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A place for steel?
Sunday, March 12, 2000 By Jan Ackerman, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
In the Steel Valley, the land of big steel is being transformed into the land of big box stores. Along the Monongahela River, huge retail outlets like Target and Lowe's Home Improvement are popping up at the site of the former USX Homestead Works.
But as tulips get ready to sprout around the brand-new parking lots on the old mill site, a big question remains:
Will Congress ever establish a national park along the Monongahela River to recall the history of steel-making in this cradle of the industrial revolution?
August Carlino hopes so, although he hasn't been able to make it happen in 12 years.
"If you think about the history of steel, there's no other place but Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania that deserves the recognition," said Carlino, director of the Steel Industry Heritage Corp., a nonprofit organization that promotes economic development and tourism by preserving the history of the region's steel heritage.
Carlino's organization wants to create a national historic park that would link the vacant Carrie Furnaces in Swissvale and Rankin with several sites in Homestead and Munhall where steel workers battled Pinkerton guards during the bloody 1892 Homestead steel strike.
As part of the plan, Carlino wants to reconstruct the 48-inch steel mill, the last steam-driven mill of its size in the world. That mill was taken apart and is stored in Trafford.
Carlino said the Union Railroad has donated a hot metal bridge that spans the Monongahela River to convert into pedestrian use and link the historic sites on both sides of the river.
But getting a national designation for a historic site is a difficult job. Without it, Carlino said, building a historic steel museum would not be possible.
"It is too expensive," he said. The cost of building a national historic park is estimated at $75 million.
Competition for federal funds is fierce. Politics plays a big role in the selection of National Park sites.
To be successful, a project needs a political godfather, a powerful U.S. senator or congressman who will champion it through the system.
David Barna, chief public affairs officer for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., said there were 379 national park units across the country, and three or four new ones being created every year. These include national parks, national historic monuments, battlefields, national seashores and parkways.
One recently created site is the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site near the Badlands, S.D., created in November to commemorate the Cold War.
Each year, Barna said, the National Park Service studies 10 to 12 new areas at the request of Congress. But about half the time, he said, Congress creates a site at a place that never was studied by the park service.
For example, Barna said, Congress recently created a memorial park as a tribute to the 168 people who were killed in the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
"We are always out studying things," Barna said. "Sometimes they become parks, sometimes they don't."
Last year, U.S. Congressman Mike Doyle, D-Swissvale, secured funding for the National Park Service to conduct a study into establishing a national historic designation for the site of the Battle of Homestead and the Carrie Furnaces.
Joseph DiBello, manager of stewardship and partnership for the park service in Philadelphia, said the study would get under way this spring.
Eventually, the park service will make a recommendation to Congress based on whether consultants determine that the site is the appropriate place to tell the story of steel.
Even if the park service recommends that a national historic site be created, Carlino said, the agency will tell Congress that it doesn't have the money to make it happen.
That is why Carlino's organization has persuaded Doyle and U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., to introduce legislation later this year designed to create a Steel Industry National Historic Site.
Carlino said the effort was receiving support from the entire Congressional delegation from Western Pennsylvania.
In February, Carlino announced a $3 million makeover of the historic Bost Building, which was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1999.
The Bost Building was strike headquarters in 1892 for steel workers who waged a four-hour battle against 300 Pinkerton Guards hired by Carnegie Steel Chairman Henry Clay Frick.
Once completed, it will contain offices for Carlino's staff and will house historic archives. It also would serve as visitors' center for a national park -- if one is ever developed.
One of Carlino's major problems in trying to preserve the Carrie Furnaces is that his organization doesn't own them.
The furnaces are owned by The Park Corp., a Cleveland-based company that cleared the land for all the big box stores and restaurants and offices at the Homestead mill site.
For years, Park officials said they were tired of holding onto the furnaces when the prospects of a national park seemed so remote.
A few weeks ago, Raymond Park, chairman of The Park Corp., told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that decisions about the furnaces needed to be made shortly.
"It is unsightly, in a way," Park said. "We only held onto it because of the ongoing talks. We are sort of at the end of our line on that."
Now the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development is hoping to pull together a plan to redevelop the area around the furnaces into an office and industrial park. Carlino said that plan was supposed to preserve the mill for the historic preservationists until the federal government makes its decision.
While The Park Corp. angered local preservationists by tearing down key parts of the Homestead mill, the company preserved and restored some historic places.
Park restored a dozen 100-foot-tall smokestacks built in the 1940s, saved the pump house in Munhall and refurbished the old Rail Station at the Amity Street crossing.
In 1998, Park sold the redeveloped Homestead mill property to Continental Real Estate, a Columbus, Ohio-based firm.
Carlino said officials from Continental had been cooperative with his group's efforts to preserve the history and add markers to historic sites.
While Carlino's organization hasn't been able to get the big park, it has gotten a National and State Heritage Area designation for a seven-county region.
Called Rivers of Steel, the heritage area is one of 15 in the nation that were selected because they have a special story to tell the nation.
This designation, made in 1996, makes the area eligible for more than $1 million a year in federal and state grants, plus other money.
Carlino's organization, the conduit for the money, is spearheading the development of biking and hiking trails; is operating Big Steel tours on the weekends; and has funneled state and federal money to 60 projects in seven counties.
The steel heritage group is working to build river landings in 11 communities from Kittanning to Brownsville that could serve as stops for tourists.
Since its inception, the Steel Industry Heritage has secured $17.9 million in funds, Carlino said. About $900,000 of that money has been used for the development of the historic park site.
While government plods along on the historic sites, Continental is transforming the old Homestead Works into a $300 million mix of stores, offices, restaurants and apartments.
Target and Lowe's Home Improvement are open. Several restaurants, including a TGI Fridays, and a Loew's Waterfront Cineplex are under construction.
Dick's Clothing & Sporting Goods, Scholastic Book Fair and Pier 1 are coming, according to recent announcements. Eat'n Park Restaurants will be moving its regional headquarters to the center.
As new business comes to the valley, Carlino continues to believe that the history of steel needs to be told and that Homestead is the place to tell it.
Staff writer Dan Fitzpatrick contributed to this report.
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