West Homestead is located just down the river from the Homestead plant. The area was home to the Mesta Machine Company. Mesta Machine was one of the leading manufacturers of steelmaking and other heavy machinery since 1898. Its open-hearth furnaces and manufacturing mills had employed four thousand workers as late as the 1970's. In 1983 Mellon Bank foreclosed on the plant putting 12,000 workers out of work. A big moment in the history of the Mesta Machine Plant occured when Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev visited the plant as part of his American tour in 1959. Today this area is now occupied by Sandcastle Water Park, a subsidiary of Kennywood park.
Return to Big Steel