Scottdale

Analyze the text.

Long ago, the hills of Western Pennsylvania held an incredible secret underground: enormous deposits of bituminous coal and iron ore. These natural resources were scarce — there were only so many of them — and whoever could dig them up and turn them into useful products stood to make a great deal of money. The area around Scottdale, in Westmoreland County, sat right in the heart of the Connellsville coal and coke district, one of the richest coal-producing regions in the entire country. Workers there dug up bituminous coal and loaded it into dome-shaped stone furnaces called beehive coke ovens. Inside those ovens, the coal was baked at extremely high temperatures until its impurities burned away, leaving behind a hard, carbon-rich fuel called coke. Coke was the secret ingredient that made steelmaking possible — without it, iron ore could not be melted down and shaped into steel.

A businessman named Henry Clay Frick, who grew up right in Westmoreland County, recognized how valuable this local coal was. Frick built a massive network of coal mines and beehive coke ovens across the region, and he became so powerful that he was sometimes called the "Coke King." He eventually partnered with another industrial giant, Andrew Carnegie, whose mills in Pittsburgh used Frick's coke to superheat iron ore and turn it into steel — one of the strongest building materials in the world. Carnegie's steel was used to build bridges, skyscrapers, and railroads across the entire country. Pittsburgh's location at the meeting of three rivers made it the perfect place for this work. Coal and coke could be loaded onto barges and floated right to the mills, and finished steel could be shipped back out along the same waterways to buyers across the nation. The mills ran day and night, and thousands of workers from around the world moved to the region to earn a living.

Pittsburgh's industrial boom showed how natural resources can shape an entire economy. The region specialized in making steel because it had the coal, the iron ore, the rivers, and the workers to do it better than almost anywhere else. Other cities and regions depended on Western Pennsylvania's steel to build their own growing communities. This is called economic interdependence — Pittsburgh needed buyers for its steel, and buyers around the country needed Pittsburgh's steel to build their cities. The rivers, railroads, and roads that carried these goods connected the region to markets far and wide, making the whole country more interconnected.

By the mid-1900s, however, the steel industry began to shrink. Cheaper steel from other countries made it harder for Pittsburgh's mills to compete, and many factories closed. Pittsburgh had to make a choice: it could keep trying to produce steel, or it could invest in something new. The city chose to reinvent itself. Today, Pittsburgh is known as a leader in technology, healthcare, and education — sometimes called "eds and meds" for the universities and hospitals that anchor the region's economy. Companies and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh develop cutting-edge technologies, including robotics and artificial intelligence. This shift shows that an economy, just like the people who live in it, can change, adapt, and find new ways to thrive.

According to the passage, what was coke, and why was it so important to the steel industry? How was it made near Scottdale?

The passage says that coal and iron ore were "scarce." Based on the passage, why did scarcity matter for Pittsburgh's economy?

The passage describes Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Carnegie as partners. Based on the passage, what did each man contribute to the steel industry, and why did they need each other?

The passage describes Western Pennsylvania and the rest of the country as being economically interdependent. Using evidence from the passage, explain what that means and give one example of it.

By the mid-1900s, Pittsburgh faced a difficult choice. What was that choice, and what did Pittsburgh decide to do? What does this decision tell us about opportunity cost?

Directions

Vocabulary Matching

Reading Passage — From Steel to Innovation: Pittsburgh's Changing Economy

Comprehension Questions

Think Like an Economist