Date of Visit: May 20, 2012<\/p>\n
When I first saw the Wabash Alloys building in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, I wasn’t expecting much. \u00a0It wasn’t particularly old – it was built in 1969 – and it was the very definition of ugly. \u00a0Just a big old corrugated metal box. \u00a0No charm, nothing to entice. \u00a0However, as we all know, looks can deceive, and inside the uninspiring facade was a place of beautiful colors and lights, interesting metal vats, and atmospheric concrete walls.<\/p>\n
Wabash Alloys was founded in 1958 and this particular building originally served the Vulcan Materials Company<\/a> until it was purchased by Wabash in 1987. \u00a0They produced recycled aluminum casting alloys. \u00a0For people like me, who have no idea what that means, basically, they took scrap aluminum and melted it down and purified it into alloys (combinations of metals) that were then sold to customers in the die casting, sand casting, and steel production industries. \u00a0Yes, I had to do some research to even understand what that means, so primitive is my knowledge of the metal industry. \u00a0Luckily, I found a training video produced by Wabash that taught me all I need to know about the furnace process.<\/p>\n \n