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(117.294W 34.108N) San Bernardino was a communications center and the county seat of San Bernardino County, a large region of California long mined for its gold and tungsten, of which significant quantities were still being exploited at the time of the Pacific War. Under wartime demand, the Atolia tungsten mine (117.609W 35.315N) was reopened in 1943. Production in the San Bernardino area was about 1630 tons per year by the time the war ended.
Henry Kaiser raised over $100 million to build an
integrated steel plant
at nearby Fontana (117.475W
34.110N)
which, together with Geneva
Steel, was one of the first two such plants in the western
United States. The plant featured 90 coke ovens handling 1,740
tons of coal per day; a 1200-ton blast furnace nicknamed "the
Bess" (after Kaiser's wife) that produced 438,000 tons of steel
per year; six 158-ton open hearth furnaces producing 675,000 tons
of ingot per year; and rolling mills with a capacity of 472,000
tons of steel products.
References
Vredenburgh
(accessed
2007-3-12)
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