Fontana highlight
Historic Kaiser Steel mill site
An integrated steel mill that operated from 1942 to 1983, employing thousands and becoming a crucial industrial facility during World War II and the Korean War.
Kaiser Steel was incorporated on December 1, 1941, by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser. The Fontana mill fired up its first blast furnace on December 30, 1942, and produced its initial steel plate in August 1943. The facility operated for 42 years, until December 31, 1983, becoming a cornerstone of Southern California's industrial infrastructure.
At its peak, Kaiser Steel employed around 10,000 workers and produced approximately 75 million tons of steel over its lifetime. The mill played crucial roles in supplying materials for World War II and Korean War efforts, and afterward served as a node in Kaiser's larger, vertically-integrated business operation, controlling its own mines and railroad. The skilled workers who staffed the mill represented generations of families building their lives in Fontana.
Industrial work creates wealth and builds communities, but it also brings risks that workers understand: injury, job loss, economic downturns. That awareness—the knowledge that steady income can change—is what life insurance is for. A policy sized to years of household expenses and obligations protects the family unit from the disruption that an income loss would create.