EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of a weekly series on our region’s history coordinated by the Trumbull County Historical Society.

Henry Clay Frick is a name that is directly connected to the steel industry. He is known as an American industrialist, financier and art collector and is forever linked to the McKinley Memorial Library.

He was born to immigrant Mennonite parents on Dec. 19, 1849, in West Overton, a rural community in southwestern Pennsylvania. He worked as a farmhand on the family farm and as a bookkeeper for his uncle’s store. In 1871, proximity to the growing steel industry led him to form the Frick Coke Company at age 22. His business savvy allowed him to buy out his competition and align himself with Carnegie Steel, making him a millionaire before the age of 30.

At the height of the industrial revolution, Frick was aligned with the most successful titans of industry, including Rockefeller, Pullman and others who became known as “robber barons.” Their wealth led to the term “Gilded Age” (1870-1900), a period in American history marked by rapid economic expansion, industrialization and the rise of powerful corporations, but also by significant corruption and social inequality.

This inequality was painfully evident during the Homestead Strike of July 1892. According to the National Park Service, the Homestead Strike occurred at the Carnegie Steel Company after Frick, who was the manager, locked out workers who wanted to organize a union.

Frick hired 300 Pinkerton detectives, leading to a violent confrontation on July 5 called the “Battle of Homestead.” The Pennsylvania State Militia was eventually mobilized, but many workers were killed or injured, and the union was ultimately defeated.

Ironically, Frick was targeted for his role in the strike by some of the very same people associated with the assassination of President William McKinley. Alexander Berkman arrived at a fishing and hunting club where Frick was a member and shot him on July 23, 1892. Frick was wounded but survived. It was determined that Berkman was associated with and influenced by Emma Goldman, a Russian-born political activist who promoted socialism and anarchism. Allegedly, one of her speeches influenced Leon Czolgosz to target McKinley in 1901.

Henry Clay Frick and William McKinley had a relationship defined by mutual political and economic roots. McKinley’s policies and political platform, especially the gold standard, aligned with Frick’s career. McKinley and his wife Ida were hosted by the Fricks in Pittsburgh during the campaign. Frick attended McKinley’s 1897 inauguration and contributed $5,000 to the 1900 campaign.

The tragic assignation of President McKinley inspired Joseph G. Butler to construct a memorial in downtown Niles. Butler and McKinley had attended the same one-room schoolhouse that once stood on the site of the memorial.

A prosperous industrialist in the iron and steel industries, Butler had the power and influence to realize his vision: collect contributions to construct a memorial with an auditorium in the north wing and the Niles Public Library, founded in 1908 and still in need of a permanent home, in the south wing.

In September 1915, Henry Clay Frick made a generous donation specifically for the library. His $50,000 contribution would be roughly valued at more than $1 million today. In addition, Frick planned to purchase 1,000 books to be selected by trustees and the librarian. This plan was eventually carried out by his daughter, Helen C. Frick, after his death.

Henry Clay Frick died on Dec. 2, 1919, of a heart attack at age 69 in New York City. The bronze bust sculpted by J. Massey Rhind at the McKinley Memorial Library is a permanent memorial to his contribution.