McDonald, Ohio. 2023

The ‘rust belt’ is no stranger to aged and abandoned mills and works facilities of all sorts. Though most shuttered industry centers hold a great depth of, largely overlooked, history plagued by its rusted blight; McDonald Steelworks has been parted with a museum of sorts. Leading up and into US involvement in World War I with a declaration of such at the end of 1917. US Steel built the McDonald Works steel mill and company town in the Youngstown, Ohio suburb of McDonald. US Steel operated the mill until 1980. After a year and a half of sitting vacant the mill was started up again as McDonald Steel Corperation. However, the mills facilities were never used to full capacity from that point forward, as industry left the region throughout the decade.

The larger facility was still sitting vacant a few years later when Larry’s Truck and Electric (now known as Larry’s Truck Electric) moved into part of the building and the surrounding yards. Historically, railroading has always been important to the area and with the unused steel works facility railroads just sitting there the business put ‘em to use. Operating under LTEX Rail, Larry’s is a snapper, rebuilder, leaser, and reseller of a large stock and variety of second-hand locomotives and their respective parts. Furthermore, the LTEX facility receives and ships from a CSX mainline that runs adjacent to the property and through Youngstown, Ohio. Just a large amount of EMD model locomotives looking to be ranged mostly from 1930s models on up through the 70s.

Unfortunately, McDonald Steel Corp is one of the only steel mills still operating in what was known as ’steel valley.’ These days the mill produces hot rolled steel in special bars, shapes, and fittings in mostly railroading use. Furthermore, as of June 2023, the McDonald Steel Corp will cease of operations by the end of 2023 with warehouse employees exiting in December. Long due renovations total $60 million, which economically is undoable. The town that carries its namesake will be losing about $100,000 in annual tax revenue. Company towns have and always be unsustainable, but that’s beside the point. What about Larry’s??? Well Larry skipped over to Warren a while back to focus on trucking operations at a different location(thus the name change). The locomotives did not come with him. As locomotive orders are still taken care of in McDonald, though I didn’t see anyone there the day I went. Consequently, the lack of orders are reflected in the slow reclamation of nature in just this past decade. It’s this reclamation and degradation that put this property somewhere in-between rail museum and rail cemetery.