Iron mining and smelting were underway by the 1820s in Annapolis and Pictou counties. From 1850, Acadia Mines (Londonderry) flourished making “charcoal iron” for cutlery and, after 1870, Canada’s first steel. The first ingots were poured at Trenton in 1883, using local coal and iron ore — the debut of the enterprise that became known as Scotia. After acquiring iron rights on Bell Island, Newfoundland, Scotia built a steel plant (1904) at Sydney Mines. They stopped making steel at Trenton but transported it there for forging, finishing, and fabricating. More than 700 products were made, including rails and rail cars (1913).

The Dominion, Iron, Steel and Coal Company (Disco) first manufactured steel at Sydney in 1901. Disco became Canada’s predominant steel-maker by 1914, and with Scotia, thrived during World War I, when Trenton produced more shells than any other province.

Steel-making attracted hard-working people of various ethnicities to better their lives through hot, dirty, and dangerous work. Thanks to the immigration of experienced steel-makers and unskilled labour, from 1891 to 1901, Sydney’s population tripled to 3,000, prompting housing, commerce, services, and industries to expand.

In 1921, Disco and Scotia merged. The vertically integrated company closed the Sydney Mines plant, consolidating steel-making in Sydney but maintaining forging and some finishing at Trenton. Between wars, the industry struggled, but peaked with World War II demand for shells and Trenton’s “big guns”, made mostly by women. Post-war, NS’s steel industry declined, due to changing markets, old technology, freight rates, and central Canadian clout in national affairs. Sydney Steel, emasculated then abandoned by its corporate owners, was assumed by government (1967) but closed in 2001. Almost every type of rail car was among the 63,500 manufactured at Trenton until, uncompetitive, that plant closed in 2007. Of the great NS steel industry, only the largest open-die forging press in Canada operates today, at Trenton.