[1] The Columbia Steel Company was organized in 1909 with main offices at 503 Market Street, San Francisco.
[4] From 1918 to 1921 the short-lived Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company ran a shipyard in neighboring Bay Point.
Dated 1 February 1923, $4,000,000 7% 15-year first mortgage bonds were offered to raise capital for the planned expansion of operations into Utah.
[7] The Carbon Country Railroad Co. subsidiary was established[8] to build and operate 4.79 miles of track to connect to the coal mine.
[13] On 24 November 1926, the Pacific Sheet Steel Corp. of South San Francisco (a Metal & Thermite Corp. subsidiary) was acquired on a stock exchange basis.
Sheet bars were provided by the one-half mile distant plant of the Pacific Coast Steel Company.
[16] The Iron Trade Review called Columbia the sole sheetmaker and largest steel business on the Pacific Coast.
At the time of acquisition, Columbia Steel owned and operated steel-producing plants and rolling mills at Pittsburg and Torrance, a steel foundry at Portland, a blast furnace and by-product coke plant in Provo, iron, coal, and limestone deposits in Utah[20] and warehouses in San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle.
When surveyed in 1945 by the Steel magazine, the Provo furnace had a capacity of just under 600 tons per day and there were 4 gas-fired and 1 oil-fired open-hearths at Pittsburg.
On 24.5 acres under the roof of several buildings, the production line consisted of: It didn't take long for a second expansion of the sheet and tin capacity to be contemplated.
[27][28] In August 1952, the Army decided to reopen Plancor 516 and spend $9,500,000 to convert it to make large castings for military tanks, with Columbia-Geneva operating it.