May 3, 2024
ASHLAND, Ky. - She stood, as she did for the last 59 years, impressive and dignified, on a tract of land nestled between the Kentucky hills and the Ohio River. Once a proud image of Armco Steel Works Ashland plant, Amanda, a 234-foot-tall blast furnace, was about to meet her end.
Completed in 1963, Amanda had been the queen of Armco’s blast furnaces. Initially capable of producing 3,340 tons of iron a day, in her heyday she put out almost 6,000 tons a day. Amanda was idled on Dec. 15, 2015, due to an excess of foreign steel that came into the American market.
In the last months of her life, parts of Amanda’s distinctive silhouette had been stripped away. The outer buildings around her, miles of cooling pipes, the cables, steel, bricks and her dignity - all gone, most resting in a pile of rubble at her base.
She looked forlorn and lost, not at all the iconic outline residents of the Ashland area had known. Her interior walls were exposed, her tuyeres stared mutely outward into winter sun. She was naked and about to be demolished.
Scores of area residents have a history with “The Mill,” and almost all of it personal. Thousands of locals worked there, had family who were employed there or knew somebody who’d had a job in the steel plant. Armco, later to become AK and finally, at the end, Cleveland Cliffs, had been a part of the community since Dec. 31, 1921.
On a cold February morning, with the push of a button, Amanda shuddered and with a great roar collapsed upon herself. A piece of area history was gone in seconds.
The man who pushed the button to bring Amanda down was the man who knew her better than anyone. He had worked with her for about 40 of his 43-year career with Armco/AK/Cleveland Cliffs and he knew her every burp, every peculiarity, and every need.
He knew when she needed more wind or when less was better. Was she too hot or too cold? He knew what to do. He knew how to make her happy when she acted up.
It was a bittersweet moment for Mel Smith, overseeing the destruction of something he’d worked on most of his career. But the Amanda he - and all of us - knew, the one belching blue flames and pouring out tons of iron, had been gone for a long time.
She went gracefully, as befitting a queen.
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LYNN RIST is a former newspaper reporter in Kentucky and West Virginia.
