ISC Gary is a 160-acre facility with 1.6 million square feet of building. This location was one of the eight original American Bridge locations. American Bridge was started in 1909 by Elbert Gary and J.P. Morgan. All through the mid 1900’s, this was a 25,000 ton per month shop, fabricating facility for buildings, vessels and bridges. During WWI, American Bridge fabricated the ship cannon barrels and armored personnel carriers for the infantry.
By 1969, American Bridge was larger than any other General Contractor. The facility closed down in 1978, it was the last of eight original American Bridge facilities to close. ISC moved here in 1983, as a processor, and in 1987, ISC bought the buildings. During that time, ISC was doing Military Steel, which started decreasing in 1990/1991. Our quality assurance manual was very similar to a bridge fabrication manual, so we started building bridges to keep our workforce intact.
In 1969, this shop was working 5 million hours per year with 2,500 people. We currently employ 330 people and work 500,000 to 700,000 hours per year fabricating bridges.