Andrew Carnegie consolidates his various holdings into…

Andrew Carnegie consolidates his various holdings into the Carnegie Steel Company in 1892, allowing him to gain a monopoly in the United States steel industry.

Carnegie had begun the construction of his first steel mill, the Edgar Thomson Steel Works, in 1872 at Braddock, Pennsylvania.

The Thomson Steel Works had begun producing rails in 1874.

By a combination of low wages, efficient technology infrastructure investment and an efficient organization, the mill produces cheap steel, which sells for a large profit in the growing markets of industrial development.

Carnegie alone estimates that forty percent had been returned on the investment: i.e., a profit of $40,000 from a $100,000 investment in the mill.

The profits made by the Edgar Thomson Steel Works had been enough to let Carnegie and his partners, including Henry Clay Frick, his brother Thomas M. Carnegie, his cousin George Lauder, and Henry Phipps Jr., to buy other nearby steel mills.

These included the Homestead Steel Works, which Carnegie acquired in 1883.

The presence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers provide transport for the heavy materials associated with steel-making.

Each plant is nearby or alongside a river.

Carnegie has agreed to Frick's subsequent proposal that the various plants and assets be consolidated into one company.

This consolidation occurs on July 1, 1892, with the formation of the Carnegie Steel Company.