Acme Steel, Chicago Coke Plant
I started working at Interlake Steel January 11 1978. I started at the coke plant, in the coal handling department. It was below zero and I woke up with the flu that morning. I was 20 years old and figured I better not miss my first day. I was in the labor gang and was […]
24 hour circular charts were the recording medium of choice at Acme. These charts were used to record a variety of metrics both at the batteries (where recording was done in the coal bunker ground floor) at the BP Plant (charts were stored in the BP Office). BP Plant Charts In the BP office a […]
This is a guest post, written by South Deering resident Keaton Soriano. We met very briefly in December 2021 when he was at the plant visiting with one of his high school instructors. He later reached out (not necessarily knowing that the person he was emailing was the person he saw at the plant). I […]
This guest piece was written and submitted by local historian Bob Lalich. His research on this topic is unprecedented and nothing similar is available to our knowledge. Big thanks to Bob for sharing this valuable information! By-Products Coke Corp plant was constructed in 1905. The plant was served by a dedicated railroad – Calumet, Hammond […]
I’ve retrieved a number of artifacts from from the plant but the best finds have been the friends I’ve made. Reggie reached out recently and we are cooking up some projects which I will share soon. In the meantime, we chatted for about half an hour and I put together a quick slideshow based on […]
I have retrieved countless documents and artifacts from the plant but the amount of video or audio evidence is limited. Luckily, I have located some of each and all have proven valuable if not priceless. First up is the ovens department training video. This easily is the best evidence of the plant that exists today. […]
All week long the forecast was calling for a high of near 70F. In my mind, this meant that there might be some fair weather explorers who wanted to swing by. God bless them on their investigations but I prefer to be alone, so I did my best to get on the road early. I […]
My TQI bulletin board and my suggestion box were found on different dates but are inextricably linked by their original intended use. So finding duplicates of both was quite a thrill – and yes, I had to take those too. So I’ll just say it one time, for the record, as clearly as I know […]
There is something especially enjoyable about taking the bus to the plant. And something about visiting the plant in bad weather: cold, and a heavy load of fresh snow is preferable. The more you have to suffer to attain something, or survive the journey to your destination (and back), the sweeter it is. As of […]
My first exposure to this logo was on the 2001 original version of acmecoke.com. When my friend (and Acme veteran) Steve Buckner mentioned that he had created a site near the end of the plant’s run, I went to archive.org to find it. I ended up rebuilding the site on my own server which is […]