About the Calumet Heritage Partnership
The
Calumet Heritage Partnership (CHP)
is a diverse, bi-state partnership of environmental, cultural and historical
organizations and individuals, libraries, educational institutions,
municipalities, and governmental agencies. Each partner is committed to
celebrating, preserving and protecting the unique heritage of the Calumet
region.
CHP's involvement in the Industrial Heritage Archives of Chicago's Calumet
Region grew out of an unsuccessful effort to save the structures at the ACME
Steel Coke Plant. Steelworkers, union leaders, labor historians, industrial
archaeologists, business organizations, and university representatives
joined together as Chicago's Steel Heritage Project in an attempt to save
the last vestiges of the region's early steel industry and historic steel
making structures, located in Southeast Chicago.
During the period that demolition was postponed, many documents,
architectural drawings, photographs, artifacts and other materials were
salvaged from the ACME Steel Coke Plant and are currently stored at the
Pullman State Historic Site. The current CHP collection primarily consists
of artifacts, blueprints, drawings, photographic resources, and
approximately 125 linear feet of records acquired through fieldwork rescue
from the ACME Steel Coke Plant (11236 Torrence Avenue, currently under
demolition), the ACME Steel Furnace Plant (10730 S. Burley Avenue,
demolished), and the ACME MiniGrated Steel Plant, Riverdale, IL (still in
operation under the ownership of ArcelorMittal).
The Industrial Heritage Archives include more than 250 images from the
collection of the CHP, primarily from the Riverdale Plant archives. These
images focus on ACME Steel and its predecessors, with some images from
related and adjacent steel facilities. Further additions to the virtual
collection are planned.
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