About Us } News/Press Releases

Jewels in Covington's crown

City is home to a wide variety of enterprises

By David Wecker
Post staff reporter

Stewart Iron Works billed itself at the turn of the previous century as "The World's Greatest Iron Fence Builders." But they built more than that.

Indeed, the work of brothers R.C. and W.A. Stewart can still be seen today throughout New Orleans' French Quarter, adorning storefronts in London and Paris and in New York, where Stewart's iron-slatted park bench remains that city's standard model. And in the days when jail cellblocks were mostly steel, the brothers' factory at 17th and Madison also produced jail cells for Alcatraz, Sing Sing and Riker's Island.

Established in 1886, Stewart Iron Works employed 3,000 employees during its early 20th century heyday, and the factory encompassed nearly nine acres of floor space. Today, the full-time payroll has dwindled to 22 workers, and the factory is less than an eighth the size of what it once was.

But its president, Mark Rottinghaus, said the company stays busy building elaborate iron fencing for large estates in places like California, Florida, Montana, the Bahamas and Morrow, Ohio. Gross sales were about $2 million last year, he said.

The hallways in the Stewart Iron Works offices are lined with advertisements and photographs of the company's early work -- including the fencing at Procter & Gamble's Ivorydale plant and old Comiskey Park, home of the Chicago White Sox. In those days, the company advertised its location as Cincinnati.

"As the company became international, Cincinnati was more impressive, I think -- it was the Gateway to the West," Rottinghaus said.

"We've always been in Covington, though. And we don't claim to be in Cincinnati any more."

Back