Outskirts Press, INC.

The Meteoric Rise and Fall of an Industrial Giant

There is an intersection where prosperity meets sorrow, where greed and envy meet hard working ideals. Not far from the well-lit intersection of Federal Plaza, up a street of well-worn asphalt and across a bridge that has been there for decades, sits the remains of an area that once built this nation. If you close your eyes and reflect on the past, you can still hear the screeching trains, the roar of the blast furnace, and smell the toxic smoke which bellowed from the tall smoke stacks that stretched to the sky. It was a proud city once, an empire that quite figuratively has been reduced to ashes. Yes, this was Youngstown, Ohio, and it has a striking correlation to the America we know today. It still has a pulse; let’s visit it again.