some mines in the Eastern Cape Breton but mostly concentrated on the mainland part of Nova Scotia. In 1858, the GMA's monopoly was broken and many American-financed mining companies were developed in the area, particularly in Glace Bay, New Waterford, Sydney Mines and surrounding areas. SCOTIA and DOMCO In the 1890s, two large conglomerates were formed; the Dominion Coal Company (DOMCO) merged all the mines on the south side of Sydney Harbour and built the Sydney & Louisburg Railway with its headquarters in Glace Bay, to transport coal from the mines to the ports at Sydney and Louisbourg. At its high point, the Dominion Coal Company operated eleven mines in the town of Glace Bay which were responsible for forty percent of Canada's coal production. The GMA was transformed into Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company (SCOTIA) and developed mines on the north side of Sydney Harbour. In 1899, DOMCO financed the construction of a large integrated steel mill in Sydney's Whitney Pier neighbourhood, which was named Dominion Iron and Steel Company (DISCO); the DISCO mill smelted iron ore mined in Bell Island, Newfoundland. SCOTIA also built a steel mill in Sydney Mines. The booming economy in the Industrial area experienced immigration from Newfoundland and Eastern Europe to fuel the labour demand. BESCO In 1914 the SCOTIA steel mill was closed and in 1920 both DOMCO/DISCO and SCOTIA were merged into a new company named British Empire Steel and Coal Company (BESCO). The copyright of this section might be in question and is likely from UMWA material. DOSCO BESCO was reorganized in 1930 as Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (DOSCO). At one point, DOSCO was the largest private employer (in terms of the number of employees) in the nation. While employment in coal and steel peaked in 1913 in the industrial Cape Breton area, production increased until the early 1940s as a result of mechanization and increased consumption during World War II. Following the war, coal production went into a decline as newer and cheaper open-pit mines were opened in western North America, railways switched to diesel fuel for locomotives, and nuclear energy and hydroelectricity gained increased acceptance. In the mid-1960s, DOSCO fell into financial difficulty as coal and steel usage continued to decline. DOSCO announced that its mines had 15 years of production left and that its steel mill was uneconomic to operate without significant modernization. In 1965–1966, a