The open hearth building, 120 feet in width by 155 feet in length, contains three Pernot revolving hearth furnaces of fifteen tons capacity each, supplied with natural gas. A separate pit with a hydraulic ladle crane of twenty tons capacity is located in front of each pan. In a portion of the mill building, originally used as a puddle mill, is located the bolt and nut works, wherein are made track bolts and machine bolts. This department is equipped with bolt-heading and nut making machines, cutting, tapping and facing machines, and produces about one thousand kegs of finished track bolts, of 200 pounds each, per month, besides machine bolts. Near this, also, are located the axle and forging shops, in the old puddle mill building. The axle shop has three steam hammers to forge and ten machines to cut off, centre and turn axles. The capacity of this shop is 100 finished steel axles per day. All axles are toughened and annealed by a patented process, giving the strongest axle possible. In the forging plant, located in the same building, there is an 18,000 pound Bement hammer, and a ten-ton traveling crane to convey forgings from the furnaces to the hammer. There are two furnaces for heating large ingots and blooms for forgings.
A ventilating fan supplies fresh air to the mills through pipes located overhead, and having outlets near the heating furnaces. One hundred thousand cubic feet of fresh air per minute is distributed throughout the mills. The mill has in addition to its boilers, over the heating-furnaces, a brick and iron building, located near the rail mill, 205 feet long and 45 feet wide, containing twenty-four tubular boilers, aggregating about 2000 horse-power.
Tons of Barbed Wire.
The "Gautier Steel Department" consists of a brick building 200 feet by 500 feet, where the wire is annealed, drawn and finished; a brick warehouse 373 feet by 43 feet; many shops, offices, etc.; the barb wire mill, 50 feet by 256 feet, where the celebrated Cambria Link barb wire is made; and the main merchant mill, 725 feet by 250 feet. These mills produce wire, shafting, springs, plowshare, rake and harrow teeth and other kinds of agricultural implement steel. In 1887 they produced 50,000 tons of this material, which was marketed mainly in the Western states.
Grouped with the principal mills are the foundries, pattern and other shops, drafting offices, time offices, etc., all structures being of a firm and substantial character. The company operates about thirty-five miles of railroad tracks, employing in this service twenty-four locomotives, and it owns 1500 cars.
In the fall of 1886 natural gas was introduced into the works.
Building up Johnstown.
Anxious to secure employment for the daughters and widows of the employees of the company who were willing to work, its management erected a woolen mill which now employs about 300 persons. Amusements were not neglected, and the people of Johnstown are indebted to the company for the erection of an opera house, where dramatic entertainments are given.
The company owns 700 houses, which are rented exclusively to employees. The handsome library erected by the company and presented to the town was stocked with nearly 7000 volumes. The Cambria Hospital is also under the control of the beneficial association of the works. The Cambria Clubhouse is a very neat pressed brick building on the corner of Main and Federal streets. It was first operated in 1881, and is used exclusively for the entertainment of the guests of the company and such of their employees as can be accommodated. The store building occupied by Wood, Morrell & Co., limited, is a four-story brick structure on Washington street, with three large store rooms on the first floor, the remainder of the building being used for various forms of merchandise.
Including the surrounding boroughs, Kernville, Morrellville and Cambria City, all of which are built up solidly to Johnstown proper, the population is about 30,000. The Cambria Iron Company employs, in Johnstown, about 7500 people, which would certainly indicate a population of not less than 20,000 depending upon the company for a livelihood.