ESL Bridge Co

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 Attica/East St. Louis Bridge - 1935

 

Structural Steel Company was incorporated in 1889 as Attica Bridge Company, being then located in Attica, Indiana.

188-steel.tif (152439 bytes) In 1912, the company (which fabricated small bridges) decided it needed a more metropolitan location and chose East St. Louis for a plant site. Land was selected in Washington Park a modern steel fabricating shop was constructed on a 12 acre site along the B&O Railroad tracks. (A 1912 map shows the company located south of the tracks and barely west of Illinois highway.)

After moving, the activities of the company were broadened to include the fabrication of steel for building, many of which were then being constructed with, the comparatively new system of a steel beam and column framework.

In 1921, East St. Louis Bridge Co., as it was then known, merged with St. Louis Structural Steel. The firm began to diversify with the manufacture of tanks, barges and river craft of all kind. As many as 250 hulls of various types and sizes were built and constructed. By the early 1930s the company ventured into fabricating special steel tanks for the brewery interests. Thirty-six storage tanks were made for Falstaff Brewing Corporation. This was followed by sixty-five tanks of various sizes for the Wagner Brewery of Highland and Stifel Brewery in St. Louis and the Hyde Park Brewery in St. Louis. This necessitated another plant which was established at 17th and Brady in part of the National Malleable and Steel Castings Co.  To keep the steel from rusting and causing a bad taste in the beer, the tanks were sandblasted on the inside and then coated with a special German preparation of brewer's pitch.

 

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