Northwestern Steel and Wire

The beginning of Northwestern Steel and Wire Co. (NWSW) can be traced back to Washington M. Dillon's move to Rock Falls, Illinois from Ohio.

Dillon left the company in 1902 to devote himself fully to Rock Falls operation.

By 1912 the Griswold Company had landed itself in receivership and its assets were liquidated to the Lawrence Brothers of Sterling, Illinois.

Within the next week Dillon had purchased the Griswold Co. from the Lawrence Brothers and moved Northwestern Barbed Wire to Sterling.

Dillon, installed two electric furnaces and rolling machines in the barbed wire factory in order to make low carbon steel.

These workers were housed in 100 railroad box cars converted to homes and arranged in 4 rows of 25 each along the Rock River.

[3] Northwestern Steel used steam locomotives to move scrap metal to the furnaces and to transfer hot ingots to the rolling machines, long after the era of steam engines was bygone in the broader culture.

NWSW last used the locomotive on Dec. 3, 1980 at 10 a.m. Its final run was made coupled to the technology that replaced it, a diesel engine.

From tracks inside the steel mill complex, the locomotive was taken east along the Geneva Subdivision main line of the Chicago & North Western Railroad a mile and a half to a location which passes just behind the Dillon home.

73 was then lifted via four cranes and moved the last 75 yards to its final resting place as a memorial to Dillon, the man who kept the idea of steam engines alive for more than twenty years.

Around the time of the company's nomenclature alteration (to Northwestern Steel and Wire), the first significant attempts to organize NWSW's labor force were made.