I had another mission for this trip. I wanted to climb up and dislodge some coke from an oven, break it up and get it into a jar to display in my bedroom. This was a bit harder to accomplish than I figured but I got it done. More exciting than that was finally climbing up to the next floor of the coal bunker. There are 2x12s set up on the north wall (under the larry car port) and a couple more on the west side. Previously I chickened out and I had been thinking of another way to get in. I’d still like to build something more permanent that others can use. But I went for it and it was actually no big deal. I’ll be back inside soon! Inside, I found a room filled with paperwork and I grabbed handfuls to take back to scan.
I also got a huge binder marked ‘Acme Steel Safety Manual’. I cleaned up and repaired the binder but the contents were just OSHA boilerplate and I discarded them.
I left behind a ton of cool paperwork and I need to spent 10 minutes in there organizing things and be better prepared to haul away a larger amount. I found a videotape which I left behind because it looked like a generic training video. But when I got home I realized I had a folder filled with documents related to the plant commissioning a custom new employee orientation video! So this is top on my list – I need to get a VCR and capture this to digital so I can share it with the world. I don’t know how much footage is out there of the plant when it was running.
I also have a good amount of paperwork related to the Acme plant in Riverdale (135th and Perry) that apparently closed and the coke plant absorbed many of their employees.
