Beginning in the early part of the 20th century, each CF&I employee was assigned a number which was used for both payroll purposes and employee identification. These numbers were stamped on what were known as brass checks, or small squares of brass the employee carried with them at all times, often attaching it to his or her keyring or a key fob and hooked to a belt loop.

For CF&I miners, the brass checks served two purposes. Not only were they used for identification purposes when payday rolled around, but when entering the mine, each man’s check was taken off a board and then replaced on the board when he exited the mine. This let supervisors and other employees know which miners and how many were in the mine at any given time. This was particularly important when an accident such as cave-in or a scheduled blast of dynamite occurred. Miners also hung their check on the coal cars they filled to receive credit for that day’s work.

By the time CF&I started using computers in the late 1960s to track time and manage the payroll department, brass checks were replaced with computerized versions with the employees’ name, number and a small head shot photograph of the employee.

In the early 20^th century, CF&I administrators supported what we consider to be “welfare capitalism,” in which the company made available services beyond just a job, but included a home, medical care, recreational opportunities, and education for the employees and their families. Believing that happy and contented workers would remain loyal to the company in good times and bad, John Osgood, president of the company in 1901, created the Sociological Department for “the social betterment of the workers.”

In the summer of 1901, the Sociological Department launched adult education classes to teach employees how to improve themselves and their families. Specific examples of classes for employee wives related to sewing, home decorating, and cooking classes in how to prepare nutritious and wholesome food. The program’s weekly newsletter, Camp and Plant was circulated to employees providing cultural and social information about individual and community activities, secular and religious customs of the ethnic groups that made up the CF&I community, short stories and anecdotes on various topics.

The program also brought both permanent and rotating libraries to the employees in Pueblo and in the many mining communities which were filled with books. Works included classic literature by Shakespeare and Dickens, reference manuals such as Encyclopedia Britannica and “technical manuals on engineering, mechanics and kindred subjects.” A traveling painting and sculpture collection and frequent lectures on health and hygiene were also part of the Sociological Department’s educational focus.

By 1925, the company’s partnership with the YMCA had taken responsibility of educational classes. The classes must have created quite a stir as the Steelworks Blast newspaper noted that there was such an excitement for the classes that some people signed up for two or three classes at a time. The Blast reporters urged people to stick with one class at a time to prevent fatigue and give diligence to their studies. By 1926, 350 employees were registered for regular classes. These classes, also offered to employee families, included academic and household related subjects and those to help them on the jobsite. Examples included blueprint reading, typing, mechanical drawing, and salesmanship and advertising. The cost of each class was $1 which was paid by the employee. The company paid for the balance of the $1.50 tuition.

More physical, “on the job” training through an apprentice program was also made available to company employees in November of 1925. Outlined in the Steelworks Blast, there were three reasons for the apprentice program: to bring cordial relations between workers and management, allow more men to become efficient and skilled workers, and, because of a four year work commitment following graduation, it helped hold men to their jobs with little turnover of skilled labor. Through the program, apprentices earned $0.25 per hour with a $0.05 increase each year and apprentices agreed to work worked 2,488 hours per year. At the end of four years, the apprentice earned a $100 bonus. The apprentice program at CF&I trained thousands of workers over the next five decades.

The Steelworks Museum will present a Kids’ Free Science program on Saturday, October 8, 2016 from 1:00 – 3:00pm for students in grades 3-6 and their parents.

Participants will conduct hands-on experiments relating to vision and optical illusions in the former medical dispensary, where actual eye examinations were conducted for steelworkers and their families. Participants will dissect cow eyeballs and learn eyeball anatomy in this hands on workshop.  The program is sponsored by the Pueblo Day Nursery Children’s Foundation.

Although this event is free, space is limited.  Please call (719) 564-9086 ext. 110 or contact us here on our website to reserve your spot.

This nail kit, dating to the 1920s or 1930s, features 13 different types and sizes of nails, brads, tacks and staples conveniently sold in one box. Created at the Pueblo plant and sold under the brand name “Colorado Nails” this nail kit could be purchased for relatively low cost at many hardware and general stores. CF&I’s commercial line of nails varied from the smallest tacks used for carpet installation to medium sized nails for hanging pictures to larger nails for roof repair and securing shingles.

Throughout the late 19th and 20th century, CF&I dominated local and regional land ownership in the Western United States with land holdings and mining interests in six different states. To decide where to purchase land or where to mine, CF&I employed dozens of surveying teams to examine the land before a significant investment in time and money was made. Surveying is the process using measurement and mapping of the surrounding environment using mathematical calculations.

This mountain transit with partial vertical circle compass and Y-level were just two of many tools used by the dozens of employees who surveyed land for the company. After returning from the field, their calculations would then be given to the staff cartographers who would painstakingly draw maps detailing their findings. To learn more about the Steelworks Center map collection, contact the Steelworks Archives department at (719) 564-9086 ext. 107 or view some of the many maps from the collection on our website
http://steelworks.pastperfectonline.com/search?utf8=✓&amp%3Bsearch_criteria=map&amp%3BsearchButton

Donated to the Steelworks Center in 2006.

With temperatures reaching into the thousands of degrees in the steelmaking process, CF&I employees found it much safer to regulate and record accurate temperatures using a tool known as an optical pyrometer. This pyrometer, which dates to the 1940s or 1950s, measures temperature by means of calculating the intensity of the light of a particular wavelength emitted by a hot substance, such as steel. The pyrometer makes it calculations by comparing the radiation of the hot object produced with the radiation produced by a hot filament (such as a thin wire through which electricity flows, such as the wire in an old-fashioned incandescent light bulb, which glows white when it gets hot). Accurate temperatures are important in the steelmaking process to allow for scientific processes, such as carbonization, to occur.

To use the tool, the operator would look through the telescopic eyepiece, through a red filter (to protect his or her eyes) at the object they were measuring, such as a ladle full of steel.  What they would see is a dull red glow from the hot object with a line of brighter light from the filament and superimposed on top of the image of the steel. The knob on the side could be turned to adjust the electric current passing through the filament. This makes the filament a bit hotter or colder and alters the light it gives off. When the filament was exactly the same brightness as the hot object they were measuring, it effectively would disappear because the radiation produced would be the same color. At that point, the operator would stop looking through the eyepiece and read the temperature on the side of the meter, recording it on a chart.

Donated to the Steelworks Center of the West by EVRAZ Rocky Mountain Steel in 2004.