Siberian Iron Works: Tin Plate Pioneer of Leechburg

The town of Leechburg sits along the Kiski River in Armstrong County, and in the eighteen seventies it became an unlikely center of American industrial ambition. The Siberian Iron Works, established in eighteen seventy-two, was among the first manufacturers in the United States to produce black plate and tin plate, going head-to-head with imports that had long dominated from England and Wales. To do it, the founders recruited skilled Welsh and English ironworkers to staff the operation.

In eighteen seventy-four, the works became the first facility in the nation to power its iron production with natural gas instead of coal, an efficiency leap that foreshadowed the energy transformation sweeping American industry. The mill supplied tin for cookware, canned goods, and roofing across the country, and it operated on this site for decades.