In its various guises, Pacific Rolling Mills has produced steel used during the construction of numerous famous buildings and landmarks in the West as well as a number of notable battleships.
As documented in the book, A Romance of Steel in California, the Pacific Rolling Mill Company was the genesis of a profound and remarkable pioneering steel-making operation whose work, heritage, and impact journeyed well into the 1950s: This was the small but not humble beginning of a corporation that in the next three quarters of a century was to be one of the great builders of the West, constructing both the tools of peace and the engines of war, the wheels of transportation and the great members of bridges and office buildings and factories.
(Source: A Romance of Steel in California, p. 9) While its predecessor plant at Potrero Point on the San Francisco Central Waterfront was clearly instrumental in the growth and industrial rise of the Bay Area and California in the period following the Civil War, the successor Pacific Rolling Mill firm in its nearby location in lower Potrero Hill is associated with the advent of steel frame buildings at the turn of the century and the increased popularity of this building method following the Great Fire of 1906.
The four buildings at the 17th & Mississippi Streets site that constitute the last extant structures associated with this steel producer were part of a remarkable and unique story in which outstanding contributions to the history and culture of both San Francisco and California (indeed, the entire Western region) were made.
The Pacific Rolling Mill, which began incrementally constructing the buildings at the turn of the 20th century, was a pioneering steel fabrication company led by the visionary Noble family.