McDONALD, Ohio (WKBN) — Among a history of final moments in the Youngstown-area steel industry, yet another was reached Thursday when the last customer order was completed at McDonald Steel.
Early Thursday afternoon, the last customer order was completed and the 14-inch mill was shut down. It was the last mill operating at McDonald Steel and was originally part of U.S. Steel’s McDonald Works.
Built in 1918, at its peak, around 3,000 people worked at the mill. It became McDonald Steel in 1981 after U.S. Steel pulled its operations from the Mahoning Valley.
In a statement released Thursday, officials with McDonald Steel called it “a bittersweet moment in time.” The statement added that “the mill was showing its age and the problems were compounded by a marketplace that demanded shorter production runs.”
Warehouse operations, however, will continue through the first quarter of next year.
