Fort Frick

As the drama of the Homestead Strike unfolded at the Homestead Works, the owner of the mill, Andrew Carnegie, was nowhere to be found. He was vacationing in Scotland, having left Henry Clay Frick in charge of the Homestead Work. The two men had an understanding: while Carnegie was in Scotland, Frick would break the union’s control over steel production at Homestead. During upcoming union negotiations, Frick would purposefully bargain from a position that he knew the union would not be able to agree with. When the workers inevitably held a strike in response, Frick would initiate his plan to put an end to the union. Part of this plan involved creating a defensible barrier around the Homestead Works that could be used to protect strikebreakers from the striking workers. While Frick’s plan would not exactly work out the way he intended, he did ultimately construct a number of fortifications around the mill, including a high wall, sniper towers, high pressure water cannons, and electric barbed wire. The new construction quickly became known as “Fort Frick.”