Since then, much of the land in Fontana was sold to create the Auto Club Speedway, while a small portion of the plant still performs rolling operations under different ownership as California Steel Industries.

Prior to World War II, Henry J. Kaiser was already an established industrialist in construction, even participating in the Six Companies, the joint venture tasked with building Hoover Dam and other large infrastructure projects during the New Deal.

[3]: 348  Aware of this and risks to shipping through the Panama Canal, US government planners supported rapidly standing up steel production near the West Coast.

Although the US had not yet directly entered World War II, US rearmament and support for allies had pushed demand for finished steel beyond what the Eastern mills could produce.

The company's only condition was that the government covered the plant's construction as a grant, arguing that the mill would likely become an uneconomical, stranded asset once the war ended and demand returned to peacetime levels.

Kaiser, more optimistic about a western mill's long-term prospects and sensing an opportunity to outflank U.S. Steel, offered to build his own facility without any grants, just loans from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC).

[4]: II:11  This plan to produce finished steel in Los Angeles had several advantages: the tidewater location allowed for low-cost maritime transport, and electric power was cheap thanks to the hydroelectric plant at Hoover Dam.

[1] Following the attack on Pearl Harbor and direct US entry into World War II though, along with positive appraisals of Kaiser's existing factories, the US government switched its stance.

[2][3]: 348 Common wisdom in the steel industry was that a facility could not be profitable if more than one of the main links in its supply chain (inputs or products) relied on ground transport.

An integrated mill at Los Angeles would already be risky, with reliance on rail transport for regional ore and coal only partly mitigated by easy port access.

Kaiser may have been drawn to the smaller, rural community too, both for sentimental reasons and a shrewd recognition that local government would likely be more compliant should any disputes with the company arise.

By 15 December 1943, the facility occupied 1,300 acres (530 ha) of land and included the following property, plant, and equipment (PP&E):[4]: II:11-12 The complete steelmaking process requires significant amounts of energy.

[3]: 350 However, as an integrated mill, the plant would need regular shipments of raw materials to produce pig iron, which would then be refined into (primary) steel.

On that count, Fontana's location provided an advantage; plentiful iron deposits existed throughout the nearby Mojave Desert, even in San Bernardino County.

The mill's steel ingot production would total 1,209,000 short tons (1,097,000 t), with uses including but not limited to:[12] Kaiser's nearby Vulcan Mine yielded iron ore that, while usable, was lower-quality, and so the company had begun looking for a more sustainable deposit very early on.

It would take another few years to complete the new mine; the first test charge of Eagle Mountain ore was added to the Fontana blast furnace in June 1947.

In addition to modernizing the Sunnyside coal mine in Utah, which could sustain current production for at least an estimated 80 years, Kaiser purchased 530,000 acres of coal-bearing land in Raton, New Mexico.

However, Kaiser would yet again break from its competitors, who maintained a hard line on work rules and new (more productive and therefore potentially job-cutting) technology, to negotiate a gainsharing program modeled on the Scanlon plan.

Dubbed the "Long Range Sharing Plan" (LRSP), it would reward unionized Steelworkers in proportion to the company's success, according to a theoretically fair formula.

As a result, Kaiser Steel began diverting investment towards production and shipment of iron ore, both from Eagle Mountain and newly acquired mines.

The technical committee, a historical first in the steel industry, would bring together specialists from Kaiser, Mitsubishi, and other Japanese steelmakers party to the deal[f], with the intent of continually improving the pelletized ore's quality.

Meanwhile, Asian and European steel makers, largely rebuilding from scratch after the devastation of World War II and other conflicts, were moving entirely to BOFs, continuous casting lines, improved blast furnaces and coking ovens, etc.

The irony here was that topography and wind patterns concentrating pollution from LA to the west were probably as much to blame for Fontana's poor air as the steel plant.

However, the war also distracted America strategically and industrially, creating space for European, Korean, and especially Japanese exporters to meet the extra demand.

Paradoxically though, Kaiser successfully argued replacing its coking ovens and blast furnaces would bankrupt the plant, and so the outdated (and heavily polluting) ironmaking facilities would remain in operation.

However, the proceeds from the sale freed up badly needed capital, both to pay down debt from the plant modernization and give the company room to maneuver financially.

[3]: 373–374 In November 1981, a new management team announced that Kaiser Steel would shut down all ironmaking (blast furnaces and coking ovens) and steelmaking (BOFs and casting lines) at Fontana, along with all mining at Eagle Mountain.

[40] With the company rapidly unwinding and Japanese steelmakers uninterested, both the union local and major shareholders searched desperately for someone to save the Californian facilities.

These last-minute appeals revolved around an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), where the workers themselves would partly buy out Fontana and Eagle Mountain from Kaiser via the union, absorbing much of the risk.

[37] Although the Californian facilities were ultimately disposed of, the remaining shell of Kaiser Steel retained significant healthcare and pension obligations to its former employees.