wiredInUSA May 2017

100 years on the ropes

Union Wire Rope, a WireCo WorldGroup brand, is proud to announce one hundred years in the design and manufacture of wire ropes and assemblies. Union Wire Rope products are used in construction, logging, industry and surface mining. Just before theUnitedStates enteredWorld War I commodity prices were steadily increasing. Industries were experiencing shortages of supplies and rising prices, and the lack of wire rope had become so acute that drilling and production of petroleum products were threatened. Founder Henry Black, with a consortium of oil men, purchased approximately 12.5 acres of land on the east bank of the Blue River in Kansas City, Missouri, and on 17 th

May 1917, Black Steel and Wire Company became a reality.

In 1927 a new management team reorganized the company as Union Wire Rope. After the war, Union was still strong in the oilfields but began to seek other types of business. This led to the development of shovel and drag hoist ropes for the mining industry, which have played a large part in Union’s continued growth. In 1958 Armco Steel acquired the assets of the Union Wire Rope Corporation, and in 1988 Union was acquired by WireCo WorldGroup, making WireCo the largest wire rope manufacturer in the United States and where Union Wire Rope remains.

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wiredInUSA - May 2017