nineteen twelve, in honor of United States Steel Corporation president James A. Farrell, it already held more than ten thousand residents. Sharon Steel became part of the Carnegie Steel empire in nineteen oh two.
The mill defined life in the city for nearly a century before it shut down in nineteen ninety-two, leaving Farrell to rebuild its economy around a fraction of its former population of about five thousand.
