Welcome to the Coke Plant

This website is devoted to the history of Interlake/Acme’s coke plant on South Torrence Avenue. My personal research and archeology is shared here so that others intrigued by the site might learn more about what it once was.

  • I have recovered a number of historically relevent items from the property and restored those that required it. You can see them and read more about them in the Museum.
  • If you’d like to learn more about the industry, the Resources page has a number of materials that you will find helpful. Some are specific to Acme while others are more general.; some are simple while others are very technical.
  • There are countless videos from different sources available on this website. Those which I personally shot at the plant during my visits are compiled on the Videos page for ease of access.
  • I have scanned over 2500 pages of documents I have recovered from the site. The collection in the Document Archive is carefully curated and organized. It speaks of the real history of the plant and the people that worked there. These documents were all carried away either by bicycle or on foot, in all seasons and all weather conditions.
  • If you’d like to know more about me and why I have devoted so much time to the plant, you may find the About section interesting.
  • The majority of my work is posted in the Blog; a breakdown of those posts is below.

Green’s Scoop

Real stories about life at the coke plant from steel industry veteran Bob Green.

Tales from Topside

Contributions from Doug Podgorny, the former (and last) Area Manager Ovens at Acme Steel’s coke plant. Over 25 years of experience led to helping orchestrate the closure of the plant in 2001.

A deep dive into some of the thousands of historic documents I have recovered from the coke plant, brought home and scanned.

Ephemera

Parts of Acme/Interlake’s past – promo items and museum worthy pieces for the collector.