Few companies can match the long historic ties the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad has had with the Mercer County area.

Chartered as the Bear Creek Railroad in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, the railroad began operations four years later. A single line of track about 20 miles long was laid between the villages of Shenango just south of Greenville and Pardoe, east of Mercer. The original purpose of the railroad was to haul coal out of Pardoe for industrial uses and home heating.

Initially, the railroad was controlled by the Atlantic & Great Western Railway, one of the premier railroads of the day. That railroad later evolved into the Erie Railroad, portions of which now belong to Norfolk Southern.

Over the years the local railroad underwent more than a dozen name changes as ownership changed hands. The names include: the Shenango & Allegheny Railroad; the Pittsburgh, Shenango & Lake Erie Railroad and the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad. The letter "h'' was not included because for a short period the city dropped the letter from its name.

On April 1, 1901, there was a three-way agreement between Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Co., the Pittsburgh, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Co. and Carnegie Steel Co. to form its current B&LE corporate identity.

B&LE handled more tonnage per mile than any other railroad of its class in the nation during the 1950s, said Nate Clark Jr., a former B&LE employee who has closely followed the railroad's history. The Hempfield Township resident, along with Robert V. Lorenzo, co-authored the book: The Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad in Color.

Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie became involved with the railroad in the late 1890s through his Carnegie Steel Co.

"That's when things really took off,'' Clark said.

At the time, Carnegie was searching for a secure rail link from the Great Lakes to transport iron ore mined out of Minnesota.

"He wanted to make sure he had his own route to get the iron ore to his Pittsburgh mills,'' Clark said. "He didn't want to be at the mercy of the other railroads of the day. He wanted to call his own shots.''

Andrew Carnegie sold his steel company which became U.S. Steel Corp. It was under U.S. Steel's ownership that B&LE reached its pinnacle, particularly in the Greenville area where it was headquartered. For a generation the company's main office was on Main Street in Greenville.

"Over the years thousands of Mercer County residents have worked at B&LE's locomotive and car shops,'' Clark said.

For more than a century B&LE served as the workhorse for hauling iron ore off of boats from the Great Lakes which were transported in railcars along its tracks to steel mills in Youngstown and the greater Pittsburgh region.

"It was, in effect, a giant conveyor belt from the Great Lakes to Pittsburgh and Youngstown mills,'' Clarks said.

Although it was acclaimed as a freight hauling railroad for steelmakers, B&LE for a time also offered passenger service from the mid 1890s until that service was discontinued on March 5, 1955. Greenville was the hub for the service that took passengers north to Erie and south to Grove City, Butler and North Bessemer, Clark said.

As the steel industry began its decline in the '70s, the demand for iron ore and coal plummeted. By the late '80s the operation was a shadow of its former self.

U.S. Steel spun off the company in 1988 when it was purchased by its current owner, the Blackstone Capital Partners.