At Pueblo’s Steelworks Museum of Industry and Culture, the archives of the 121-year old Colorado Fuel and Iron Co. steel mill offer a deep account of life and industry in the West.
Local history buffs can learn more about the company’s influence in Colorado today during a free lecture at the museum from 3 to 4 p.m.
“CF&I built the West,” says Victoria Miller, curator of the museum and a member of the Bessemer Historical Society, which maintains the archives.
“At one point they were the largest private landowner and employer in Colorado,” she says, “and operated 62 different mines and quarries in six different states.”
The mill in Pueblo churned out steel rails, wire, nails, cables and more for such structures as the Royal Gorge Bridge. In its 1950s heyday, CF&I employed more than 20,000 people.
Now this museum’s archives contain decades of company publications, photos, maps, employee records and other details from the huge steel company’s history and operations. The collection includes 40,000 maps, 100,000 photos, 15,000 blueprints and millions of personnel records on paper and microfilm.
But perhaps the most infamous chapter in CF&I’s history involves the Colorado Coal Strike of 1913-1914, when thousands of coal workers — including many CF&I employees — went on strike to demand better working conditions. The Ludlow Massacre of 1914, in which 19 men, women and children died in a conflict between the Colorado National Guard and striking miners in the tent colony at Ludlow, led to eventual improvements for miners.
After Ludlow, Miller says, CF&I bulked up employe social and cultural programs that had begun earlier in the century. Partnering with the YMCA, for instance, the company had opened its “Sociological Department” in 1902 to offer such classes as cooking, sewing, gardening, English language and citizenship courses.
“After Ludlow, CF&I gave even more social and recreational opportunities to their employees,” Miller says. “The company publications don’t actually state anywhere that this was as a result of the strike, but that could definitely be one of the reasons.”
During the Great Depression, when CF&I was forced to lay off many workers, the social programs took on a new role. Vocational training programs such as the Valdez Rug weaving project offered unemployed mine workers a chance to learn a new skill.
Miller came across an article about the Valdez Rug project in a company newspaper from 1932. “We know that the program ran for two years, and between 200 and 300 rugs were created,” she says.
Today’s lecture will focus on the weaving project and other social programs that CF&I sponsored. But, Miller says, the museum as a whole offers a look at an important part of Colorado’s history.
“This collection really does need to be preserved,” she says. “The archives are open to researchers and to the public, and they are important to the history of Pueblo, Colorado, and the West.”
Learn more about CF&I’s history today at the Steelworks Museum of Industry & Culture, 215 Canal St., Pueblo. The free lecture begins at 3 p.m. in the Bessemer Community Room. For more information, call 719-564-9086.
