At times it can be difficult to unearth new information about a business that folded 20 years ago. A little extra effort goes a long way and something may turn up. Or sometimes, you just get lucky.
I ran across a video simply titled ‘Acme Steel’ on YouTube recently and could hardly believe my eyes. Like the coke battery training video I found, this is a professionally produced product that outlines the continuous caster at the Riverdale mill that was launched in the 1990s. Any Acme information (not to mention a video!) is good information, but this is an especially important piece of the Acme history book as it was a bold (and costly) production improvement that came just before things really went south for the company and the coke plant folded in 2001 (with the furnace plant close behind).
I don’t know that it would warrant a post here based on that alone but a brief introduction at the beginning of the video does outline the overall process and shows a few images of the coke and furnace plants. I immediately recognized some of the footage from the battery training video but suddenly realized that some of this was new! I’ve taken screenshots of the critical pieces.
I found this video positively riveting – how exciting to find new information as I near the one year anniversary of my discovery of the coke plant. Not willing to allow the possibility that the video disappears from YouTube, I have STOLEN it and re-uploaded it here for posterity and to protect this priceless asset of a once great company, never to be forgotten.