Editor’s note: This is No. 5 of the top 10 stories of 2017 voted on by employees of the Tribune Chronicle.

WARREN — Having stood for 96 years, the area’s last blast furnace at the former RG Steel mill site was brought down in October.

Slowly throughout the years, other furnaces were razed, but this one, being the last, officially marked the end of integrated steelmaking in the Mahoning Valley.

“It was there for about 100 years,” said Terry Thorpe, retired mill crane operator of 43 years. “It was a part of Warren’s history.”

Workers began to dismantle the last standing piece of the 1921 mill last summer, but were put on hold several times because of asbestos removal. After an environmental evaluation, it was torn down piece-by-piece until it was scrapped.

With only a handful of former employees witnessing the fall, many of them believed the company was trying to keep it quiet. The company was unable to be reached for comment.

Without the chance to say goodbye, Thorpe said he was disappointed.

“I would have liked to have been there, as I’m sure others would have liked to have been there,” he said previously.

Now, Thorpe said he occasionally finds himself driving past the old site.

“I hate to see the whole mill gone, I really do,” he said. “It just looks devastating to me.”

While now there is nothing where the mill once stood, Howland Township Administrator Darlene St. George said something will be built there.

In September 2016, officials from Howland, Warren Township, Warren and current owners, BDM Warren Steel Holdings, formed a Joint Economic Development District hoping to attract new businesses and jobs.

“I think everyone would like something to go on that property,” St. George said. She said the officials are still working on JEDD details.

The JEDD will allow the communities to work as one unit when zoning the property, in deciding tax questions and in addressing other concerns that the property owner or business coming onto the property may have.

“We’re doing our jobs to make it attractive for future development,” St. George said.

In May 2012, about 1,200 workers lost their jobs when the mill was permanently idled. Declaring bankruptcy, RG Steel, former owner and the nation’s fourth-largest steel producer at the time, said it was unable to overcome weak industry conditions and a lack of a sustained economic recovery.

During its lifetime, the plant went through a series of exchanges in ownership and was last purchased by BDM for $17 million in September 2012.

BDM’s head, Charles J. Betters of C.J. Betters Enterprises, said he would not operate the mill because his background was in real estate, demolition and selling steel industry waste rather than manufacturing the steel itself.

Attempting to market the plant, work was done to redevelop it, but without a buyer, BDM leaders had an auction in spring 2013 and began tearing down buildings on the mill’s “cold side” southwest of Pine Avenue that fall.

Work to clean up the old mill site continues.

lcummins@tribtoday.com