MADE IN HAMILTON
20TH CENTURY
INDUSTRIAL TRAIL

SITE 11
DOMINION STEEL CASTINGS COMPANY, 1912
DOFASCO

One of Canada's largest steelmakers, Dofasco, had modest beginnings. The Dominion Steel Castings Company began producing steel on this site in 1912, under the direction of American foundry-man Clifton W. Sherman. This new company manufactured castings for Canada's expanding railway industry. Unlike Stelco, which started as a large corporation capable of producing its own iron, Dofasco began as a small foundry buying its iron and scrap steel from others.

It soon began to grow. In 1913, it merged with the Hamilton Malleable Iron Company to become the Dominion Steel Foundry Company. During the First World War, production soared. By the war's end, 2,280 workers were on the payroll, nearly ten times the pre-war total. The company, now called Dominion Foundries and Steel, continued expanding over the next few decades, but it was not until 1951 that its first blast furnace was lit. In 1954, it became the first North American company to produce basic oxygen steel. Today, over 7,000 workers produce hot and cold rolled steel and other metal products at this plant.

Clifton Sherman, an American with years of experience in foundry management, established Dofasco in 1912. Members of the Sherman family became well-known in the local community and managed the plant for decades. The Sherman family's control of the plant helped bolster Dofasco's image as a "family plant". Early on, Dofasco workers enjoyed such schemes as profit-sharing and a Christmas party said to be the largest in the world. Unlike Stelco workers, workers at Dofasco are currently not unionized. For a brief time starting in the late 1930s some workers in this plant were organized as Local 1004 of the United Steelworkers of America.