Congressman Doyle Announces National Historic Landmark Designation for Carrie Furnaces
Pittsburgh, PA – November 4, 2006 – U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14) today announced that the Carrie Furnaces site in Rankin and Swissvale had recently been designated a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service.
“This is wonderful news,” Congressman Doyle said today in making the announcement. “This National Historic Landmark designation shows just what a significant part of our nation’s history Pittsburgh’s steel industry has been.”
“This announcement of the Carrie Furnaces as a National Historic Landmark is a designation that has taken many years to achieve and is the result of many people’s hard work,” said August R. Carlino, President and CEO of the Steel Industry Heritage Corporation, the non-profit organization that operates the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area. “To attain this designation – this status – as an NHL means that these Carrie Furnaces are supremely significant in not only our industrial history but our great nation’s heritage.”
“The Carrie Blast Furnaces represent Pittsburgh when it led the world in iron and steel production,” said Dr. Janet Matthews, Associate Director for Cultural Resources at the National Park Service, who represented the Park Service at today’s event. “This National Historic Landmark designation honors a property that produced the construction materials that built the nation.”
Southwestern Pennsylvania was the steel-making capital of the world in the 19th and 20th Centuries. The region’s steel mills made the United States the economic and military superpower it is today. Consequently, the region contains a great number of nationally significant historic and cultural resources. Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7 are rare examples of important early 20th Century industrial technology.
Congress established the Rivers of Steel National Heritage Area in 1996 to preserve resources like the Carrie Furnaces. The designation of the National Heritage Area also helped establish a new approach to community and economic development – one that was tied to heritage conservation, historic preservation, and making the region a destination for both new businesses and visitors. Since then, the Rivers of Steel NHA has embarked on an aggressive agenda of heritage development and tourism promotion projects throughout Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania.
Congressman Doyle and the Steel Industry Heritage Corporation have been working to establish a National Historic Site that would include Carrie Furnaces 6 and 7, the Hot Metal Bridge, the Battle of Homestead site, and other historic parts of the Borough of Homestead. Congressman Doyle has introduced legislation in Congress that would do this.
“I believe this announcement today will help us move this legislation through Congress in the coming months,” Congressman Doyle observed. “I want to make sure that this nation always remembers how much it owes to the workers who labored in the steel mills of southwestern Pennsylvania.”
“This is a major step in the effort to gain National Historic Site designation for this historic industrial site,” added Mr. Carlino. “We appreciate Congressman Doyle’s support and all of the hard work that he has put into this effort over the years.”
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