Henry Clay Frick becomes chairman of the…

Henry Clay Frick becomes chairman of the company he had formed with Andrew Carnegie, the predecessor to Unites States Steel.

Carnegie will make multiple attempts to force Frick out of the company they had created by making it appear that the company has nowhere left to go and that it is time for Frick to retire.

Despite the contributions Frick had made towards Andrew Carnegie's fortune, Carnegie disregards him in many executive decisions, including finances.

Frick was born in West Overton, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, U.S., a grandson of Abraham Overholt, the owner of the prosperous Overholt Whiskey distillery.

Frick's father, John W. Frick, had been unsuccessful in business pursuits.

Henry had attended Otterbein College for one year, but did not graduate.

A twenty-one years old in 1871, Frick had joined two cousins and a friend in a small partnership, using a beehive oven to turn coal into coke for use in steel manufacturing, and had vowed to be a millionaire by the age of thirty.

The company was called Frick Coke Company.

Thanks to loans from the family of lifelong friend Andrew W. Mellon, Frick had bought out the partnership by 1880.

The company had been renamed H. C. Frick & Company, employed a thousand workers and controlled eighty percent of the coal output in Pennsylvania.

Shortly after marrying his wife, Adelaide, in 1881, Frick had met Andrew Carnegie in New York City while the Fricks were on their honeymoon.

This meeting had resulted in a partnership between H. C. Frick & Company and Carnegie Steel Company, and is the predecessor to United States Steel.

This partnership ensures that Carnegie's steel mills have adequate supplies of coke.