Closed businesses and empty lots flank Braddock Avenue with the Edgar Thompson Steel Works in the Background.<br />
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With a population of just over 2,000 (down from a high of 20,879 at the height of the steel industry, Braddock is almost a ghost town even though it is the home of the last steel mill still in operation in the Monongahela River valley. The Edgar Thompson Steel Works, built in 1872, was the first major steel mill built in the United States. Braddock was originally built to house the mill’s workers, but none of the mill’s nine hundred or so employees live there.