“In company with several others, I purchased the now famous Storey
farm, on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, where a well had been bored and
natural oil struck the year before. This proved a very profitable
investment.”
“Were you satisfied to rest with these enterprises in your hands?” I
asked.
“No; railway bridges were then built almost exclusively of wood, but
the Pennsylvania Railroad had begun to experiment with cast iron for
bridge building. It struck me that the railway bridge of the future
must be of iron, and I organized, in Pittsburg, a company for the
construction of iron bridges. That was the Keystone Bridge Works. We
built the first iron bridge across the Ohio.”
His entrance to the realm of steel was much too long for Mr. Carnegie
to discuss, although he was not unwilling to give information relating
to the great subject. It appears that he realized the immensity of
the steel manufacturing business at once. The Union Iron Mills soon
followed as one of his enterprises, and, later the famous Edgar
Thompson Steel Rail Mill. The last was the outcome of a visit to
England, in 1868, when Carnegie noticed that English railways were
discarding iron for steel rails. The Bessemer process had been then
perfected, and was making its way in all the iron-producing countries.
Carnegie, recognizing that it was destined to revolutionize the iron
business, introduced it into his mills and made steel rails with which
he was enabled to compete with English manufacturers.