Mike Best, now a senior operating technician, keeps an eye on mill operations at the Butler works from the control room. The plant employs about 1,700 people and has an annual payroll of more than $170 million.

BUTLER TWP — At 100 years, AKSteel's Butler Works is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, manufacturer in Butler County.

AK Steel, formerly Armco, was the county's largest employer for decades.

The Ohio-based corporation is updating and replacing some equipment in the specialty steel operation.

Alan McCoy, AKspokesman, has said world events have helped to boost sales of some steels, especially the electrical steel made here.

Events from the war in Iraq to Hurricane Katrina to the recent fires in California that destroyed homes and communities has made electrical steel a hot commodity.

As electrical and other specialty steels find their niche in the market, AKSteel continues to grow as a community resource for jobs and a manufacturing base that Butler County and the nation needs.

The plant traces its roots to 1908, when the Forged Steel Wheel Co. constructed a facility on the site to manufacture railroad car wheels using steel bought from outside sources.In 1910 an open hearth furnace was built, and over the next few years more open hearths and a slab mill were installed. The plant expanded in the early 1920s into the production of hot and cold rolled sheets and formed the Colombia Steel Co. In 1926, Colombia was among the first to place into production a semicontinuous wide hot strip mill. The plant also used continuous annealing and pickling and cold rolling equipment.The plants of the Colombia Steel Co here and in Elyria, Ohio, were bought by the American Rolling Mill Co. (Armco) of Middletown, Ohio, on Aug. 1, 1927. The name of the plant changed in 1928 to the Colombia Division of Armco and again in 1936 to the Butler Division of Armco.Armco developed the plant into a manufacturer of specialty steels. Stainless steel strip was first shipped from Butler in 1930, rolled from ingots produced at another plant.Butler "firsts" at this time included production of the world's first continuous hot-dipped galvanized steel in 1936 and the first aluminum coated steels in 1939. Electrical steels were first produced in Butler at about the same time.

During World War II, steel for the first airborne radar systems was rolled on Butler's cold rolling mill.An electric arc furnace was installed in 1948, enabling the plant to make its own ingots for stainless and high alloy grades. Large expenditures through the 1950s gave Butler Works a new hot strip mill, a new wheel plant, and expanded finishing facilities.The 17.5 acre site of the American Bantam Car Co. was bought in 1956. New facilities for intermediate and final finishing of stainless steels were constructed. The site today is commonly referred to as Plant 2.A number of new steel products were pioneered at Butler Works during the 1940s and 1950s. The first high resistance, high temperature CARLITE® insulation for electrical steels was developed here. In addition, a process of decarburization of steel in strip form was developed. This led to the continuous production of grain oriented electrical steels, a major Butler product today.Principal products produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s included stainless, electrical and coated carbon sheet and strip steel, as well as wrought steel wheels.

A major expansion occurred in the 1960s as part of the company's "Project 600" during which a new melt shop complex, silicon steel processing facility and central maintenance complex were built.This $100 million investment gave the Butler Works one of the most modern melt shops in the world, complete with electric arc furnaces for melting, a vacuum degasser for refining molten metal, and a continuous caster to solidify molten metal into hardened slabs.Modernization continued with the installation of an argon oxygen decarburization unit for refining steel, which was added in 1976. It remains today as the largest such unit in the world.A second continuous caster came online in 1982 at a cost of $55 million, making Butler Works the first flat-rolled specialty steel plant in the United States to continuously cast 100 percent of its product.Significant investment in Butler Works continued through the 1990s. More than $150 million in equipment upgrade projects were completed to increase production capacity, improve operations and upgrade environmental facilities. Every major production unit was upgraded with customer-driven improvements.And major capital investment is occurring in the new millennium at Butler Works. A $13 million project to construct new box anneal units has been completed to expand production of electrical steels.

AK Steel Corp. bought Armco Inc. in fall 1999. The company produces flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products for automotive, appliance, construction and manufacturing markets, as well as standard pipe and tubular steel products.AK employs about 11,000 men and women in steel plants and offices in Middletown, Coshocton, Mansfield, Warren and Zanesville, Ohio; Ashland, Kentucky; Rockport, Indiana; and in Butler, Sharon and Wheatland in Pennsylvania.

AK Steel's Butler Works is well known for its stainless and electrical steels that are used in a wide variety of applications where special properties like high strength, corrosion resistance or energy efficiency are required.The plant employs about 1,700 people and has an annual payroll of more than $170 million.The Butler Works is on 1,300 acres and has 3.5 million square feet of buildings with facilities for melting, refining, casting, hot and cold rolling, and intermediate and final finishing of specialty steels. The Butler Melt Shop can produce more than 1 million tons of specialty steel annually.The plant is divided into several locations:• Melt shop complex — melting, refining and continuous casting• Main plant — hot and cold rolling, intermediate and final finishing• Stainless processing — final processing for stainless steels• Hilltop processing — final processing for certain electrical steels• Central maintenance — shops and storesMajor production equipment includes:• Three 175-ton capacity electric arc furnaces for melting• The world's largest argon oxygen decarburization unit for refining molten steel, 175-ton capacity• A 175-ton capacity vacuum degasser for refining molten metal• Two double-strand continuous casters, which solidify molten steel into slabs• Universal roughing mill and a five-stand hot strip mill to reduce slabs to intermediate gauge• Five anneal and pickle units to remove impurities from steel strip and relieve stresses in the metal• Three cold rolling mills, including a $60 million tandem mill, to reduce steel strip to final gauge and achieve desired finish and temper properties• An advanced technology laser scribing system to enhance magnetic quality of certain steels

The AK Steel Butler Works is situated on 1,300 acres and has 3.5 million square feet of buildings.