The end of steelmaking on Teesside after 170 years with the closure of Redcar blast furnace dealt a devastating blow.
The death knell for iron and steel came as part of the long, slow decline of the industry.
In the 1870s there were 100 blast furnaces along the banks of the Tees.
For just over a decade from 1946 steel firms on Teesside, West Hartlepool and Skinningrove accounted for 80% of the steel output in the north and 16% nationally.
But the industry was a regular victim of the cyclical nature of the economy, with boom times followed by bust.
One site renowned for its steelmaking was Skinningrove.
But in 1971, an announcement was made that its blast furnace was to close.
These pictures from the Gazette’s archive show the dramatic conditions, steelworkers toiled in at the iron works before its eventual closure.
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