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Pittsburgh Reduction Company was founded by a group of young men that included Charles Martin Hall, who in 1886 had been the first American to succeed in developing a commercially cheap method of smelting aluminum—by electrolysis.
The Pittsburgh Reduction Company. In Pittsburgh, Alcoa founder Charles Martin Hall finds experienced, hard-working visionary backers (led by Captain Alfred E. Hunt) for his aluminum reduction (electrolysis) discovery. The company is first incorporated as The Pittsburgh Reduction Company and opens a pilot production facility on Smallman Street.
A tablet marking where, in November 1888, the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, now Aluminum Company of America, produced the first commercial run of aluminum by the Hall Electrolytic Process. Tablet installed by Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania in 1938.
Together, they founded the Pittsburgh Reduction Company in 1888. With their combined investment, they established a modest pilot plant at 3220 Smallman Street in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, marking the beginning of large-scale aluminum production in the United States.
Pittsburgh Reduction Company was founded by a group of young men that included Charles Martin Hall, who in 1886 had been the first American to succeed in developing a commercially cheap method of smelting aluminum—by electrolysis.
The Pittsburgh Reduction Company built its first facility at the 3200 block of Smallman Street in Pittsburgh in 1888. The demand for aluminum was increasing and by September 1890 the Smallman Street Works was turning out 5,000 pounds a month.
The large globule of aluminum at the right is the first run of aluminum made in 1888 by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (predecessor of ALCOA). The smaller globules are those made by Charles Martin Hall in February 1886 by the electrolytic process he discovered.
After several failures to interest financial backers, Hall obtained the support of the Mellon family, and the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (later the Aluminum Company of America) was formed. In 1890 he became its vice president.
Organized as the Pittsburgh Reduction Company in 1888, the company changed its name in 1907 to the Aluminum Company of America and began using the acronym ALCOA in the early 1900s after applying the acronym to company-owned sites in Tennessee.
His invention, brought into commercial-scale production by the Pittsburgh Reduction Company (now known as Alcoa), made this light, lustrous and non-rusting metal readily available and was the basis of the aluminum industry in North America.