OHJ Archive

John Butler Tytus:

Inventor of the

Continuous Steel Mill

by GEORGE C. CROUT and WILFRED D. VORHIS

The continuous rolling mill, which produces an unending ribbon of steel

to meet the needs of modern, world-wide industrial societies, was developed

by an Ohioan, John Butler Tytus. While many men at the American

Rolling Mill, now the Armco Steel Corporation with home offices at Mid-

dletown, helped in the development of this revolutionary process of steel

production, it was Tytus who never wavered in his belief that steel coils

could be turned out as easily as rolls of paper.

Fortunately, Tytus was employed by a company which puts its faith

in men and, in this case, a particular man. In the 1920's the young, ener-

getic leadership of Armco staked its future and, in fact, its very life on

the success of one man's dream. Whether or not to gamble on the contin-

uous mill as proposed by Tytus, after others had repeatedly tried but failed

NOTES ARE ON PAGES 176-177

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 133

in their endeavors, was the $10,000,000 question which the company's presi-

dent, George M. Verity, along with his board of directors, had to answer.

Their acceptance of the proposal to build the continuous mill ushered in

a new era in America, making possible the introduction of new products

shaped from steel coils of higher quality and at a lower price than had ever

been possible. This improved process began a revolution in steel production

which spread around the world, carrying with it the story of John B. Tytus,

a growing legend in the Ohio story.1

The Tytus family had its roots deep in Ohio soil, as Francis Jefferson

Tytus, the inventor's grandfather, had migrated to Ohio from Virginia

in 1827. He turned from merchandising to paper manufacturing in the

1850's, when a hydraulic power canal was constructed to turn water wheels

which generated the power to operate paper machinery. It was at his

grandfather's mill that young John B. Tytus, who had been born in the

ancestral home December 6, 1875, displayed his first interest in mechanics.

With the death of his grandfather in 1887, John's father, along with a

partner, Colin Gardner, took over management of the firm. Young Tytus

then made even more frequent visits to the paper mill to observe and, at

times, help repair the machinery, surprising the skilled workmen with his

mechanical ability.²

After attending the local grade school, Tytus as a youth of fourteen was

sent to Westminister prep school at Dobb's Ferry, New York. From there

he went to Yale, where in 1897 he received his bachelor's degree in English

literature. During summer vacations, he worked in the paper mill in order

to earn money to pay college expenses. After graduation he returned to

Middletown to work in the Tytus Paper Mill, beginning with a job in the

shipping department.

After the death of John B. Tytus, Sr., the family decided to sell its in-

terest in the paper mill, so the son left the company to work for a contractor

who was building a bridge at Dayton, Ohio. Although the young employee

was in charge of the labor gang, his employer soon noted his interest in

the engineering problems presented in construction. Soon Tytus was ad-

vanced to work with blueprints, and in a short time was helping solve en-

gineering problems.³

Meanwhile in his hometown a steel company, the American Rolling Mill,

had begun operations in 1901, with one twenty-five ton open hearth furnace,

four sheet mills, and a galvanizing pot. Here ordinary black and galvanized

sheets were fabricated. Like a magnet, the making of steel attracted Tytus,

so in 1904 he applied for a job. George M. Verity, president of the com-

pany, assumed that Tytus, a member of one of the town's most respected

families, would desire an office position. Verity patiently explained that

the office staff of the new industry was small, that no openings existed,

and that none were foreseen in the near future. To his surprise, Tytus re-

plied that he did not want a clerical job, but one helping to produce steel

in the plant. Verity then pointed to the mill, and said, "If that is what you

want, see Charlie Hook, the superintendent of the sheet mills. Maybe he

will have an opening for you."⁴

He soon found Hook and was given one of the lowest, hottest, and hardest

jobs in steel making -- that of a spare hand. The spare hand dragged the

heavy steel sheets to the shears at a wage of three dollars a turn. The next

day Tytus reported for work in typical dress for the job--wool shirt, over-

alls, and asbestos-soled shoes. The other workers, who knew his background,

first laughed at the young college man, but their derision soon turned to

respect as he did his share of the work and learned about steel making with

remarkable speed. His boss, Albert Dimmick, watched with interest as he

progressed from doubler to matcher and rougher, alternating as did the

others, on day and night shifts.

It was not the work which offered the challenge to Tytus, but the slow,

labor-consuming process involved. He recalled how fascinated he had been

as a boy watching the giant Fourdrinier paper-making machines take wood

pulp and convert it through a series of coordinated, complicated processes

into a final unending continuous sheet of paper. In his mind a new idea was

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 135

taking form, which he later expressed in this way: "When I first visited

the steel mill, I counted sheets being handled 22 different times. Right

then and there I figured that a business which had so much lost motion

had plenty of future for a young man."5

In those early, back-breaking days in the mill, he learned that steel

was not paper, but he never lost his vision of applying to steel the contin-

uous, machine-produced method. By personally performing every process,

he learned the reason for each operation. Sore muscles and blistered fingers

gave him added respect for the steel worker and made him more determined

to lift the hard labor from the backs of his fellow workers through science

and engineering. Within eighteen months he had learned his job so well

that he was, upon Hook's recommendation, made his assistant. One night

in 1906 in a noisy little office in the plant, Tytus shared his dream with

his new friend, Charlie Hook. He remarked, "Some day, we'll be making

steel in long strips like they make paper."⁶Yet, 1906 was not to be the

time. The giant United States Steel Corporation had tried to build two

continuous sheet mills in 1904, but they had not been successful and the

plants were dismantled. These were based on the theory that the shape

of the sheet passing through the mill must be flat, and that the surfaces

136 OHIO HISTORY

of the roll, when contacting the sheet, should be a true cylinder. The en-

gineering principles which were to make possible the continuous strip mill

were still in the mind of John B. Tytus.

Mankind had early learned the use of basic metal -- steel. Perhaps it

was an obscure caveman who found a fallen meteor and pounded it into

some useful tool. Upon completion of the temple at Jerusalem in 925 B.C.,

at a feast honoring the workers who had contributed to its construction,

King Solomon had given the seat of honor on his right to the ironmaker.

It was he who had made the metal tools by which the magnificent temple

was built. Little is known of ironmaking in its early developments. No one

knows how the first flat sheet of steel was produced. The earliest record of

a mill which rolled out flat metal is detailed in a sketch made by Leonardo

da Vinci around 1495, but this mill was able to process only metals of suf-

ficient ductility to allow cold work, such as lead or gold. Iron had to be

worked under the heavy hammer. While it is not known just when the

rolling of iron began, there is evidence that tin plate was manufactured

in Wales as early as 1728 by a rolling process that remained a closely

guarded secret handed down from father to son. This process was only a

refinement of Da Vinci's plans and provided that sheets be forced back

and forth through two stands of rolls, using physical stamina and hand

tongs. Production for a ten-man crew was standardized at one ton per hour.

A few years later steel men began to dream of a continuous strip rolling

process. John Hazeldine, in 1798, Henry Mann, in 1865, and Samuel Wil-

mot, in 1875, made drawings for such a process and even secured patents.

They were unable to get their plans into successful operation, for the simple

reason they had not yet found the basic secret.⁷

As Tytus studied these men's failures, he continued his career with the

company, which was enjoying steady growth and expansion. In 1906 he

was sent to the new Zanesville mill as superintendent, but returned to Mid-

dletown briefly in 1907 for an important social event, his marriage to Mar-

jorie Denny.8

At the end of 1909, Tytus was recalled to the Middletown plant to be-

come superintendent Hook's operations chief. His new assignment was to

plan and put into operation the new East Works plant of Armco. The con-

version of a 250-acre cornfield into a great steel-producing complex stim-

ulated the inventor's imagination and kept every minute of his time oc-

cupied. However, during this busy period, he did not forget his dream and

continued to talk with many of his associates of the possibility of improv-

ing steel manufacturing. With Tom Hall, whom he considered the best roll

turner in the world, he discussed the necessity of maintaining the shape

of the calender rolls in a paper mill to produce a continuous sheet. This

original thought, applied to steel, was to be significant. Tytus continued

to study the steel as it passed through the rolls, and from time to time

would ask the head roller for a sheet, which he would cut into strips and

with a micrometer study each piece in cross section to discover what the

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 137

rolls had done to the sheet as it passed between them. With meticulous

precision he gathered the scientific information necessary to determine the

exact shape of the rolls which would be needed in a continuous process.⁹

In the meantime, progress was taking place in related fields which was

necessary before the advanced steel making proposals of Tytus could be

successful. By 1910 electric power companies were installing new and larger

transformers which could feed the larger motors required by the steel in-

dustry to run the giant rolls. Eventually motors of 1000 to 5000 horse-

power would be needed by Tytus. Also, increasing consumer demand for

steel was beginning to be felt in various ways. The demand for the auto-

mobile was slow until another Ohio inventor, Charles F. Kettering, intro-

duced the electric starter on the 1912 Cadillac. Among other things, this

invention made it possible for women to drive a car. At about the same time,

Edward Budd suggested an all-steel body for the automobile, which up

to that time had been called the horseless carriage for its obvious resemblance

to the horse-drawn vehicle. As more and more steel was needed for car

bodies, and as the automobile attained popular acceptance, it became ap-

parent that the slow, hand-operated mills could not make steel fast enough.

It was evident that new steel production methods were needed and that

some company would have to take the risk of trying to make steel by a

new process.10

The guns which signalled the opening of World War I were to bring an

end to the supply of metal for the consumer during the conflict. All steel

production centered on war needs, and Armco was transformed into a huge

forge shop to make shells for America and her Allies.11 Open hearth capacity

was increased, but the war idled the sheet mill machinery. This Tytus used

as a practical laboratory to try out some of his ideas. Working by day on

war production, he turned at night to experimenting and planning. Slowly

he began to put his theories on paper. In March 1916, in a technical article

prepared for a company publication, in one of his rare writings, Tytus stated:

Many attempts have been made to hot roll sheets in a manner which

would require less physical labor in handling, by using a continuous

arrangement of rolls and passing the sheets from one stand to another

by conveyors, instead of passing and repassing the sheets through the

stand by hand.

All such attempts have failed, however, due to the sudden changes

in the shape of the rolls. It is practically impossible to get any two stands

of rolls to hold the same shape, therefore, each continuous stand of rolls

presented a new shape to the pack, which is entirely contrary to the

principles of sheet rolling as now understood.

It is still the opinion of some practical men, however, that such im-

provements could be made providing it were not necessary to roll sheets

in any but the heavier gauges.¹²

By 1919 Tytus was ready to present his first blueprints to president

George M. Verity, who in turn appointed a committee to consider installa-

tion of the proposed new process. At the urging of J. H. Frantz, vice-

president, the Armco board of directors agreed to go ahead. Just as the

138 OHIO HISTORY

company was ready to begin construction of the new mill, however, large

orders for steel sheets began to arrive at the Middletown headquarters. Since

a company cannot afford to ignore orders from regular customers, Verity

reluctantly suspended plans for the new mill and ordered immediate in-

stallation of four standard mills at Zanesville to handle the new demand.

which was the result of unfilled orders for consumer products during the

war years. New attractive products were coming on the market -- washing

machines, refrigerators, furnaces, automobiles, small appliances -- all made

of steel. Large orders from Armco's overseas distributors also added to the

demand.

Tytus therefore began the work of setting up new mills, which he felt

certain he would some day make obsolete. Even though this work demanded

most of his time during 1919 and 1920, the increasing pile of blueprints

indicated that his mind was on his own rolling mill. One evening he con-

fided to his wife, "I hope I live to complete this mill. If something should

happen to me now, no one would ever know how to complete it, much less

put it into operation."13

Then came an event in Armco's history which was to hasten the oppor-

tunity for Tytus to put his theories to the test. The Ashland Iron and Mining

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 139

Company at Ashland, Kentucky, had overexpanded during the war, par-

ticularly in ingot-producing capacity. Financially distressed, the officers

decided to sell the firm. Verity and his vice-president, J. H. Frantz, went

to Ashland and returned with an optimistic report on the feasibility of fit-

ting the plant into the Armco family, and on January 1, 1921, after a year

of negotiations, Verity announced the purchase of the Ashland properties.14

The company's decision to produce sheet steel at this site meant the

building of new mills which would be fed by the two blast furnaces and

the six open hearth furnaces already there. The next decision was the

crucial one -- for both the company and Tytus. Should Armco install con-

ventional mills, or should the firm risk the construction of a continuous mill?

Never in industrial history had an invention been put on blueprints which

would require approximately $10,000,000 to determine if it would be suc-

cessful. If Armco could not build an operating mill based on the ideas of

Tytus, the loss would be so gigantic that it might well bankrupt the whole

Armco Steel Corporation and wipe out at least 10,000 jobs as well as un-

dermine the industrial backbone of Ashland and Middletown. Tytus later

recalled, "The biggest job was to get up the nerve to recommend the enormous

expenditure required to test the idea. The best informed men in the industry

had by now conceded that what we were trying to do was possible if one

had the nerve and money. Without the assurance of the Board's faith in

the idea, I don't think I would have had the courage to tackle the experiment

or continue it.^"15

After Hook and Tytus had explained the principles of the continuous mill

to the directors, Verity turned to Hook, the mill superintendent, and asked

him for his final recommendation. Hook then said, "If I owned the American

Rolling Mill Company myself, and if I knew what it owned and what it

owed and the consequences of failure, I would still go ahead and build

the mill."¹⁶ When the two men asked for the board's approval, they received

it. After the favorable vote, Hook said to Tytus with a smile, "This is your

baby now, John, so it's up to you to expand the engineering department and

work out the necessary details in the rolling and processing departments."17

As a first step in this direction, one day early in 1922, John Tytus

visited the Middletown East Works engineering department and asked E. N.

Millan to make a sketch for him. When Millan asked what kind of sketch,

Tytus was quite evasive and directed that a few lines be drawn on paper.

After putting a piece of paper on the drawing board, Tytus requested the

engineer to draw a line the full length of the paper and then directed,

"Now, near one end of the line put a cross mark and measure to scale 161

feet along the line from the cross mark."¹⁸ With this done, he requested

that he "measure off about 25 or 30 feet and put another cross line, and

then six spaces of about 20 feet each." By then the alert Ned Millan, who

was well informed on mill practice, suspected that he was laying out plans

for some kind of a continuous mill. After he had allayed the inventor's fears

by promising that he would not discuss this plan with anyone else, Tytus

140 OHIO HISTORY

began freely to explain his ideas as they proceeded with the work. He was

so pleased with Millan's sympathetic and interested help that he asked

the Armco management for him to be given a special assignment to the pro-

ject. With this proficient assistant to handle the details of the engineering

work for the revolutionary mill, plans and blueprints began to multiply.

Offices were set up in the old General Office Building at Central Works.

In the latter part of May 1922, six engineers directed by Thomas O. Brown

arrived in Middletown to undertake the actual layout and design work of

the new project. Tytus requested that these engineers should have had no

previous mill experience, for he was designing a new type of operation and

did not want men who thought in terms of mills then in production. Also

he did not want the men to be experienced enough to figure out his com-

plete plans, which they might be tempted to give to another steel company.

Standard rolling mill machinery was to be adapted insofar as possible.19

A short time after Armco took over the Ashland mill, Frank H. Fanning

was assigned as company representative to organize the staff and coordinate

operating activities of the newly purchased acquisitions. Tytus made fre-

quent trips to the Ashland site to confer with this new organization, and

by October 1922 construction was underway. A company headed by Dwight

P. Robinson was awarded the contract. His assistant, F. H. McGraw, was

to supervise the job. Construction offices were set up in Ashland in a two-

story farm house in the middle of the lot and a woven wire fence erected

around the site of the proposed plant, with security men posted at the

gates. Drawings were regularly dispatched from Middletown's engineering

offices to Ashland. By early 1923 extensive construction was underway.

On the last Friday in September 1923 all of the drawing tables, desks,

and books in the special engineering office in Middletown were loaded into

an express car and shipped to Ashland to be arranged in the new office.

The following Monday morning the force went to work as though they had

always been there, and their work continued to remain a closely guarded

secret. In all, some one hundred workers from Middletown, carefully picked

for special skills, went to Ashland with Tytus to help put into operation the

new facility. Among these were: Marion Amburgey, Albert Auberle, Frank

H. Fanning, Tom Hall, Charles Hillman, M. W. Hodgdon, Hayes Holstein,

E. B. Hudson, Russell Huntsberger, George Mellon, E. N. Millan, Clyde

Murphy, Russell Smith, and William F. Tuttle. Tytus had so much faith in

this team that he once remarked, "When we agree on something, we know

it will work."²⁰

At the very beginning of their work in Ashland, Tytus cautioned his

men, "Do things as cheaply as possible. If it works, we can rebuild it; if

it doesn't work, the loss will be less."21 Carloads of complicated machinery

which had been ordered arrived on schedule at the guarded gates. Rumor

spread through the steel industry that the "crazy" engineers from Middle-

town were planning something new at Ashland. While some scoffed at them,

other steel executives were worried, for they knew that Armco research was

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 141

among the best in the industry, and that this organization had brought about

many innovations, such as rust-resisting "Ingot Iron" and high conductivity

electrical steels, which had cut deeply into established markets.²²

Into the new mill at Ashland went years of careful research and study.

Tytus had based his invention on the studies of the contour of the cross

section of a sheet of steel. Each set of rolls in the mill train required special

shaping as the gauge diminished. In all, fourteen stands of rolls were en-

visioned in a straight line, which would reduce red-hot, five-inch thick slabs

into thin steel sheets. The shape of each set of rolls had to be turned on a

lathe and varied as the sheets became thinner. Tytus's basic patent was on

the "controlled pass" which was made by the shape of the rolls along the

whole train. Frank Fanning, later an Armco vice-president, summed up

the principles underlying the continuous process as follows: "The discovery

which made wide strip hot rolling practicable and which permitted much

greater width to thickness ratios than previously thought possible, was that

the piece should have a slightly convex cross section and that at each suc-

cessive pass the sheet should have progressively less convexity, and that

at least five factors controlling such a process were essential -- the prepared

contour of the rolls; the temperature of the rolls; the composition and

springiness of the rolls; the screw pressure applied to the roll necks; and

the shape, composition and temperature of the piece."²³ It was the applica-

tion of these principles, not understood by former inventors and engineers

who had tried to produce the continuous mill, that made the Tytus effort

a success.

The principle of progressive convexity worked. The first stands of rolls

between which the steel passed were made slightly concave, inducing the

steel molecules to run straight through the stand. In each succeeding pair

of rolls, concavity was reduced, until they were turned convex in order

to allow for "spring" in the mill and rolls, since more pressure was required

as the sheet became thinner. Each of the electrically driven rolls had to

revolve at a slightly faster rate than the preceding set, to prevent buckling

of the sheets.²⁴

Tytus's original invention was a series of mills or stands of rolls in

tandem called a jobbing mill. This mill received a 4-inch thick, hot slab

from the blooming mill and rolled it to thin sheets of gauges of about 16

and heavier. These several stands of mills were linked together in a giant

moving assembly line to produce sheet steel, just like sheets of paper. By

December 31, 1923, everything was ready for testing, and early in January

1924, the first bar slid into the new continuous mill.²5 Engineer M. W.

Hodgdon, now retired, remembered this event, for, as the metal started

coming through, a coupling broke and it was his job to fix it. "That first bar

never got through, but the manufacturer sent a replacement immediately," he

recalled.²⁶

During the next few weeks there were days and nights of heartbreaks,

as machines cracked and stopped, and as tired men forgot sleep. Sheets

buckled, and experienced rollers swore at so much waste, but Tytus patiently

142 OHIO HISTORY

explained that he was interested in increasing the ratio of good sheets to

"cobbles," the name for steel ruined by breakdowns. "Don't worry about

the bad ones," he would counsel, "find out how we made the good ones.^"27

Fanning recalled that Tytus throughout this trying period never seemed

to show any signs of discouragement. He was always confident that a con-

tinuous mill could be designed. His keen mind could analyze the problem

and devise a solution. When something broke down, without losing his

composure, Tytus would calmly say, "Let's figure out what caused it." The

engineers would go to work and supply Tytus with the data. After studying

it, the inventor would comment, "Men, this is why it happened. Do it this

new way and it won't break down again for that reason." When one recalls

that the old rolls handled 130 to 135 tons of steel a week, and that the

new continuous mill was built to turn out 9,000 tons a week, it can be

seen that even the rolls would have to be redesigned for the more demanding

job. Since they often broke under the torture of the continuous mill, the

manufacturers were forced to build better ones.²⁸

Most of the Armco men sensed the genius of their chief and had confi-

dence in him. But there were always a few scoffers who stood around warning,

"It can't be done." When Tytus would make some changes and the sheets

still buckled, causing loss of production, the same critics would moan, "We

told you so." These pessimists seemed never to worry the inventor who was

always looking forward to the ultimate goal of producing more steel, cheaper

and easier.

By the end of February 1924, the first full month of the operation, the

new continuous mill, despite breakdowns, had produced 9,000 tons of sheet

steel. Armco officials stated that production would have to reach 18,000

tons in order to justify the expenditure made, but in three years it was

turning out 40,000 tons a month. George M. Verity recalled some years

later: "So at the end of all these years, we knew where we stood. We had

risked the whole future of our company on this experiment. Now Armco knew

it would be repaid for pioneering. Cost of production was substantially re-

duced. Volume was double the original estimate. Quality was better than

we had ever deemed possible."²⁹

The Ashland plant was a sheet mill, with the end product in sheets.

Tytus then urged Armco officials to roll the steel into coils instead of cutting

it. He argued that "the day is coming when the customer will demand a

coil rather than a sheet, as it takes up less storage space."³⁰The day did

come, and now most of the sheet steel is delivered to the fabricator in that

form. At the time the Ashland mill began operation, some narrow strip mills

were already producing coils which were used in making the narrow auto-

mobile fenders, then popular. However, as the demand came for wider

fenders, Tytus and Armco were ready to supply the demand with the ap-

propriate product.

After three and one half years of testing and improving the continuous

steel making process, Armco invited a delegation of the industry's leaders

to Middletown in the spring of 1927. Verity, Hook, and Tytus took the

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 143

executives to the Ashland plant for the first public tour and inspection.

Armco had already been persuaded by Tytus to permit the licensing of its

patents covering the continuous process so that all could share in the bene-

fits of the mechanization of the industry. Liberal terms were offered and

accepted by all competitors.31

The continuous mill was immediately hailed as a success. One trade

paper editor reported: "The Ashland installation now has been in opera-

tion on a commercial scale long enough to prove that it is sound in principle,

design and construction. Therefore, it may safely be said that the continuous

rolling mill -- once an alluring prospect but difficult of achievement -- now

is an established factor in the steel industry." Iron Age called the Ashland

plant "a monumental example of the scientific approach to a major man-

ufacturing problem," and headlined its article, "From ingot to sheet by con-

tinuous process. Exceeds ton of sheets per minute. Armco continuous mill

at Ashland is epoch-making." There was no doubt about it -- a major in-

vention had been perfected. The mill could roll slabs into wide steel sheets

automatically and continuously and at a rate undreamed of by the best

steel rollers.32

There were a few who opposed Tytus's mechanization of industry. They

feared it would throw men out of work, as it did in the case of some skilled

workers who had to be transferred to other departments. One day a visitor

aproached the inventor and made the remark that his "monster" was taking

men's jobs. Tytus picked up his paper weight -- a silver-plated replica of the

continuous mill which some of the men had given him -- and asked the

man: "Did you ever try your hand at the kind of work it eliminated?"33

All major steel companies adopted the Tytus invention. Between 1927

and 1940, twenty-six similar continuous mills were built at a cost exceeding

$500,000,000. Top quality 16-gauge steel, which sold for $135 a ton before

the new process, by 1940 sold for $60 a ton. In that time consumer demand

for steel products greatly increased, and lower steel prices meant lower

price tags for automobiles, refrigerators, and all the other items which make

the American standard of living the highest in the world.34

In a study made by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe

in 1953, the "introduction and spread of the continuous strip mill for making

flat steel products" was hailed as "one of the most fascinating industrial

revolutions of modern times." The report concluded that this great inven-

tion had lowered costs and raised production and consumption.35 In the

thirty-year period 1923-1953, the number of steel employees had increased

from 424,000 to 650,000. During the same period flat rolled sheets increased

from thirty-one percent of the total steel production to fifty-three percent.36

In 1950 it was estimated that $1,000,000,000 in costs had been saved by

using continuous mills.37

Following the Ashland installation of the continuous mill, one was also

assembled at Butler, Pennsylvania, and then a new one at the home plant,

Middletown. Into each of these Tytus introduced refinements.38 After the

Ashland mill was in operation, he had returned to the home office and di-

rected his attention to further improvements for the company. The Ash-

land mill continued to produce steel and chalk up new records. In fact, it

was kept in operation for 30 years, as a profitable producer for Armco, and

then was replaced by a newer and larger mill at the same site.

In 1927 Tytus was made vice-president of Armco, first in charge of opera-

tions and later, technical development. His invention was soon nationally

recognized, and in 1935 at the annual meeting of the American Iron and

Steel Institute he was given the Gary Memorial Award for his singular con-

tribution to the industry. The citation read in part ". . . for outstanding

achievement in mill practice . . . particularly in his contribution to the de-

velopment and successful operation of a method for continuous rolling of

steel sheets."³⁹Accepting the award, he began, "Gentlemen: I have not,

except on one occasion, felt so overcome as I do now, and that was when

I was contemplating my own wedding."40

Perhaps the greatest personal tribute came to the noted inventor on the

fifteenth anniversary celebration of the continuous mill. This was held Oc-

tober 19, 1938, at Ashland, Kentucky, where he was honored by 40,000

residents of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. In traditional Kentucky

Derby style, he was decorated with a floral horseshoe. Steel executives came

from all over the nation to pay homage. Governor Albert B. Chandler of

JOHN BUTLER TYTUS 145

Kentucky in giving the official welcome, described the honored guest as the

"unsung hero of the streamlined age."41

Some have said that Tytus was more interested in machines than men.

A colleague, Frank Fanning, disagrees and claims that these persons never

really knew the man. He describes the noted industrialist as being always

loyal to his men, for whom he had a high regard, although he often found

it hard to show such sentiments personally. Rising young men in the Armco

engineering and operating departments never realized that, when Tytus

saw their mistakes, he quietly went about correcting the errors, saving

not only their reputations, but, at times, their jobs.42

Since Tytus worked in a world which demanded instant communication,

he made use of the telephone rather than the written word. He used to

tell his secretary that if one "put the letters in a drawer, and let them

alone, they would answer themselves."⁴³ He proceeded on that principle

and hence left few notes or letters behind for the historian.

After his death, June 2, 1944, however, the following memorandum, en-

titled "Advice from J. B. Tytus," was found in his desk.44 It expresses clearly

his philosophy of dealing with co-workers:

1. In giving praise for a job well done, be sure to give it to the de-

serving individual. If given to those not responsible for the good work,

they may secretly laugh at you.

2. A first mistake adds to one's knowledge and experience. A repeti-

tion of the same mistake is due to carelessness and represents a total loss.

3. A man may be morally honest in every respect; however, the same

man may be intellectually dishonest if he does not base his reasoning and

conclusions on sound facts.

4. It is just as important to find causes for good results as it is to

find causes for poor results. A comparison between the two extremes

will point out more obvious differences.

5. When confronted with any problem, use all the knowledge and

experience available in the organization. This applies not only to using

all the ability within a given works, but also seeking help from other

sources.

6. Base decisions on facts, not opinions, or wishful thinking. Cul-

tivate the ability to separate facts from opinions.45

THE AUTHORS: George C. Crout is

an elementary school principal in Middle-

town, Ohio, and a well known author.

Wilfred D. Vorhis was with Armco Steel

Corporation forty years, the last twenty

as its corporate secretary. Since retirement

he has written several booklets dealing

with local history.

Ohio History Journal