The Mill in Weirton, West Virginia

What is your favorite memory of living in a small town?

"What is your favorite memory of living in a small town? It's a strange memory because we don't consider this area as being a small town. Yeah, it was only 15, 20, 30,000 people but you gotta remember that there was 14,000 people that worked in that mill alone. I understand that Pittsburgh was a huge town so was Columbus. But it was amazing how many of the people came here, I know to our small town, but this is where everything was. This was a focus for the war effort.

We were the eighth largest steel industry in the country, yep, for a small town. That mill was everything. I mean when I was going to college, I took my exams to get into college, or to get into the mill. There were people in there who had their four year degrees, even post graduate who were waiting in line to get into the mill. So back in the 70s, I'm thinking do I want to go on to college or should I continue trying to get into the mill. So that was the thing around here, The mill was everything. The history that was handed down over the years, over the generations, the ethnic groups, there was over 50 ethnic groups in this area alone . . ."

Asset #7448
Tags: #Work #TheWayWeWorked #Industry