America is a melting pot. It is a place where folks of all creeds, religions, ethnicities and backgrounds can come and make a better life for themselves and their families. I really like the term “Melting Pot,” especially for our area, because most of the ethnic groups came here to work in our steel industry where the process of making steel involved melting raw ingredients together to form a finished product.

Looking at the different folks who worked in our plants and factories many were immigrants or first-generation Americans who still had strong ties to their original homelands. At the turn of the 20th century, millions of immigrants came to the new world from the old. In the old world, immigrants needed to travel to the nearest seaport to board the ships for their long journey to America.