Carnegie's First Mill on the Battlefield of Braddock's Defeat
400 Braddock Ave, Braddock, PA 15104
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
No admission for exterior viewing. The plant is an active U.S. Steel facility and not open for general public tours.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved roads and sidewalks for exterior viewing
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1875 · Battle of Monongahela 1755 · George Washington Retreat · Andrew Carnegie Steel Empire · Homestead Strike 1892 · Industrial Revolution
On July 9, 1755, a French and Native American force ambushed British General Edward Braddock's column on what became known as Braddock's Field, on the south bank of the Monongahela River. Braddock was mortally wounded; approximately 900 of his 1,400 men were killed or wounded. Among the survivors was Colonel George Washington, then a 23-year-old Virginia militia officer, who helped organize the retreat. The bones of British soldiers killed in the engagement reportedly remained visible on the field for years afterward.
The same ground became the site of significant industrial history more than a century later. Andrew Carnegie, after observing the Bessemer steelmaking process in Europe, commissioned construction of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works beginning on January 1, 1873. The mill was named after J. Edgar Thomson, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and one of Carnegie's key patrons. Engineer Alexander Lyman Holley designed the facility; Captain Bill Jones, a Civil War veteran, managed its operations.
On August 22, 1875, the facility's Bessemer converter produced its first heat of liquid steel — 2,000 rails for the Pennsylvania Railroad. By its first full year, production reached 32,228 tons. The Edgar Thomson Works became the foundation of Carnegie's industrial empire, eventually incorporated into U.S. Steel in 1901.
The plant also figured in one of American labor history's pivotal confrontations. In 1892, Edgar Thomson workers struck in sympathy with the broader Homestead Strike, contributing to a summer of labor violence that saw 300 Pinkerton agents deployed across Carnegie's operations.
The facility continues to operate as Mon Valley Works – Edgar Thomson Plant under U.S. Steel ownership. As of 2005, two blast furnaces produced 2.8 million tons of steel annually with approximately 900 employees. The 150th anniversary of the facility in 2025 was marked with events for steelworkers and their families.
Sources
The site's association with the supernatural is straightforward in its origin: this is ground where hundreds of men died violently on a single afternoon. On July 9, 1755, approximately 900 British soldiers were killed or wounded in a matter of hours on what is now the plant's footprint. Their remains, inadequately buried in the hurried retreat, were reportedly visible on the surface for years.
George Washington's account of the battle describes the chaos: regulars breaking and fleeing, officers cut down one by one, Braddock himself shot from his horse. Washington had two horses shot from under him and found bullet holes in his coat. Braddock died of his wounds four days later during the retreat.
Local tradition, as preserved in accounts of the Edgar Thomson Steel Works area, holds that British soldiers are among the presences sensed in the vicinity of the Monongahela riverbank and the plant's older structures. This is less a single dramatic ghost story than a persistent atmospheric association — a sense that the landscape carries the memory of what happened there in 1755. The plant itself, still operational and employing hundreds of workers, provides little opportunity for quiet contemplation of the site's earlier history.
View the massive Edgar Thomson Steel Works complex from Braddock Avenue. The plant occupies the site of Braddock's Field, where British General Edward Braddock suffered a devastating defeat on July 9, 1755 — a battle George Washington survived and helped organize the retreat. The facility remains an active U.S. Steel operation and is not accessible to the public without special arrangements.
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