This cluttered office sits inside the ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor complex in East Chicago, Indiana, one of the largest integrated steel mills in North America. The site traces its origins to Inland Steel, which built the plant along Lake Michigan in the early 20th century before a series of mergers brought it under the ArcelorMittal name in 2006. Rooms like this one once supported the daily recordkeeping and operations of a facility that, at its peak, employed thousands of workers across blast furnaces, rolling mills, and finishing lines. Rolled logs of and binders still line the shelves, remnants of the paperwork that once tracked production across the sprawling industrial campus.
Photo taken in July 2016.