Kaiser Steel

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Kaiser Steel was an American corporation, whose assets included a former steelmaking plant, located in Fontana, California, and an iron ore mine at nearby Eagle Mountain, California. It was founded by Henry J. Kaiser to provide steel plate for the Pacific Coast shipbuilding industry, which expanded during World War II, then shrank, then expanded again during the Korean War. Kaiser was famous for making the most of its costly steelmaking inputs, and captured, with the U.S. Steel plant in Utah, much of the Pacific Coast steel market by the late 1950s. However, imported steel from across the Pacific Rim captured market share in the 1960s and 1970s, and primary steelmaking ended in the 1980s. This was the location where the steel mill scene was filmed at the end of the movie Terminator II. Henry J. Kaiser, worked with Sydney Garfield MD to establish prepaid medical care via the Kaiser Health Plan; the Fontana steel plant workers were early members.

[edit] References

• Mike Davis, City of Quartz, Chapter 7, "Junkyard of Dreams"