For those who worked at the Clairton Coke Works, the smell of rotten eggs (actually, the odor of naphthalene) meant one thing — jobs.

Located on 392 acres along 3.3 miles of the west bank of the Monongahela River, the Clairton Works began coking operations in 1918 and quickly set itself apart from other coke plants by using a radical technology — the by-product coke oven.

This new technology not only produced coke in a more efficient manner, but also enabled the collection and processing of coke-oven gas. Consequently, the Clairton Works is as much a chemical plant as it is a coke plant.

Converting about 6.6 million tons of coal into 4.7 million tons of coke a year, or 13,000 tons of coke per day, the Clairton Works is one of the largest and most environmentally advanced plants in the United States. It produces 55 million gallons of road and roofing tar and 20 million gallons of light oil (a component of plastic) annually. And every day it turns out 45 tons of sulfur, 45 tons of anhydrous ammonia (used in fertilizers and explosives), and 225 million cubic feet of coke-oven gas (to fuel the blast furnace at the U. S. Steel Edgar Thomson Works).