Wallingford Steel, Wallingford, Connecticut:
In 1922, a group of local investors led by Frank A. Wallace and Edmund B. Cleborne incorporated Wallingford Steel Company at 80 Valley Street for a whopping $200,000. Wallace was the president of R. Wallace and Sons Manufacturing Company, a nationally known silverware concern next door to Wallingford Steel. To help the business get underway, the Town of Wallingford deferred ten years of utility bills. Wallingford Steel turned a profit in just two years time as a carbon steel supplier. The company became the first major business in Wallingford not associated with silverware industry.
After Wallace died in 1933, Wallingford Steel became a subsidiary of the Pittsburgh based Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation and Cleborne was named president. Wallingford Steel grew from 25 factory workers at its inception to as many as 800 employees at its height. The facility expanded to 400,000 square feet in which advanced rolling mills, annealing furnaces, grinding machines and a research lab served commercial customers and defense contractors with stainless steel and super metals. Allegheny Ludlum eventually became Allegheny Technologies, who closed Wallingford Steel in 2014.
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