Colorado Fuel and Iron Company Administrative Complex, Pueblo, Colorado was designated as a National Historic Landmark in January 2021. The administrative complex served as the operational headquarters for the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I), a firm formed in 1892 that played an influential role in the development of the American economy through industrial extraction and production in the early twentieth century as the Trans-Mississippi West’s pioneer steelmaker and its principal coal and coke enterprise. Managers, engineers, and clerical staff within the administrative complex oversaw the day to day administration of Colorado Fuel and Iron’s multi-state industrial empire, including operating a steel and iron plant in Pueblo (completed in 1882 and comprising the nation’s first, fully integrated steel manufacturing facility west of St. Louis, a position it retained until 1942); overseeing coal, iron, and limestone mines and coke ovens in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, Utah, and Oklahoma; directing the flow of eastern capital to developing western natural resources and industrial capacity, particularly through the involvement of the Rockefeller family who controlled the company from 1907 to 1944; and implementing the firm’s 1915 Employee Representation Plan, which impacted workers and work culture and stimulated the adoption of hundreds of similar measures throughout the country in the 1910s and 1920s. Designated January 2021.
RSS Feed
