Caption: For approximately 65 years from 1912 until 1977 the most visible industrial activity in Port Colborne came from dumping molten slag, the by-product of Iron Making at the Canadian Furnace Division of the Algoma Steel Corporation. Slag Pots would be shuttled out to the dumping grounds at all hours of the day by GE 50 Ton Center Cab units (#3 and #4) that were ordered in new from GE in the late 1940's. If the weather was right the operation would light up the entire night sky. Over the life of the plant the Slag Dump "grew" the East Pier from the foot of Lake Road and Welland Street south into Lake Erie creating an additional 140 acres of land. Today ALLIED MARINE AND INDUSTRIAL has a modern building located where the Blast Furnace was, and the slag dumping grounds are used for ship breaking by INTERNATIONAL MARINE. The image is looking south, Lake Erie is in the background, the East Break-wall (erected 1880) can be seen on the right. The Blast Furnace was put on cold idle in March 1977 while the company waited for merchant pig iron pricing to rebound, but by 1981 any hope of that was lost and the Corporation moved to permanently dismantle the factory which was complete by 1982. By all accounts this was the last dedicated Pig Iron production plant in North America, an end to an era.