| ARMCO - The Driving Force Behind Middletown |
| Wednesday, September 26, 2007 10:17:02 AM - Middletown Ohio |
by Andy Wendt
When George Verity broke ground on his American Rolling Mills Company (ARMCO) in Middletown, Ohio in 1900, he couldn't have known that his company was going to be the driving force behind creating one of the largest cities in Ohio. Verity got his start in Cincinnati, with his American Steel Roofing Company, before the small city of Middletown with a population of less than 10,000 convinced him to move here. The mill opened for business in 1901.
From the start, ARMCO was successful, growing by leaps and bounds and bringing the city of Middletown along with it. Between 1900 and 1930, Middletown's population grew from 9,215 to 29,992. In 1921 an ARMCO employee named John Butler Tytus developed a revolutionary process for creating rolled steel that increased production exponentially, while at the same time using less workers. This new method of production boosted ARMCO's steel output from about 520 tons of sheet per month to forty thousand tons per month. Innovations such as this one pushed ARMCO to being one of the most successful companies of it's kind in the nation. Tytus is remembered today with Tytus Avenue in Middletown, and his home on South Main Street is a nationally recognized historic site.
Additionally ARMCO was one of the first companies in the entire nation to form a shop committee, an organization of workers much like what we know today as unions. ARMCO workers formed a shop committee in 1904, and their workers remain highly organized today.
ARMCO, though now operating under the name AK Steel, continues being one of the most successful steel companies in the United States, and has the distinction of being a Fortune 500 company, marking it as one of the most successful companies of any kind in the world. George M. Verity is honored in Middletown with his own street, in addition to Verity Middle School. There's no doubting that AK Steel is the life blood of Middletown, and we should hope that they remain here for 100 more years.
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