A lone employee enters the massive doorway to the L furnace at Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point. In better days in the late 1950's, Sparrows Point's mill and shipyards throughout Baltimore's waterfront, had more than 45,000 employees. This is for a story about the rise and fall of Bethlehem Steel. The company will change hands in late April/early May as part of a $1.5 billion sale to International Steel Group Inc. The Sparrows Point plant currently turns out 4 million tons of steel per year. It is the second largest plant behind Bethlehem's plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana. Its steel mills, including the Sparrows Point complex in Baltimore County, will continue to operate under new owners, who are leading the charge in reinvigorating the domestic steel industry.
