DEAR EDITOR:

I recently purchased the book “STEELTOWN DOWN: Youngstown, Ohio, Steel Industry,” written by local steelworker Chris McDonald, who worked at Youngstown Sheet and Tube and RG Steel. He worked at both for 43 years and wrote about their operations, people there, accidents, machinery, processes and many more things, including the 1995 WCI Steel strike.

He was also one of the last three employees at Sheet and Tube on its last day, and was the very last employee at RG Steel, because he worked for five years tearing it down with a demo team from Michigan.

If you’ve ever wondered what it was like to work in these mills, as well as what they were like in their last days of operations, I recommend this book. I enjoyed it and came away with a much better understanding of what a steelworker’s daily life was like.

MICHELLE EHRHART

Newton Falls