Monessen Plant

The coke plant at Monessen, PA was built in 1941-1942 by Pittsburgh Steel Company as part of the war effort. The plant, along with #3 blast furnace, was built on a site formerly occupied by American Zinc & Tin and Carnegie Illinois Steel Corporation. In order to build these two facilities, a massive river wall was constructed in order to provide enough ground to make construction possible. This was done entirely by hand, employing 300 plus people. As the wall was built, fill was placed behind it, creating the property as it is today. The original coke plant consisted of 74 Koppers-Becker underjet ovens. Today we are operating 57 ovens producing approximately 360,000 tons of coke.