In Pittsburgh, we have plenty to remind us of famous names like Carnegie, Frick and Mellon. We have historic sites like Clayton; we have institutions like the Carnegie Museums. Less common, though, are monuments to the hundreds of thousands of workers who made those industrialists rich — often at tremendous personal cost for little reward.

Fortunately, one site stands as a stirring and somber tribute to the city’s workers — and it towers over the surrounding landscape.

The Carrie Blast Furnaces National Historic Landmark, stretching across the border between Swissvale and Rankin, is what remains of the U.S. Steel Homestead Steel Works, centered around Carrie Furnaces No. 6 and No. 7 — two towering blast furnaces, standing like metal mountains against the sky.

Those massive structures ar

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