Cleveland's Rust Belt Legacy: Steel Mills and Auto Plants That Exposed Thousands

For most of the 20th century, the industrial corridor stretching from Cleveland through Youngstown to Toledo defined Ohio’s economy. Steel mills lined the Cuyahoga River and the Mahoning Valley. Auto plants assembled vehicles and parts across Toledo and Cleveland. Power plants and chemical facilities filled the spaces in between.

Asbestos was embedded in all of it. The insulation that wrapped blast furnace pipes, the brake pads rolling off assembly lines, the gaskets inside every power plant boiler. Workers handled these materials for decades, often without respirators or warnings.

The mills and plants are largely gone. The diagnoses are not. With latency periods of 20 to 50 years, mesothelioma cases continue to emerge from exposures that occurred in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.

The Cleveland Steel Corridor

Republic Steel

Republic Steel was one of the largest steelmakers in America. Its Cleveland operations stretched along the Cuyahoga River through the Flats and into the industrial neighborhoods south of downtown. By the late 1930s, Republic’s Cleveland district employed more than 10,000 workers in its mills along the river, according to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History maintained by Case Western Reserve University. Republic’s mills were part of a Rust Belt steel corridor that extended from Pittsburgh through Youngstown and Cleveland to Gary, Indiana and Chicago’s southeast side, all using the same asbestos insulation products from the same manufacturers.

Inside the mills, asbestos was everywhere. It insulated the blast furnaces that operated at temperatures above 2,000 degrees. It wrapped the pipes carrying steam between buildings. It lined the ladles that poured molten metal. It protected the soaking pits and the electrical systems that powered the rolling mills.

Insulators, pipefitters, millwrights, and electricians handled asbestos materials directly. But production workers on the floor breathed the same fiber-laden air, shift after shift, year after year. Republic merged with LTV Corporation in 1984.

LTV Steel

LTV Steel inherited Republic’s Cleveland operations and combined them with the former Jones and Laughlin facilities. The merged company operated one of the largest integrated steel operations in the Midwest, running blast furnaces, basic oxygen furnaces, and rolling mills along the Cuyahoga River.

LTV’s workers faced the same asbestos exposure as their predecessors at Republic. Maintenance shutdowns were particularly dangerous. During these periods, workers tore out old asbestos insulation and installed new material, filling work areas with fiber dust. The LTV Corporation and 48 of its subsidiaries filed voluntary Chapter 11 petitions on December 29, 2000 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio, an event documented in LTV’s contemporaneous SEC disclosures and the bankruptcy court’s later opinions. The filing ended steel production in Cleveland.

Youngstown Sheet and Tube

The Mahoning Valley formed Ohio’s second major steel corridor. Youngstown Sheet and Tube was once the second-largest steel producer in the country, operating mills in Youngstown, Campbell, and Struthers. The company employed more than 10,000 workers at its peak.

The mills used asbestos in the same applications as their Cleveland counterparts: furnace insulation, pipe covering, gaskets, electrical systems, and fireproofing. In September 1977, Youngstown Sheet and Tube’s parent company closed the Campbell Works in a mass layoff that contemporaneous Youngstown news coverage dubbed “Black Monday.” Thousands of jobs were eliminated, marking the beginning of the Mahoning Valley’s deindustrialization.

The workers who lost their jobs that day had already been exposed to asbestos for years or decades. Many would not learn the health consequences until the 2000s and beyond.

Toledo Auto Plants

Toledo was Ohio’s auto manufacturing center. Jeep, originally Willys-Overland, built vehicles there from 1908 onward. The company’s Toledo complex employed thousands of workers through multiple ownership changes, from Willys to Kaiser to AMC to Chrysler.

Asbestos appeared throughout automotive manufacturing. Brake linings, clutch facings, gaskets, and heat shields all contained asbestos fibers. Workers who fabricated, assembled, tested, and inspected these components handled asbestos materials throughout their shifts. The same products and processes were used at Detroit’s Ford, GM, and Chrysler plants, where brake and clutch production created identical exposure conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers.

General Motors operated the Powertrain plant in Toledo, producing transmissions and drivetrain components. Ford and Chrysler also ran facilities in the region. In each plant, the same pattern repeated: asbestos components were manufactured, handled, and installed without adequate protection.

Beyond the assembly line, mechanics who serviced vehicles with asbestos brakes and clutches faced decades of additional exposure. Every brake job released asbestos dust into the shop air.

Power Plants and Shipyards

Ohio’s coal-fired power plants used asbestos extensively in boiler insulation, pipe lagging, and turbine systems. FirstEnergy (formerly Ohio Edison), American Electric Power, and Dayton Power and Light operated generating stations across the state where boilermakers and maintenance workers were routinely exposed.

Cleveland’s lakefront also supported shipbuilding and repair operations. The American Ship Building Company operated yards along the Cuyahoga River where workers constructed and repaired Great Lakes freighters. Ship construction and repair involved heavy asbestos use in engine rooms, boiler rooms, and throughout vessel insulation systems.

Take-Home Exposure

The danger extended beyond the plant gates. Workers carried asbestos fibers home on their clothing, hair, and skin. Spouses who laundered work clothes, children who greeted their parents at the door, all breathed the same fibers that were accumulating in the workers’ lungs.

A Cuyahoga County jury awarded $27.5 million in a secondhand exposure case, recognizing the liability of companies whose products exposed not just workers but their families. This verdict confirmed that Ohio courts hold manufacturers accountable for take-home exposure. The Virginia Supreme Court’s 2026 ruling affirming a duty of care for shipyard take-home exposure further strengthened the legal basis for these claims nationally.

What Remains

The steel mills along the Cuyahoga River are gone. Youngstown Sheet and Tube’s Campbell Works is a vacant lot. Many of Toledo’s auto plants have been retooled or demolished. But the asbestos fibers deposited in the lungs of workers and their families remain.

Ohio records approximately 110 new mesothelioma cases per year. The state’s documented industrial asbestos exposure spans steel, auto, power-generation, and chemical sectors, with site-level records held across ATSDR, EPA Region 5, OSHA inspection databases, and state environmental agencies. For those receiving a diagnosis today, the 2026 treatment landscape includes immunotherapy and surgical options that continue to improve outcomes. For the families of workers who built Ohio’s industrial economy, the legacy is measured in diagnoses that arrive decades after the last shift.